Blog — Peter Follansbee RSS

  If you haven’t yet seen Peter Follansbee’s latest post about the wrap-up class for the five month long joined chest build, you should check it out here. It’s full of inspiring and beautiful work from all his students. His anecdotes and casual writing tone are simply wonderful – it’s exactly what we worked so hard to preserve in the editing of Issue Two. His article titled “Everybody Who Knows Why is Dead” has generated a great response from readers. People loved hearing the veteran craftsman/scholar reflect on the years of unfounded scholarly opinions. It was a favorite in Issue Two. I’m not sure if you’ve recognized this but Peter’s work and teaching is courageous in this day and age....

 There aren’t many woodworkers that have spent more time examining period furniture than Peter Follansbee. His regular interaction with scholars over 17th century joiner’s work has proved to be a real asset to his critical thinking about recreating period work. Early in his career, Peter spent a lot of time (like we all do) endlessly pondering why every little thing was done a certain way. “Why three legs here and not there?” “Why no mitered mortise and tenons?” “What’s the mysterious backstory to the saw nib?” It seems every opportunity to examine work done hundreds of years ago provides ample opportunity to speculate on these inexplicable characteristics. No more. Peter has written for Issue Two about his take on...