Spinet Braces Attached

Hello all:

Next phase of the spinet is complete.  I’ve glued and nailed the tulip poplar triangular knee braces into the interior of the case.  Follow the captions on the photos (don’t forget to click on them for closeup views) for the explanations of what’s happening.

Where we are headed:

Knees in place, ready.

Brush hot hide glue on the knee. Both surfaces are end grain, I sized them with thinned glue and water 5 – 10 minutes before the real act.

 

The knees are angled into notches cut into the bent side liner while butting on top of the bottom braces.  As you will see…

Glue goes into the bent side liner notch…

…and glue on the top of the bottom brace.

The knee is pressed home, the nails already in the knee, thus indexing the block into position by the pre-drilled holes for the nails.

Nails are driven home in the liner and the bottom brace ends. Note the artful use of the hammer, ha ha!

Another view: the tail knee pressed home, all surfaces covered in glue, nails positioning the block in place.

Tail knee liner nail being driven home.

Nailing the tail knee in place into the bottom batten.

I hate nailing, so much pre-drilling, all the worry about splitting….

Now for the finished knees in place:

The three knees installed, this photo taken with flash.

The same image as before, without flash.

Close view of the three knees in place.

Okay, that completes pretty much the case frame assembly phase.  I now have a choice of what to do next:  soundboard, keyboard, bridge and nut, cap veneers, front panel veneer work.  Decisions, geez….

Thanks to Kaare for taking the process photos while I worked.  Cool job, fellow worker.
Best to everyone.

Ed

Spinet Assembly Continues

The bent side liner glued in place.

Hello all:

The bent side liner has been glued into place, about a week ago.  Finally time to take some shots and post them here.

Two kerfed cauls were used to protect the outer surface of the bent side and to distribute the clamping pressure across the glue surface.

The clamping cauls in place while the glue sets.

Here’s a closeup of the tail assembly:

The bent side liner clamped in place with the cauls around the tight curve at the tail end of the spinet.

Now without the cauls:

The bent side liner with the cauls removed, glue now set.

While the ends of the liner join well to their respective adjoining liners, nothing is ever perfect.  So I flushed up the top surfaces of the joints so that no gaps will interfere with gluing in the soundboard later.

I’m saving the cauls because I’ll need them for similar work in the future, even if they are not an exact fit, since spinet models do vary.  They are very versatile, worth the time and trouble.

Next:  three triangular knees go in as reinforcements of the bent side so it will withstand the stresses of the strings attached to it later.

First knee brace roughly fitted into place. The poplar blocks in the background are the other rough cut knees, awaiting.

Best,

Ed

The Bentside Liner for the Spinet

Hello all:

Dry fitting the bentside liner to the case wall

Just hand kerfed and now fitting the liner to the spinet’s bent side.  This will complete the shelf around the inside of the case on which the soundboard will be glued.

I used a tenon saw for a wide kerf that would close.  When coupled with its matching kerfs, it yields a flexible strip.  And fragile, may I say.  Handle with care!

Yes, I pushed the depths of the kerfs deep.  Risky, but it gave just a little more give to the liner.

Bentside liner dry fitted into the tail section.

Here is the joint at the spine.  The bent side liner fits into a notch cut into the spine liner. And yes, I confess I overshot the fit too loose and had to shim it.

The joint of the spine and bentside liners.

Here I’m slowly trimming the other end to butt against the upper liner on the wrest plank:

Fitting the liner around the bentside and and trimming the end to butt the wrest plank liner and fit securely to all surfaces.

See one of my previous posts (July 2011 in our archive) for the use of the small planes for this kind of work.

Once the liner is fitted, I’ll kerf another strip and clamp it on the liner so it distributes the clamping force across the surface when I glue the liner in.  Hopefully I’ll need fewer clamps and a faster gluing phase.

Watch for the results soon.  Going on a break for a few days.

Cheers.

Ed

Hey Irene! Thanks for the Walnut, Now Leave Us Alone!

We've been very busy stacking walnut!

On Saturday August 27, 2011 Hurricane Irene hit the Virginia Peninsula with the kind of ferocity that will make her hard to forget.  Colonial Williamsburg’s structures withstood the storm quite well, but the same cannot be said for the area’s trees, among them several good-sized walnuts.  We certainly don’t celebrate destructive storms as a chance for “free” wood, but rather understand that we’ve been presented with an opportunity to make good things out of a bad situation.  In January , after months of a coordinated effort among our landscape crew, tree crews, outside sawyers and shop master Mack Headley, several Irene walnut logs were sawn into boards.  All of that work was done with the equipment and techniques of the present century.  This is not to say that we have stepped “out of bounds” in our pursuit of historical accuracy.  An eighteenth century cabinetmaker was the consumer, not the creator, processor, or mover of raw materials.   The boards were delivered to us just last week and now our work begins in earnest.

The images below offer a glimpse at how we’ve commenced that work…

The downside of a storm.  This view from the footbridge behind the shop should give you a sense of Irene’s mess-making.  

The upside. Last week several rough sawn walnut logs were delivered to the field on our shop's west end. Dead stacked, unsorted, and messy in every way, these boards will keep us busy for the next couple of weeks.

Here's some of our bounty up close. Looks very promising (various thicknesses, good wide boards, and some nice crotch sections)...too bad we have to season it at least a year for every inch of thickness!

6"x6"boards over brick footers provide the foundations for our new stacks. The inch thick cypress boards pictured above will be employed as a shingling system on top of the stacked walnut. Cypress's resistance to decay makes it an ideal choice for this job.

Cypress stickers ready for use.

The surfaces of these boards were soaked and covered in a thick slurry of wet saw dust. We've been laying them out in order to let them dry so they can then be swept clean, inspected, and sorted. (FYI: The area pictured above between the wood and the shop entrance is where Anthony Hay's house stood in the 18th century.)

Unfortunately, we've found some nasty pockets of carpenter ant infestation. These will be cut out and the boards treated with boric acid before they are integrated into our stacks. So far this has been limited to only a few boards.

Here's our first stack! We've got 4/4 stuff in widths up to 26". Notice that we've constructed the stack as an inverted wedge: each layer overhangs the layer below by a little bit and provides protection from the elements. The cypress on top overhangs everything and should shed rain water away from the walnut below (the first picture above gives a closer look at this arrangement).

Here's where we stand now. Stack no.2 about a third of the way done with 8/4 stuff in various lengths and widths. There's still a long way to go: maybe one or even two more stacks. The future looks pretty bright for this stuff, as long as we're diligent in keeping everything well maintained. One thing's for sure: the amount of labor already invested in this material should dispel the notion that Irene gave this to us for free!

We’ll keep you posted on our progress and try to pull some period documents together concerning the seasoning of wood.

Bill Pavlak.

In answer to an anticipated question: “No, you can’t have any of this wood!”

Spinet Construction Update

Hello everyone:

The spinet case before the treble cheek was attached.

As mentioned in reply to a comment on our last post, I’ve installed the treble cheek (the right hand one when facing the spinet) onto the spinet carcass.  The framing of the keywell of the instrument is now complete.

This piece was a replacement for an earlier one that unfortunately severely warped before it could be installed into place.  Having gone through the making twice before, this  went fairly fast.

The treble cheek completed but uninstalled, with potential crotch walnut veneer for the front panel above the keys.

I went into detail on making these cheeks back in February 2011.  Click the archives for that month on our front page and find “Spinet Assembly Moves Forward (A Little)” for a refresher on the issues involved.  In the next photo, note the veneer cut away to allow the core walnut to butt against the bottom edge and the end of the front rail.

Fitting the treble cheek to the wrest plank dado and butting the bottom board and front rail.

From fitting to installed:

The treble cheek glued and nailed into place. Crotch walnut veneer on white pine sub -veneer, all on solid walnut.

Treble cheek view from its exterior side, plain solid walnut to match the other case walls.

The butt joint of the treble cheek to the front rail.

So the case assembly moves to the last piece, between the treble cheek and the bentside.  A butt joint against the cheek and a miter to the bentside.

The last case wall section being trimmed on a shooting board.

The last case wall piece in context with the treble cheek and bentside.

Best.

Ed

Yes, Virginia, There Really Is Sandpaper in 1775

The Hay Shop Workroom

Okay, we would like to settle the perennial question (or statement) we get in the shop:  ”Since you didn’t have sandpaper…” or “Did they have sandpaper?”  or “Was sandpaper available back then?”

Answer: Yes, we had it.  Proof?  Here goes:

Several 18th century sources confirm the availability of sandpaper as a commercial product.  So far, in my own work on the evidence, the earliest reference is a handbill ad in the British Library, ca. 1750, from John Wilkinson, grocer and merchant in Scarborough, England, offering it amongst an array of other goods:

The full Wilkinson ad

The sandpaper listing in the Wilkinson ad

Most of the documentation is like this, merchant ware ads where sandpaper is available, buried amidst other items.  Most writings in the past have concentrated on these ads.  Let’s take a different direction.

The earliest, solidly dated mention of sandpaper I’ve found does not offer it for sale, but mentions its use!  The British Legacy or Fountain of Knowledge, 1754 gives the following receipt for staining picture frames of pear wood a deep black:

Receipt for staining pearwood, mentioning use of sandpaper.

Tincture of steel? Don’t ask.  Don’t know. Yet.

A 1755 Pennsylvania Gazette ad by Philadelphia merchant John Bayley lists the stuff for sale, but we can do better than this.

In 1774 Virginia planter and land baron Robert Carter III sent an order to his London agents for a variety of polishes, abrasives, stones and miscellaneous items.  Here’s a sampling:

“1 quire of emery paper, coarse; 1 quire of Emery paper, fine; 3 lbs. emery powder, fine; 3 lbs. emery powder, very fine; 3 lbs. emery not powdered in Grain; 3 lbs. Rottenstone; 2 lbs. Tripole; ….6 lbs. Whiting; 1 Pumice Stone used by Pewterers….”

Additionally (I can’t resist this), he’s also ordering aqua regis, aqua fortis, borax, burnt umber, 5 oz. cochineal (expeeeensive!), “gum lacc, seed,” “gum lacc, shell” (seedlac and shellac, there you are, folks!), mastic, gum arabic, elemi, copal, sandarac, gum anima.  All of the latter are used in making spirit or oil varnishes.

Add that he’s also ordering “a Sett of Tools for cutting in Wood, a kind of Sculpture or Engraving.”  He’s either into a new hobby OR sponsoring the set up of a new local shop in northern Virginia, a practice often employed by Virginia gentry to spur the growth of the local artisan population.

I digress.  Back to sandpaper.

Jump to 1775.  Carter wrote the following receipt in a day book of ‘useful information:’

“To polish wood – Take brown paper, make it wet with glew, then scatter fine sand thereon, through a hair sifter – Sandpaper is equal to fishskins.”

The latter sentence refers to the common use of dogfish or sand shark skins as abrasives. Years ago we experimented with sand shark skins here in the shop, with very successful results.

NOTE:  Unfortunately, I can’t reproduce the original Carter document sections because the original records belong to another institution and I don’t have their permission to publish from them.  It’s called proprietary rights and good museum ethics.  Even in the age of the Internet.

Last, the inventory of the personal estate of Williamsburg saddler Alexander Craig includes “Sandpaper” valued at 2 shillings, 6 pence.  While that amount of money might equal a day’s earning for a journeyman cabinetmaker, the document doesn’t specify the amount of sandpaper being valued, nor have I yet found a period unit price for the stuff.

But we had it.  We used it.  And it was there.

We have copies of all these items (and more) here in the shop.  If you are ever by and would like to see them, let us know.  The Robert Carter references are taken from microfilm of his papers at Duke University and Virginia Historical Society.  The PA Gazette and British Legacy are taken respectively from Accessible Archives and Eighteenth Century Collections Online, a subscription database from Gale Digital Archives which holds over 200,000 period books digitized and searchable, in cooperation with the British Library.  Yes, you must pay for access to the latter, but many colleges and universities have it (such as William and Mary across town here).  Check your nearest institution library.

While the Internet may have its uglier excesses, you gotta love it for this sort of work.  Revolutionary.  Okay, I said it.  You can start throwing the fruit (or sand!!!) now.

Best,

Ed

Hello Again and Some Rules for Varnishing

Kaare Loftheim demonstrates work on a mahogany bureau table at this year's woodworking symposium, which focused on the furnishings of George and Martha Washington.

First of all, we’re back and we plan on blogging far more regularly this year.  Thanks for sticking with us!

Secondly: Happy New Year Everyone!  …I know that seems belated, but here in the Anthony Hay Shop the new year really begins after our annual wood working symposium.  We were happy to see old friends and make new ones as we worked through this year’s conference on the furniture of Mount Vernon and we’ll certainly keep you posted on how those projects are coming along.

Third, both Brian and I are currently finishing projects based on the work of Williamsburg cabinetmaker Peter Scott – a mahogany tea table for Brian and a walnut desk and bookcase for me.  We thought this would be a fitting time to explore finishing techniques.  Before any large finishing project I like to revisit the third chapter of Stalker and Parker’s A Treatise of Japanning and Varnishing (first published in 1688).  Here, the authors set forth, in explicit detail, ten rules for varnishing wood.  Unlike their contemporary Joseph Moxon (Mechanics Exercises), one or both of the authors are believed to have been practicing tradesmen and their writing reflects the intimate knowledge of materials and techniques born of actual experience.  We’ll have occasion to write more on Stalker and Parker in future posts, but for now I’d like to share their first six rules of varnishing (the last four rules focus on polishing a finish out with rottenstone).

I’d like to call your attention to three particular aspects of this passage.  First, we must not view Stalker and Parker’s colorful 17^th century English as merely a quaint affectation, but as a powerful means of emphasis (rule 2 below is a particularly good example of this).  I doubt this writing style would make it past the editors of modern woodworking magazines, but we have the luxury of photographs to expand upon written details.  Second, their account is concerned with the highest-end furniture work of post Restoration London.  Their advice is especially wonderful for the heavily veneered and japanned pieces of their time, but just how much of this advice found its way into the minds and onto the wood of 18^th century colonial cabinetmakers remains an open question.  Regardless, no matter the look one is trying to achieve with a finished surface, the advice is sound and still relevant. Third, a few words about materials and terminology are necessary:

Varnish: they recommend a 1½ pound cut of seedlac (1½ pounds of an unrefined form of shellac dissolved in a gallon of alcohol).

Pencil: a brush (they recommend camel hair, we usually use china bristle brushes).

Rush:  horsetail rush/equisetum is a marshy grass that pulls silica out of the soil and has a very fine abrasive quality.  In my mind it compares to anything from 220 to 600 grit sandpaper (each rush is a little different from the last).  Its use in the 17th and 18th centuries is well documented.

Gallipot: a small earthenware container.

We plan on going into further detail on all of these matters and materials in the future, but for now I hope you enjoy the following thoughts on finishing.  One thing should be resoundingly clear from the excerpt: good finishing is not an afterthought to woodwork, it is a project in and of itself!  

Bill Pavlak.

Here’s a little Stalker and Parker for your reading pleasure…

Horsetail rush (Equisetum), a common historical abrasive, which, used on edge, results in a surface similar to that produced by 220 to 600 grit modern sandpapers. Here it's effects are shown on a varnished piece of walnut.

CHAP. III.

General Rules to be diligently observed in all manner of Varnishing.  

I am very solicitous that your Work should succeed, and therefore take all imaginable care to guide you, so that you cannot possibly miscarry; and in order thereunto shall propose rules and general Cautions,, which I desire you would have always in mind, and call them to your assistance in all your undertakings.

1. Therefore let your wood which you intend to varnish be close-grained, exempt and free from all knots and greasiness, very smooth, clean, and well rush’t.

2. Lay all your Colours and Blacks exquisitely even and smooth; and where ever mole-hills and knobs, asperities and roughness in colours or varnish offer to appear, with your Rush sweep them off, and tell them their room is more acceptable to you than their company.  If this ill usage will not terrifie them, or make them avoid your work, give them no better entertainment than you did before, but maintain your former severity, and with your Rush whip them off, as often as they molest you.

3. Keep your work always warm, by no means hot, which will certainly blister or crack it; and if that mischance through inadvertency should happen, tis next to irreparable, and nothing less than scraping off all the varnish can rectifie the miscarriage.

4. Let your work be thoroughly dry, after every distinct wash; for neglect in this point introduces the fault again, of which we warned you in the second rule, That your varnish should not be rough and knobby.

5. Let your work lie by and rest, as long as your convenience will admit, after tis varnished; for the better will your endeavors prove, the longer it stands after this operation.

6. Be mindful to begin your varnishing stroak in the middle of the table or box that you have provided for that work, and not in full length from one end to the other; so that your brush being planted in the middle of your board, strike it to one end; then taking it off, fix it to the place you began at, and draw or extend it to the other end; so must you do till the whole plane or content be varnished over.  I have reasons too for this caution, which if neglected, has several faults and prejudices attending it; for if you should undertake at one stroak to move your Pencil from end to end, it would so happen that you would overlap the edges and mouldings of your box; this overlapping is, when you see the varnish lie in drops and splashes, not laid by your brush, but caused by your brushes being at the beginning of the stroak overcharg’d and too full of varnish, and therefore we advise you to stroke your pencil once or twice against the Gallipot, to obstruct and hinder this superfluity; small experience will discover these mistakes.

[Rules 7-10 concern polishing finishes with tripoli, which we do on occasion, but we'll reserve a discussion of these for a future post]

To conclude, let this Chapter be well studied, and remember, that without it you cannot regularly or safely perform the task; This is the Common-place-book, to which I shall continually refer you; and if you will prove negligent and remiss in this particular, I shall prophesie, that nothing can so infallibly attend you as Error and Disappointment.

[A modern edition of this book was published by Alec Tiranti (London) in 1971 with a brief introduction by H.D. Molesworth.]