Adam, It’s too bad you weren’t there for Al Breed’s Cartouche dinner. He made several notable statements about modern reproduction of period pieces and I suspect you’d have been nodding vigorously. Here’s a quote (from his blog, not the SAPFM dinner, but he made the same point in both): “you’re not trying to make your work look handmade, you’re trying to make it look perfect with the tools available that are appropriate to the period. If it’s made this way, it will look as it’s supposed to, with the slight and sometimes almost imperceptible evidences of hand tools.” That’s just one example of the many great points he made that evening.

Chairmaking is one of those enterprises where I would expect to see some level of cooperation beyond the amount I think cabinetshops engaged in (namely very little if any). Not sure I’d go as far as assembly line. We know Philadelphia chair makers relied on outsourced carvers and uphosterers and possibly finishers. Cabinetmakers used outsourced carvers either in their shops or out. But generally, i don’t see evidence that apprentices were helping journeymen. Your project was yours to build. If you needed help building it efficiently, you’d be fired.

Not that it matters to the issue at hand, but my guess is if you measured those table (or chair) legs, you’d find enough variation to suggest:

1) a jig wasn’t used
2) a jig/template wouldn’t work if one were used.

The reason I say this is that Dan used the template as a jig to cut the veneer. But he didn’t and couldn’t use it to CUT the leg and nor could an 18th c craftsman. Of course he could use it to mark the leg. But being as the veneer is inset, you’d need 2 jigs or you’d need to best fit the template on the table leg. And still you’d be left planing to a line by eye. While you could do a great job of that, I suspect they didn’t. And with such a small reveal, a small inconsistency would show up.

And all of this is just SO much easier to simply make the legs as you wish, and use a cutting gauge to get the offset you want EXACTLY on every leg regardless of it’s shape.

Keep in mind, if you use the cutting gauge, you wouldn’t have the problem Dan had with the custom scraper he made. He had to take away both mahogany and satin wood to ensure a good fit.

My way, when it came time to do the stringing, you could just set the gauge further out to account for the width of the stringing, and just cut and remove the veneer. (no scraping).

Not picking on Dan, but this is a good example of someone thinking factory when he should have been thinking craftshop. I think the method I’m describing would be better and faster for any number of items. It’s also the standard technique that guys used for veneer work.

This is exactly the sort of thing that I think needs to get represented in all ww pubs. If you are doing this sort of work, it’s just better to learn the way guys did it (not saying I know).

Dan told us he doesn’t make copy period furniture and he tends to correct their “mistakes”. I’ve heard other guys say this. In Dan’s case, I wonder how someone with 10 or 15 years of experience feels he can identifty the “mistakes” of someone who did this for his entire life, then passed everything he knew on to someone else who did the same over a 100 year period. I’m not saying their work was perfect. Only that we collectively don’t know jack about how those guys built furniture yet we’re convinced they did it wrong. When I bring up specifics, I get shouted down. Asa says I can be a little overbearing. I agree, but maybe you can understand why. My side never seems to get a fair hearing.

The second session as sold out, and had many more folks attending than the first session based on the published registration list. The Society of American Period Furniture Makers (SAPFM) uses the second sesion as essentially their annual meeting, and most of the second session attendees were SAPFM members. It appears that “Period” in SAPFM generally refers to high end 18th and early 19th century furniture. It’s also seems, based on conversations with various members, that many SAPFM members use power tools primarially. The previous two years I attended the first session which seems to have a slightly different and smaller audience.

Mount Vernon furniture was suggested two years ago as a topic as a follow-up to that year’s topic of Monticello furniture. The Monticello furniture seemed to provide a more diverse range of pieces to select for study and reproduction.

I found Jeff and Steve’s presentation about building the Aitken chair interesting, and I took it as represenative of how a successful custom maker of period furniture works. Final shaping and carving the various pieces wasn’t shown and I assume that is mostly done by hand tools. A more interesting presentation to me on building a chair was last year’s presentation by Phil Lowe on building a Queen Anne chair. Phil demonstrated cutting and shaping various pieces by hand as well as cutting joints by hand. Phil commented on what tasks he would do with power tools in his own shop.

I think CW needs to be careful about the future of the conferences. Now Asa rightly pointed out, I have no data, but my sense is that the demographic, work, and intentions of woodworkers is changing. So we can’t keep doing the same thing (at CW). I get the sense they feel there’s only so many unique pieces of 18th c furniture. Which is true. Looking at processes just extends the possible.

Personally, I’ve learned a ton from you guys and others on the internet, some of whom may have never built anything. Does that mean your understanding of scrub planes is somehow incomplete? See, I don’t think so. I’m always wary of litmus tests and woodworkers chops/portfolios and the insinuation that good finished products necessarily means they are good woodworkers.

Last, I think the process is WAY more interesting from a theater/print standpoint. And if you’re incapable of presenting the process either because you’re in a hotel conference room at WiA and you do all your work with 1000lb machines, or because FWW’s photographer editor showed up in your shop 6 months after the high boy was finished, I think you’re at a distinct disadvantage. You just can’t capture the process and make it real. That’s why Underhill is such a great show (live or taped).

Part of what drew me to woodworking was looking at a beautiful piece of furniture and asking–How did they do that? It’s also amazing to me how much decorative work (like carving) went into making furniture 200 years ago.

By the way, your readers who wonder–How did they do that–might like the program by the same name at the Duncan Phyfe exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on March 10th. See

http://www.metmuseum.org/events/programs/family-programs/how-did-they-do-that/american-furniture-making?eid=R001_{8B83FCA0-F544-48D1-938E-CF7FFD69F221}_20120310130000

I didn’t attend CW this year after going for the last 4 or 5. I always learn something and it’s usually a technique from the CW craftsmen. There were years when a great deal more about the “how the original was made” was part of the program. Some of this happens when Mack or Kaare explain why they’re doing a particular thing on the part they’re working on. It’s along the lines of “we saw the layout lines on the original and decided it must have been cut/carved/sawn this way.” The how-to seems to swing to either more or less of this each year so perhaps this was an off year. But there’s never a shortage of great talent to watch at work, frequently so when the CW team takes the stage (Steve Latta was another great presenter). Bruce Love’s comment about the interaction between Mack and Jeff Headley being one of those unscripted things that makes the conference worthwhile and educational is right on.

A couple of years ago the CW dinner speech was by Mark Schofield of FWW about the state of the woodworking magazine industry. Which magazine focused on what content and reader skill set, who’d folded, who’d been absorbed, and who they thought were going to survive. The two pillars of the industry seemed to him to be FWW and PW. I like them both for very different reasons, frankly, and it’s clear the FWW people are watching PW’s activities closely. Perhaps the PW team do the same with regards to FWW but from my perspective FWW is following PW’s lead these days. The evidence is in the content now in FWW with more stories like PW (hand tools and workbenches, anyone?) Competition brings out the best, no?

The first CW conference I attended was the year Peter Follansbee presented and his presentations were a revelation I had not expected. I don’t make high style furniture nor are my skills all that advanced and there are many attendees like me in the Williamsburg audience. We’re just there to learn some history, discover a method we probably wouldn’t have been able to teach ourselves, and, like you, watch the skilled woodworkers work and ask questions we can’t with the TV presenters. Peter was that and more, he went into great depths about the how and the why and they’re probably the best CW sessions I’ve attended.

The other fun is the ability to hang out with other woodworkers and bask in that affinity group for a few days (and I admit I have a Jones for those country ham & biscuits). That’s a lot like WIA. WIA seems to have a lot more interactivity and that’s a great differentiator. The Market at WIA can’t be beat, something the CW conference lacks. You have to admit it’s nice to leave the conference area and walk through Colonial Williamsburg but WIA’s pub dinners are great fun, too.

I’ve never been prohibited from taking photos at the CW conference during the presentation and more than one chronicler has posted their notes from the conference on-line (an architect attendee had glorious hand drawings on his post) so I’m surprised this year might have been different. Perhaps your known association with PW colored Asa’s comments?

I agree that the topics each year seem to be less interesting than prior years. Two years ago it was Thomas Jefferson’s furniture and I suppose we’ll see every prominent president’s furniture featured if they can’t think of anything else. I’m more amazed that the audience poll Jay takes at the end of each session, asking for proposed topics for the next year, seems to have no influence on what’s actually presented the following year. Evidently this was not always so. If they fail to listen to the audience the decline you predict will surely follow.

I’m sorry for the windy comment. The real test is the answer to this question: Will I go to the CW conference (or any others) next year? I’d like to think the program will be interesting enough to compel me to give up vacation time and money to do so. Let’s see if the CW team can revert to form.