Secondary surfaces in 18th century work

[matteo furbacchione]

As far as Kenov, he was a premier woodworker and produced wonderful work. He did however make a living with teaching along with his other work. Many other woodworkers are doing the same today.
Jim

I've been in this game for 35 years and have always said show me a successful furniture maker and I'll show you a well paid supportive spouse. One of the most satisfying jobs you can do that is also the worst paying...

[bridger berdel]

Kees, finishing with handplanes and using handtools for edges, mouldings etc, will provide that look, regardless of how the stock was prepared. I am not so sure that it is a guarantee of "charm", however. Charm will come from good design. Still, I know what you are saying. It is the little irregularities that come from hand work versus the possible sterility of a machined, perfect surface. But, again, good work aims for perfection - we just do not expect to find it.

Regards from Perth

Derek

I made a fireplace mantle recently. The client wanted a rough hewn timber. I was unable to source such locally. Purchased a cull from a local lumberyard as it had been sitting around long enough to be well dried. Worked it over with a #40 scrub plane, cleaned up a bit with carving gouges. A little judicious wire brush and light sanding, finish applied, installed. Client loved it.

[Doug Dawson]

I don't think they made "crappier" furniture at all. If they had, the furniture wouldn't have lasted as long as it has.

Then why did they need so many repairs? It wasn't just a lack of understanding of wood movement, they knew about that back then as well.

Look at the X-rays of joinery in Peart's G&G book (Design Elements, not the Projects book.) The work of what appear to be abject beginners.

BTW, Chippendale died nearly penniless, because people had issues with paying him for his work. He had serious justification for cutting corners.

By comparison a 300 year old plane is quite primitive compared to what LV produces today. But a good craftsman can't blame his tools as is attested by those who came hundreds of years before us and what they were able to produce. I contend the modern minimalistic furnishings of today are partly driven by the lack of skilled craftsmen today. There are simply very few who can produce such works that Chippendale et al were producing on a regular basis. And if you look at the Ipad/phone weaned generation that's coming to adulthood the future for craftsmen looks very bleak.

The level of craftsmanship today, I contend, is quite extraordinary. Some of those craftsmen even participate in this forum. The problem is, once again, the matter of getting paid. That's a separate issue.

[Kees Heiden]

Hey Doug, you are certainly right. Some construction details of these old furniture pieces are appalling to modern standards. Tenons are often quite loose, dovetails with gaps and severe overcuts, crossgrain issues where for example drawer bottoms are glued in without any thought to the grain direction. It's a wonder any of these things survived.

Now the real miracle is, they survived in astonishing numbers! So, those "errors" fall clearly in the category of good enough. And that comes back to the topic of this thread: They put all their skill into the things you can see, and the rest they worked as quickly and cheaply as possible while still making it sturdy enough to survive a few centuries.

So, who is the better craftsman, the one who gets stuff out of the door with a profitable margin, or the one who has to live on his partners salary because he spends too much time on unimportant details? Not being a business type, I can't really answer that question.

[Doug Dawson]

Hey Doug, you are certainly right. Some construction details of these old furniture pieces are appalling to modern standards. Tenons are often quite loose, dovetails with gaps and severe overcuts, crossgrain issues where for example drawer bottoms are glued in without any thought to the grain direction. It's a wonder any of these things survived.

Now the real miracle is, they survived in astonishing numbers!

Did they? So why are they so rare and valuable that they are consigned to high-end auction houses, going for significant sums. I counter with their rarity (the examples that survived without significant repair.)

So, those "errors" fall clearly in the category of good enough. And that comes back to the topic of this thread: They put all their skill into the things you can see, and the rest they worked as quickly and cheaply as possible while still making it sturdy enough to survive a few centuries.

So, who is the better craftsman, the one who gets stuff out of the door with a profitable margin, or the one who has to live on his partners salary because he spends too much time on unimportant details? Not being a business type, I can't really answer that question.

I think you're mistaking craftsmanship with commercial viability. Wow, Ikea is great, it's unimportant that everything is made of veneered particle board, huh? Would a lot of it survive for a long time in the museum-like environment that we have in today's homes, cared for like heirlooms? Probably.

BTW, I would never try to undercut somebody who is producing as a commercial enterprise. I think it's immoral, it's a race to the bottom and it's just wrong. Fie on whoever would do that. That's how we got here in the first place. Again, two different issues.

[Kees Heiden]

Ikea doesn't survive centuries, I moved my daughter from one students house to the next a few times and everything had to be replaced. And yes there are tons of antique furniture preserved. You should visit France or England some day and rumage around a bit. Only the very rare and super high end stuff like the Chippendale stuff in this thread fetches rediculous high prices. Today much of the lesser furniture is out of vogue and the market has colapsed considerably compared to the 80's-90's. Remember, the 18th century is now 200 to 300 years ago. That's a very long time for wooden stuff.

The reason a lot of it didn't survive is due to changing fashion, not because it fell apart.

[Doug Dawson]

Ikea doesn't survive centuries, I moved my daughter from one students house to the next a few times and everything had to be replaced.

Did you treat it like a Chippendale heirloom? Probably not. We fulfill our own expectations.

Remember, the 18th century is now 200 to 300 years ago. That's a very long time for wooden stuff.

Yes of course. There are entire businesses devoted to repairing it, and they make good money.

The one area where older solid wood furniture carries an advantage, is if you are wealthy cat lady, the scratch damage is easier to repair and hide.

[matteo furbacchione]

Then why did they need so many repairs? It wasn't just a lack of understanding of wood movement, they knew about that back then as well.

Look at the X-rays of joinery in Peart's G&G book (Design Elements, not the Projects book.) The work of what appear to be abject beginners.

BTW, Chippendale died nearly penniless, because people had issues with paying him for his work. He had serious justification for cutting corners.



The level of craftsmanship today, I contend, is quite extraordinary. Some of those craftsmen even participate in this forum. The problem is, once again, the matter of getting paid. That's a separate issue.

300 year old furniture will always need repairs. Glue doesn't hold up, finishes break down, sun damage, dry rot, wood borers, 300 years of seasons, sitting on stone or tile floors for decades or hundreds of years, moving untold number of times, decades of blatant abuse... It all takes its toll.

If the joint holds up for a few hundred years I don't think I would call it abject beginner work. Seen lots that was branded quality last for a lot less time...

The more things change the more they stay the same. Business cycles destroyed businesses over night in the 1700s just as they do today - especially in the building industry. We're the first ones to suffer from a down turn and the last to profit when the economy ramps up. Clients are always trying to screw the tradesman - nothings changed there in probably 4000 years... I've had a few clients try to screw me - doesn't mean I try to cut corners though. I am blessed, I have a wife with a government job and a desire to let me do what makes me happy so I can afford to walk away from scumbag or overbearing clients. But even so when you're surrounded by stiff competition you have to decide on where to cut costs or go under. And ironically, the competition gets worse as the economy picks up.

I could be mistaken but I don't think Chippendale died penniless. I think Chippendale's company at it's height did all the designing and execution of the joinery, furniture, furnishings, interior decorating, and possibly even the drapery and ultimately wasn't able to adapt to rapidly changing ways of doing business and styles. I'm pretty certain his son(s) took over the business for a couple decades before it finally closed.

I can only speak on my experiences... I've had the pleasure of working in 4 countries on 3 continents and all I can say is skill is at an all time low and getting rapidly worse. It is really getting hard to find people that have even basic hand tool skills (or the desire to acquire them) let alone do competent work. I've found American furniture makers strive for the highest on the skill front, Canadian and England a close second and autralia desperately struggling to find tradesmen that have basic skills.

[Kees Heiden]

Chippendale senior didn't die pennieless, he sold his business to his son Chippendale jr. It was him who went bankrupt, but that didn't completely put him down. He continued to work as cabinetmaker and upholsterer.

Mortice and tenon joints and dovetails in solid wood are incredibly strong, even when executed a bit sloppy. Dowels and screws in particle board are inherently weak.

[Doug Dawson]

Chippendale senior didn't die pennieless, he sold his business to his son Chippendale jr. It was him who went bankrupt, but that didn't completely put him down.

Yes, the family business continued to struggle on for a few more years after his death, under insurmountable debts. (Bankruptcy was a really big deal back then.)

Mortice and tenon joints and dovetails in solid wood are incredibly strong, even when executed a bit sloppy. Dowels and screws in particle board are inherently weak.

Here we get into the engineering of joints, and we can disagree on how strong a botched classical joint is. A joint need only be as strong as required. People have the same arguments today, with even more heated disagreements about what is "good enough", in spite of the fact that we now have good ways to quantify joint strength. I'm not defending Ikea or anyone else who uses intelligently designed joinery suited to the task at hand. There's a lot of prejudice involved, and I don't care to be a part of that.

[Kees Heiden]

Ikea has some great stuff. Especially for young people with little money. It’s just not made for eternity.

[glenn bradley]

I have the luxury of only doing one or two large pieces a year. This allows me the time to do things the way I like them done. Even still you will find internal structural elements in pieces I make for my own home made from random scraps. The fact that the piece is for myself is not an excuse to be lazy, it is an excuse to make good use of materials I will not use for clients.

Pieces made for others use new material throughout and although I don't go for a finished look on things like dust panels, they do get sealed and touch sanded. I can't let a piece go to a client in good conscience if there is a split, squeeze out or a ragged edge somewhere, even inside. They are paying for better than that.

[Kees Heiden]

A quote from the famous pegs and tails blog, about cross grain mouldings in this instance, but very applicable to the current topic at large:

Furniture, like people, can be riddled with flaws, but if they possess good character, then one is inclined to overlook the shortcomings. In most cases, pre-industrial furniture is stacked with character and so; one is often blind to the small splits, warps, ill-fitting drawers etc.
Having said that, cabinetmakers of the late seventeenth-century and early eighteenth-century knew that their cross-grained mouldings shrank across the grain and curled up slightly. They limited the effect by making the show wood as thin as possible and backing it up, at 90°, with pine. That they continued making furniture with ‘faulty’ mouldings for a period of over seventy years is an indication of the consumers’ appreciation of the whole and their ability to disregard any perceived imperfections.

[Brian Holcombe]

For structural ingenuity in solid wood, it’s interesting to look at furniture of the Ming dynasty. The furniture is entirely solid wood and it was made to be taken apart and moved regularly. It’s detailed and cut in rosewood, yet it was obviously made with efficient process given the scale of production.

There is an incredible amount of high quality work being produced right now. I’ll happily make the argument that the individual craftsman has more access to quality info, tooling and material than at any other time in history.

[Patrick Walsh]

If a schmuck like me can pull off making something of relativel respect that someone is willing to pay me for I’d say craftsman clearly have as much access to to quality tooling and materials.

Add incredible access to know how for those who prefer the self taught route. If not those that prefer a classrooom setting have unlimited resources for schools to private instruction. I can’t help but agree today’s craftsman has a staggering advantage.

I will also argue that there is plenty of high quality furniture being made today. Just maybe no so many interested or willing to buy it.

be it

For structural ingenuity in solid wood, it’s interesting to look at furniture of the Ming dynasty. The furniture is entirely solid wood and it was made to be taken apart and moved regularly. It’s detailed and cut in rosewood, yet it was obviously made with efficient process given the scale of production.

There is an incredible amount of high quality work being produced right now. I’ll happily make the argument that the individual craftsman has more access to quality info, tooling and material than at any other time in history.