Replies

1. 
   Lataxe | Aug 02, 2009 12:59pm | #1

   Wreck,

   These just about squodge into your parameters.  Anyway, it is now time to eschew the fusty ole frou-frou forms and move up to more helegant and functional stuff.  Would you still ride about on a Hobby-Horse or Ordinary?  No, you would at least have Reynolds or Columbus under thee arse.

   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Arts-Crafts-Furniture-Kevin-Rodel/dp/1561583596/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249206656&sr=1-10

   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Arts-Crafts-Furniture-John-Andrews/dp/1851494839/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249206712&sr=1-4

   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Greene-Masterworks-Bruce-Smith/dp/0811818780/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249206793&sr=1-1

   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Greene-Marvin-Rand/dp/1586854453/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249206793&sr=1-9

   Lataxe, never keen on geet wigs with ships in them.

1. 
   roc | Aug 04, 2009 10:11pm | #10

   Hey all ,Thanks for your recommendations ! I may be ordering more than one.rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )

2. 
   9619 | Aug 02, 2009 03:22pm | #2

   Roc,
   Your post is proof positive that "time travel" existed hundred of years ago. I looked at the photos of Townsend's furniture. I have always been blown over by his furniture, and by Goddard's, etc.

   However, knowing what I have learned here on Knots about the necessity of having the "best tools", I have been convinced that Goddard and Townsend did not make their furniture back in the time they lived. As we have learned from Lataxe, you can't do good planing without a $2000 plane. Indeed, one could do even better planing with a $10,000 Holtey.

   So I have concluded that Townsend and Goddard had time travel machines, which enabled them to come to the current century, use the tools we have now, including "Sketch UP", make their furniture, and then use the time machine to transport it back to their time.

   Their is no other explanation on how they could have done so well.

   But something confounds me. If we have such wonderful tools now, compared to what Goddard and Townsend had, why isn't current furniture markedly more beautiful than what they made?

   Actually, I think I have the answer. G and T didn't focus on tools. They focussed on "design". They knew that design is step in which the concept for beauty is formulated. Then they used the tools they had to bring the concept to reality. The tiny differences that they worried about were between two different drawings for a shell, not between a Lie Nielsen plane and a Lee Valley plane.

   When I see the DVD of Maloof talking about his furniture, I saw the same thing - man concerned with design, not at all with tools. When I spent a few days with David Savage, I could easily see, the man man focusses on design. Tools are not secondary, they are beyond tertiary as far as the creation of a masterpiece.

   Everyone obsesses over something. I would guess that T and G spent a lot of time at the drawing board, not discussing secondary and tertiary bevels.

   Who knows? I may be wrong. (It has happened.) But I think that to be a great opera singer, one must be able to sing on key, and one must have an idea of what great singing sounds like, and one must practice, practice, practice. The analogy to great woodwork is easy to make. I just don't have the eye for design that Goddard and Townsend did. Besides, I didn't practice enough. In my early woodworking days, I kept making things, not designing things. I wish I would have spent much more time learning and practicing the art of design in my early years. Instead I focussed on "making" which has enabled me to improve my skills as a craftsman. I would have liked to become a "designer-craftsman".

   At 66, is there still time?

   I am hoping there is.

   Have fun. Keep studying design. Hang around with Ray, Rob and Richard. Change your name to something that begins with R. :-)

   Remember:

   To err is human.
   To anticipate is design.

   Mel

   Measure your output in smiles per board foot. 

1. 
   roc | Aug 03, 2009 12:09am | #4

   Mel,So what are you saying ? What I think you are saying is . . . STOP !THIS JUST IN :Queenmasteroftheuniverseandbabybunnytrainer just said the most important thing to a wood worker in any era is a wife who is willing to do everything in reality land so the "woodworker" can sit on the couch and type. Errrr. . . harumph . . . I mean . . . that is to say . . . go to the shop and make stuff.I don't think she fully appreciates the significance of the Marcous and Holteys. Humpf ! Women ! Where were we ?Good point about the modern design or lack of. We have only had the Marcous and Holteys for only a razor scratch on the time line of wood working so I imagine the reverberations of impending inspirations they have generated are about to kick in any day now. Give or take a decade. You are so impatient !Queenmasteroftheuniverseandbabybunnytrainer just said she going out for a beer.You know . . . I have file drawers full of ideas ( DESIGNS ) for projects and variations on designs that I have torn out of magazines; metal work as well.I have spent my early years compiling said treasure trove. So following on your train of thought I am a veritable fount of brilliance just waiting to erupt onto the desert of the modern wood working seen.Gosh I do hope you are right ! I always knew i was " special ". I know it is true because my Mom told me and the nice doctor told her I should be put in the special ed classes at school.So my fortune and fame are practically assured and I have hardly produced any of those projects yet. Fascinating. Mel you have certainly made my day ! I am going to sit right here and wait for it all to unfold. I hope it doesn't take long.rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )

   Edited 8/2/2009 5:29 pm by roc

2. 
   noviceneil | Aug 05, 2009 04:02pm | #11

   Mornin' Mel,

   I usually refrain from these pointless arguments about high end tools but I have to say that I don't remember Lataxe or Derek or Mapleman or Philip or anyone else EVER saying that they needed really expensive tools to do good or great woodworking. They, we, all have an appreciation for finely made, beautiful tools without a thought that they are going to make us better woodworkers. These expensive tools are just like expensive cars, motorcycles, bikes, clothes, wine, Scotch, beer, shoes, art, etc. They are a pleasure to use and experience. They are an investment in enjoyment...some would spend $2000 on a vacation to California or Hawaii, or a couple suits (that then go out of style or get outgrown), or as part of a down payment on a car that depreciates far more than that as soon as you drive it off the lot...examples abound of the foolish ways we all waste money..why pick on the guys and gals who see these expensive tools as desirable? No one is insisting that everyone needs or should buy them.

   Frankly I think you are too intelligent to get mired down in all this crap about tools. You obviously have talent and experience you can contribute positively on Knots. Let the dogs stay asleep.

   Have fun, have fun!

   Neil 

1. 
   9619 | Aug 05, 2009 04:41pm | #12

   Neil,
   Did you think I was serious?I don't write on Knots to make points, just to have some gentle fun. Actually, I rarely ask serious questions on Knots any more. Usually I write a private message to someone who knows what they are doing, and get a single answer which is spot on. Have fun.
   Mel
   Measure your output in smiles per board foot. 

1. 
   noviceneil | Aug 05, 2009 05:02pm | #13

   Well, yes, I thought you were serious and it was early in the morning on a day usually reserved for shoptime but instead I had to work since my partner is on vacation and little kids don't like to wait a day to figure out why they are febrile or gaseous or whatever so I wasn't in the best of moods when I read your post and took it all too seriously but now I'm relieved to learn that your tongue was firmly in your cheek and soon I'll be doing a four mile run and then can return to my shop for a half day of woodworking providing my lovely wife does not find some other more pressing tasks that will float to the top of the must do now list......my, that was the kind of run on sentence that would have driven my English teacher nuts...

   Neil

1. 
   WillGeorge | Aug 07, 2009 06:51pm | #21

   my, that was the kind of run on sentence that would have driven my English teacher nuts...

   I had a English Professor that was OK with them as long as they made sense 'in the context' of what was said. But, he would knock off a few points and include some example of how to do it for a better grade. In fact, I think he enjoyed correcting sentences like that...

   As with my long sentences, I never learned how to use... The/ A/ An properly..

   And my frequent use of the comma.  LOL.. Somehow I still passed. 

   At the beginning of the previous sentence I started with the word And. My old professor would knock off many grade points for doing that! I say, why not start with And?! All languages are abstract concepts of thought and arbitrary anyway. As in your long sentence. I understood what you wrote. All that counts my brain tells me.

   http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/540/01/ 

   I went over this again and still lost in certain cases.

   Edited 8/7/2009 11:53 am by WillGeorge

2. 
   RMillard | Aug 07, 2009 07:18pm | #22

   WillGeorge,

    

   I like the link. I'm continually  looking for information to help my writing. Now, if you know of a link for understanding the use of an apostrophe, let me know; I can't get it through my thick head how to use them.

   Rob Millardhttp://www.americanfederalperiod.com

3. 
   WillGeorge | Aug 08, 2009 04:14pm | #30

   I use a/and/the apostrophe to separate my thoughts.. As with my use of  ...

   http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/621/01/

   I just like these links. I think/know the writer knows his/her stuff!

   I passed my English major but I did learn one thing from writing service manuals for machinery.. Nobody reads them anyway! So what does proper grammar mean anyway?

   Maybe if you talk/write to somebody that graduated from Oxford but you 'leard' nothing about Midwestern USA English..

   I for one just love Cagin English! And Brits English, Scotland.. I just love how they speaks as I do with folks from Canada and Iceland (must be very hard for them).

   And I was in Texas fer a few years.. Hard to break that accent!

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpFDNTo4DNg&NR=1

   USA here.. We have NO idea what REAL English is.. I for one do not think there is such a thing.. Someplace I read in a book that English was a 'traders language'. As in many forks that spoke other languages and came as a group to buy sell thing and just HAD to communicate somehow to sell/buy things...

   AND DOGS seem to learn any language!

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwRbZpMSKR0&feature=related

   And why children need pets..

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycmneu6BDWA&feature=related

    

    

   Edited 8/8/2009 9:47 am by WillGeorge

4. 
   noviceneil | Aug 07, 2009 08:15pm | #23

   WillGeorge,

   Thanks for the link, it was fun to review ...early in my college career I thought about writing as a career but then got married and procreated and decided that choice was too unpredictable for supporting a family and so wandered around academia for four years exploring topics of interest without finding a suitable direction finally settling on medicine which required me to take an extra year to get the requisite courses under my belt...never regretted that circuitous route as I got a rather broad education along the way...as well as occupying a few administration buildings and smoking....well, never mind...

   Neil

2. 
   noviceneil | Aug 05, 2009 05:28pm | #15

   By the way Mel,

   Sam Maloof was an avid fan and customer of Bridge City Toolworks..when John Economaki showed him a new plane, Sam remarked, " $800 is alot to pay for a plane" to which John responded"35,000 is alot for a rocking chair"

   Neil

   and Sam bought the plane

   Edited 8/5/2009 10:30 am ET by noviceneil

1. 
   9619 | Aug 05, 2009 05:52pm | #17

   Neil,
   I didn't know Sam, obviously. But from what I have read and seen, he focussed on "making furniture". Tools have a big place in this, but they are not to be obsessed over, IMHO. Sam focussed on having a successful business. That is easy to forget. He made things that people would buy from him. He made things that people would like and find comfortable and useful. He found ways to make them more efficiently. He used tools very intelligently. Of course, he also did a bit of plane making himself, but the focus there was on useability and practicality. Sam was a good businessman. If he made bicycles, the results would have been the same. He'd have turned out high priced bicycles that were comfortable and practacle as well as beautiful.
   MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot. 

2. 
   noviceneil | Aug 05, 2009 06:22pm | #18

   Mel,

   I got that but the point I was making is that he had an appreciation for well made tools and bought them..doubt that they had any effect on his woodworking but may have increased his enjoyment.

   Neil

3. 
   RMillard | Aug 05, 2009 05:08pm | #14

   Mel,

   I have not put it the way you did, but it is very similar to what I think (not so much about the cost of the tools, but how many time savers and better working conditions we have). I often wonder just how some of the furniture was made in the conditions under which they worked. The other day, I inlayed the edge of a somewhat complex shaped table. It took me longer to find the router bit and chuck it in the router than it did to make the rabbet. In c.1810 that would have taken considerably longer and would have required far more skill. Woodworkers today think we are pretty smart, but the truth is, those guys were brilliant and we could learn a lot from them.  If only time travel were possible.

   Rob Millardhttp://www.americanfederalperiod.com

    

1. 
   9619 | Aug 05, 2009 05:46pm | #16

   Rob,
   I am glad you enjoyed my little writeup about time travel, which was actually about the skills of the great woodworkers of past centuries.
   It was also about the great woodworkers of today. Have fun.
   Mel
   Measure your output in smiles per board foot. 

3. 
   boilerbay | Aug 02, 2009 04:13pm | #3

   Roc,

   I don't think you could go to far wrong on any coffee table book from Winterthur, but as to Federal, you might ask Rob Millard if he thinks that would be a good representative range of the period.

   http://www.americanfederalperiod.com/

   Boiler

4. 
   DonStephan | Aug 03, 2009 03:38am | #5

   The Wallace Nutting furniture treasuries have skads of pictures.

5. 
   RMillard | Aug 03, 2009 04:32am | #6

   Roc,

   I have all three of the books; the Greene book is the best. It is one of my favorites and was a book I read the print off of when I first became interested in period furniture.

   The Montgomery book is also high on my list, but it has even less detail than the book on Townsend furniture.

   My favorite book is the Mussey book on Seymour furniture; not only because of the subject but also for its many detail photos. Sadly it is out of print

   There are often excellent detail photos in the Magazine Antiques.

   Rob Millard 

1. 
   KiddervilleAcres | Aug 03, 2009 04:39am | #7

   Rob,

   Just curious but is this the book?

   http://www.cambiumbooks.com/books/american_furniture/0-88389-126-3/

   Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres

   A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!

1. 
   RMillard | Aug 03, 2009 04:56am | #8

   Bob,

   That sure is it.

   I had no idea it was still in print. I have seen copies listed in the $200-300 range.

   Rob Millard

    

6. 
   WillGeorge | Aug 03, 2009 06:34am | #9

   Could I suggest?

   http://www.amazon.com/American-Furniture-Related-Decorative-1660-1830/dp/155595068X

   I think about 100 photos and just a few in color.. Never bothered me...

   Maybe you can ask your local library for the book? I do at times. Not often and a limited time to view it but I would suppose the libraries exchange books for those that ask for them? I have been charged shipping cost on a few special books.

   Shipping can cost .. But well worth it for what you want..

   
   

   ---

   Edited 8/2/2009 11:43 pm by WillGeorge

7. 
   joinerswork | Aug 07, 2009 03:57pm | #19

   roc,

   If you can find Michael Flanagan's American Furniture from the Kaufman Collection, it is the prettiest assemblage of furniture pictures I have seen. Few details or interior views, however.

   The book of Southern Furniture put out by Colonial Williamsburg has lots of good pictures too, with some detail pics and comparisons with similar pieces in other collections, or by the same maker.

   Kirk's American Chairs has some good detail photos, and compares/contrasts regional characteristics.

   Less pretty, but more technical, are:

   Fake, Fraud, or Genuine? by Myrna Kaye, and Old Furniture, Understanding the Craftsman's Art, by Nancy Smith --lots of detailed pics,of screws, hinges, joints, etc, but not too many examining the pieces as a whole.

   Ray

8. 
   KiddervilleAcres | Aug 07, 2009 04:32pm | #20

   roc,

   Another good source is Google Books.  You can search using keywords like period furniture details, etc.  You can get a preview of many books, kind of a look B4 you buy thang.

   Regards,

   Bob @ Kidderville Acres

   A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!

9. 
   SteveSchoene | Aug 07, 2009 08:52pm | #24

   If you like Goddard & Townsend, then THE book to look at is Michael Moses Master Craftsmen of Newport, The Townsends and Goddards. 1984.  Not in print, I suggest interlibrary loan.  You might find a copy to buy, but be sure there will be 4 digits before the decimal point, with the first likely not a "1". 

   The thing that makes this special for woodworkers is that it is filled with construction details, including photos of internal construction, closeups of carvings.   

1. 
   RMillard | Aug 07, 2009 09:10pm | #25

   Steve,

   I sold my copy years ago for $800.00 ( It was the first thing I bought on Ebay with the then new "buy it now" feature for $150.00).  Sometimes I wish I had held on to it, but I expected it to be re-printed since there is obviously a demand for it.

   While it can't compare to the Moses book, the May 1982 issue of The Magazine Antiques has some excellent detail photos of Goddard/Townsend card tables and  Townsend block front chests.

   Rob Millard

1. 
   KiddervilleAcres | Aug 08, 2009 04:35am | #26

   Rob,

   Try this for apostrophe.

   Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres

   A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!

2. 
   KiddervilleAcres | Aug 08, 2009 04:47am | #27

   Steve,

   Not sure if you've seen this WEBsite but it has a library search capability to find libraries that have certain books

   http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/11763371.  Enter your zip code and it will find the closest one.

   Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres

   A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!

3. 
   roc | Aug 08, 2009 08:42am | #29

   >Michael Moses Master Craftsmen of Newport, The Townsends and Goddards. 1984. Not in print, . . . copy to buy, . . . there will be 4 digits before the decimal point, with the first likely not a "1". <Man that sounds like the ticket !Sounds like the good dvds of Sinatra on stage. Not cheep.Thank YouAnd thanks to all once again for info.I am taking notes for when I stock " the woodworking wing " of my personal library.: )rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )

   Edited 8/8/2009 1:46 am by roc

10. 
    KiddervilleAcres | Aug 08, 2009 04:54am | #28

    roc,

    Check out The Practical Book of Period Furniture by Harold Donaldson Eberlein & Abbot McClure.

    Regards,

    Bob @ Kidderville Acres

    A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!

    
    

    ---

    Edited 8/7/2009 10:46 pm ET by KiddervilleAcres