The following is excerpted from Nancy R. Hiller’s “Making Things Work: Tales from A Cabinetmaker’s Life.” Hiller’s funny and occasionally delightfully crass stories tell of her years as a professional cabinetmaker who relished both the highs and the lows of the job. “How much time do you spend in the shop, and how much in…
Read moreThis is an excerpt from “With all the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture.” It is a follow-up to the post from a couple weeks ago that described a “machine for making waves.” Below is a portion of an essay by Jonathan Thornton that was written after he made one of these machines based off of…
Read moreThe following is an excerpt from “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture.” This book is the result of more than a decade of work by an international team that produced the first English translation of the 18th-century woodworking masterpiece: “l’art du Menuisier” by André-Jacob Roubo. This translation covers Roubo’s writing on woodworking tools, the…
Read moreAs the Industrial Revolution mechanized the jobs of the joiner – building doors and windows by hand – one anonymous joiner watched the traditional skills disappear and decided to do something about it. That joiner wrote two short illustrated booklets that explained how to build doors and windows by hand. And what was most unusual about…
Read moreThe following is an excerpt from “Calvin Cobb: Radio Woodworker! A Novel With Measured Drawings” by Roy Underhill. Across the studio, behind a grove of microphones on stands, the piano sat silent under a quilted cover like a sleeping racehorse. Calvin leaned forward in his chair staring at it, trying to strike an intense, artistic…
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