Woodwright's Shop - Season 28 posted online

Good news for those of us whose public television stations refuse to carry Roy Underhill's show. The new year brought season 28 to the internet, and you can now view the episodes at the Woodwright's Shop Web page.

I'm especially looking forward to watching the one about Don Weber's recreation of a Viking Tool Chest.

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UPDATE on 02/01/2009:

It has come to my attention that the direct link I've provided actually resolves to the Home page of The Woodwright's Shop. Here's how you can find the online versions I've been watching:

1. Click the link to view the episodes at the Woodwright's Shop Web page.
2. Click Schedule on the left of the page.
3. Click Watch Video on the left of the page.
4. Choose one of the three seasons available for online viewing.
5. Choose the episode you want to watch.

Roman Tools for Building Catapults

Watching the crew build the full-sized replica of a Roman catapult (in the video embedded in my last post) I was struck by a number of things the Romans did not have when they created these monstrous machines: they did not have fork lifts, chainsaws, power drills, circular saws, cranes, and other powered machinery. But even in those ancient times they had almost all of the hand-powered hand tools that modern woodworker has, and most of these we would recognize.

According to Roman Woodworking, the book I mentioned in a prior post, a woodworker in those times would have had a full compliment of tools for building in wood. I was surprised to see how many of these tools looked essentially identical to those we use today. Here's a quick list I compiled from the book:

• Workbench
• Adze
• Auger
• Chisel (both paring and mortising)
• Gouge
• Drill
• Knife
• Draw knife
  
• Spokeshave
• Lathe
• Plane
• Saw
• Wedge
• Hammer
• Mallet
• Calipers
• Dividers
• Compass
• Plumb Line
• Level
• Ruler
• Square
• Bench dog
• Clamp

In all, a fairly complete list of hand tools for building in wood. As for moving the massive timbers around and assembling the machine, they would have had to do this all the hard way—with levers, wedges, mallets, hammers, pulleys, and raw muscle. Wow.

Building a Roman Catapult

Now this is a woodworking project. Building a full-sized Roman catapult replica is so cool on so many levels.

Inspired by Roman Woodworking

I've been reading a book called Roman Woodworking by Roger B. Ulrich, and I find it fascinating that so many of the forms we're used to are really thousands of years old. Handsaws, rules, plans, axes, adzes, chisels, hammers: all were similar in Roman times to what we use now.

I've spent a bit of time looking at and puzzling over the section on joinery. The Roman joints also mirror our modern joints, including butt joins, mortise and tenon, dovetail, and half lap. The author shows illustrations of them in use, and most of these are on the scale of buildings rather than furniture.

Since I've been working on outdoor wooden structures at my house, one joint caught my eye: a way of using wooden posts to cap the end grain of a fence or retaining wall. It looks like this:


The rebates in each post form a convenient cap for the end grain of the slats. While this is great for fences and composting boxes, I immediately thought of how it would be used in a porch:

Looks pretty good, and solves at least one problem of exterior wood exposure. Here's another view:

Notice that the rebates are cut unevenly. I believe this was in order to avoid having the end section snap off, as it might do if the rebates were closer together and in a position to intersect with one of the same growth rings.

Because they are unevenly cut, I found it is important to have the same sized rebate on each side of the structure. Notice how the posts above are mirror images to allow the same width of post to show. It would look rather odd otherwise.

An Old Building Gets a New Face - Part 2

In December I noted the progress on a local historic remodel. At that time the siding was partially applied to the tower, and I said:

...much of the siding we see in this picture looks poorly applied because the visible corners aren't flush. But don't worry. When they finish the skin, the corners will be flush-cut and end caps will be installed and perfectly fitted (I hope). The slop we see in the corners will be gone, hidden by the finishing details.

On Thursday I remembered the camera and took a picture that proved the rule. All that "slop" I noted has indeed been covered by a corner end cap. I especially like the cornice details at each corner: these visually become a capital and transform the end cap into a column. The show is on.

Thoughts on Dovetails

Since I've been making dovetails, I've thought a lot about why they are made the way they are. The first time I tried a dovetail, I automatically laid out the joint with half tails at the top and bottom. I soon learned that this was not recommended.

Tage Frid, in the first book of his excellent series Tage Frid Teaches Wooodworking stressed that dovetails should start and end with half pins and not half tails. I believe that the reason for pinning top and bottom is to provide a mechanical restriction should either board try to cup away from the joint.

Using half pins at top and bottom theoretically fixes the pinboard and tail board from cupping. The half tail offers no such restriction. Because the angle of the tail runs with the grain rather than across it. there is nothing preventing the edges of either the pinboard or tailboard from cupping away from the joint. The first such restriction will be the first pin. So the rule of starting and ending with half pins is a good one because it improves the chances of the joint staying tight.

Today I discovered that this good-sense rule was not always practiced in the past.
If you look at the section on Antique Dovetails in this Popular Woodworking blog entry, you'll see that only one of these follows Tage Frid's admonition. Instead, most started with a half pin at the top, and ended with a half tail at the bottom. As evidenced by the half pins at the top, these craftsman obviously knew that half pins offered an advantage. But why didn't they pin the bottom? At first I guessed that they wanted the top to stay absolutely flush with the drawer because the user was most likely to notice gaps there. But if they were willing to pin the top, was it so much more work to create a half pin at the bottom?


On further thought, I suspect there was some planned advantage to this layout: there must be a reason why leaving out the bottom half pin was faster and easier. I suspect that reason is the groove holding in the bottom of the drawer. I obviously can't see the interior of any of the drawers Glenn Huey showed us, but I suspect that both the sides and front have a channel for the bottom that runs right through area of the half tail. Laying out with a half tail at the bottom allows the maker to work without fear of accidentally exposing these channels with a misplaced saw cut or chisel (something that can easily happen with a half pin). This advantage probably justifies a gamble on the stability of bottom end of drawer.

An Old Building Gets a New Face

I've been watching work on an old building that was donated to the Holliston Historical Society. The building isn't anything fancy, but it has a tower. Not long ago the carpenters started tearing the original skin off of it, and I wanted to get a shot of the frame, but as you can see I forgot the camera for a few days too long.

Watching this wooden building be refurbished reminds me that carpentry (and furniture making) is a curious mix of macro and micro details. For example: much of the siding we see in this picture looks poorly applied because the visible corners aren't flush. But don't worry. When they finish the skin, the corners will be flush-cut and end caps will be installed and perfectly fitted (I hope). The slop we see in the corners will be gone, hidden by the finishing details.

This same principle is used in furniture: especially in factory-made and older pieces of furniture, only the parts that are seen are finished to perfection. The insides of beautiful period furniture may still have rough wood or tool marks on the bottom of the desktop or back of the drawer. It doesn't matter, because that is only the functional part of the work.

The show is what we see. Backstage the work can be much rougher.

"The Woodwright's Shop" On Demand

Roy Underhill, one of the heros of the early woodworking world, has produced 26 seasons of the PBS program The Woodwright's Shop. If you haven't seen this show, it is amazing even for those who might never use a hand tool.

Until recently, if you were in a market like Greater Boston, where the PBS affiliate doesn't carry "St. Roy", there was little option for watching the show: even purchase of episodes was impossible, since the VHS versions were out of print and DVDs have not been produced for sale.

Today I found that season 26 has been published on the Web. Now even in towns that don't love Roy we can all enjoy the show. Any time. At no cost.

So pull up a computer monitor and enjoy The Woodwright's Shop - Season 26.

Photo courtesy of PBS