George Sturt’s The Wheelwright’s Shop is one of the most important (and most beautiful) books written in the time of transition from a pre-industrial economy to one of modern mechanization and methods in the late 19th century. Sturt was a wheelwright who owned a shop in Farnham, U.K., and was also a vivid and thoughtful writer. He describes his trade and village in detail, from interactions with neighbors and workmen to the proper felling of trees and use of tools. Throughout the book, Sturt maintains an ideological connection to the simple ways of the past even as he sees the writing on the wall for the new advent of machine manufacture, leaving the local craftsman behind. We’re pleased to announce...
Mortise & Tenon Magazine · 32 – Things We Argue About
In this episode, Joshua and Mike respond to a thoughtful listener’s comments, which inspired a podcast as well as scored a free T-shirt. They discuss elements of craft where they might not see eye-to-eye, but commend the value of being a stubborn woodworker. Looking at what makes a “movement” and why these reactionary efforts often come to nothing, they talk about what might be a better way forward.
SHOW NOTES:
Mortise & Tenon Issue Eleven
Pehr Hilleström – "A Carpenter" painting
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Biosphere 2
The Good Life by Scott & Helen Nearing
Tools For Conviviality by Ivan Illich
Roman workbenches belong to a class of furniture that historian Victor Chinnery called “staked” or “with stake feet.” Essentially it is a platform of thick wood with legs driven into the plank, like tent stakes. The staked feet make construction a cinch (bore holes, drive in the legs and wedge them). But what is more interesting to a workbench nerd such as myself is the benchtop itself. First off, it’s low. The benchtop is right below your kneecap. There are no vises, but there is a series of holes bored into it. The pattern of holes seems random at first, but after working with these benches for several months the holes began to make sense. Some of the holes restrained...
It’s hard to convey how small-scale our operation is. For years, Mike Updegraff and I did literally everything in one small shop space. We’ve since built a 24' x 26' wood shop/office and hired Mike and Grace Cox to handle administrative and shipping responsibilities. The two of them do their work together from their house while Mike Updegraff and I work in the shop each day. Especially in times like these, we’re grateful to keep things small. This morning, the four of us had our monthly team meeting to go over current and upcoming happenings. Grace brought us her delicious pumpkin bread to indulge in as we discussed the soon-to-start inaugural term of our 8-week Apprenticeship program, the progress on...
We just put up another video in our "Setting Up Shop" series. Joshua and I have been trading off working through the different elements of a hand-tool woodshop, and today I discuss the smoothing plane. This tool is a bit fussier to set up than the coarser fore plane, and works best honed razor-sharp with the cap iron set very close to the cutting edge. I talk about some of the nuances of proper setup, and make some of those wispy shavings that everyone loves.
-Mike
From August through May, I spend a total of about 135 hours in the classroom with each of my five classes, a number that causes some non-teacher friends and acquaintances to cringe. “How do you lesson plan for all that time?” One friend from college asked me one time when we were catching up over coffee. “And how do you keep teenagers occupied that whole time?” It’s telling, I think, that we use the same verb to refer to educating kids that military commanders use when they talk about violently annexing enemy territory. The word “occupy” has an interesting spectrum of meanings, though. We get “occupation” from it, of course, in the sense of what one does to earn...
Joshua and I had a blast building the dovetailed pine boxes to house our Issue 1-10 commemorative Boxed Sets. Cutting the joinery, planing, gluing up, and branding dozens and dozens of these was a tremendously fun learning experience. I don’t think there is a better way to improve woodworking skills than to practice these kinds of operations over and over again. In fact, so convinced was he of this truth that Joshua decided to write about the benefits of batch production for Issue Eleven. We made a few extra boxes for the last batch, and also had a handful of people drop off the waiting list as the project continued. So we’ve put the remaining few Boxed Sets up for sale in...
If you’re a subscriber to Fine Woodworking, you might notice a familiar name on the very last page of the October 2021 issue. Joshua was honored to pen a short reflection that was published in their “From the Bench” column, about why he uses hand tools. He managed to reference both Sōetsu Yanagi and Albert Borgmann, quite the feat for a brief article. But our friend Barry Dima from Fine Woodworking is visiting today, doing the photography for a full-length article Joshua wrote for a future issue. Not to give anything away about the subject matter, but it may involve historic furniture making, wide pine, and a coarsely set fore plane. Keep your eyes peeled for it. Our relationship with...
It is always an exciting moment to finalize and release the new issue’s cover design. Though we never premeditate any theme, we always look for naturally occurring threads running throughout the articles. The cover often reflects some of the content in the issue, though it is not even close to regurgitated material. Unlike all the rest of our seat-of-the-pants, natural-light photography, we take great pains with the cover shots. We bounce around ideas and fuss over minutia to get it right. Believe me, I know how dumb that sounds. But what we’ve learned over the years doing this is that hands and the work they do can communicate more than most people can put into words. Take the cover of...
This post is part of a blog series revealing the table of contents of upcoming Issue Eleven. As is our custom, we’ll be discussing one article per weekday in order to give you a taste of what is come. The subscription window which includes Issue Eleven is open now. To get Issue Eleven when it ships early October, you can sign up for a subscription here. If you aren’t sure about your subscription status, you can reach out to Grace at info@mortiseandtenonmag.com. Keep in mind though, if you are set to auto-renew, you never have to worry about getting the next issue of Mortise & Tenon. Issue Eleven is coming your way soon! ___________________________________ Dr. Mike Epworth – “The Drawknife & the Butterfly Effect” When a...
