What makes a joint?

J

Jeff L Headley

Well-known member
The Society Of American Period Furniture Makers. This find us in March of 2010 or do we operate in a vacuum isolated in the pre 1820s? I have a question and a comment. I will reserve my comment until later. My question isn't this but another one. Machine or hand tools and period design? Why is there a choice today between either or. Shouldn't it come down to the joinery with design and how close the joint fits. I am really tired of the argument that if the period cabinetmakers had a certain power tool they would have used it. We have them today so! It is all semantics. What does it matter over process. Your way is better than mine or my way is better than yours. It should come down to the best joinery. If the joint fits as close as possible WITHOUT ANY SACFIFICES what does it matter what cut the joint. I do agree that most time the final fit requires a hand fit, with period hand tools which is expected. Why is it an inferior joint if a machine had a minor role in it's production. I comes down to how it fits. If my joint fits as well with the removal of waste material by a machine than by hand removed of waste why is the hand fit joint better than a combination of machine and hand tools. Now I am not talking about sacrifices taken by most factories where they just throw out period construction and attached all by power nailer's and their like.
 
Jeff,
(begin attempt at humor) Has someone been poking you with a sharp stick? (attempt at humor, end)
One of the keys to furniture making is knowledge of joinery and how to make those joints. I really don't care if the joints are cut by power or hand and don't really see one method as superior to the other. I have machines and use them and I also cut joints by hand. When I speak with people considering woodworking for a hobby I always encourage them to take up hand tools as I believe it is more relaxing, safe and easier to do in the house.  Woodworking for money is a different animal, get it done as quickly and efficiently as possible with the tools and equipment on hand and always strive for quality. People who are in one camp or the other typically can't go into the other camp because it is too foreign, the methods too different. I have seen some horrendous work done using both methods and can tell you that in the wrong hands either method is bad.
When I set out to reproduce a piece of furniture I go to museums and look at as many examples as possible, I breathe in that old furniture smell and I look for the idiosyncrasies of each maker, I figure out what it is that I want to make and how it will join together, the rest is work just to get it done, I have built the whole thing in my head already, luckily it is work that I enjoy.
For me SAPFM isn't about hand tools or power tools it is about the good people I meet and seeing the things they make. We hardly ever discuss the superiority of electrical power over alcohol power any more than than we would discuss the superiority of each others religions. I have met you Jeff and seen your work, I don't think you have to concern yourself with the hand tool/power tool discussion. From what I have heard 18th century cabinet makers kept trade secrets. On the other hand your enthusiasm for, and willingness to share, information on 18th century furniture is to be commended.
Mike
Trying to decide whether it is better to sharpen a stick with a hand tool or a power tool while focusing on our similarities instead of our differences. I hope you haven't been fighting with your brother!(sorry, forgot the humor alert)
 
I think everyone should do what makes them (or their customers) happy. Everything else is just playground banter ("Mine is better than yourrrrs! Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah!"). The terms "Good, Better, Best" (and plenty of others as well) are so subjective that they really only have meaning to the person using them.  My best is likely someone else's "Bleh!". Some of my recent pieces can confirm this :).

I don't think any one method is better than any other. Faster? Maybe. More aesthetically pleasing? In some cases, to some people; again this is highly subjective. Inherently better (from a pure strength/longevity perspective)? Absolutely not. Joinery is just that. A way to hold two pieces of wood together. In most cases, we don't see it, so who cares how it was cut. Do it however you like to do it. It's your piece and you have to live with it.

I have cut different types of joinery all three ways; power only, hand only, and combination of hand and power. Regardless of my own personal chosen methods, I do it the way I enjoy most, not because some one else says one way is better than another. I would expect other craftsmen to do the same. After all, I think for most of us, this is a hobby and it's supposed to be enjoyable, so why do things that you don't enjoy.

For those folks that do this for a living, you know what you need to do to make it profitable for you, so you do it. I would imagine your customers' [indirectly and directly] make a lot of those decisions for you based on what they are willing to pay for a piece. If you make the wrong decisions, you don't stay in business long.
 
I will paraphrase my late mentor,"it takes a man to hold a joint"; no  direspect to the ladies here. My friend was born in 1909, perhaps he had not thought yet about female woodworkers.
I have always felt he meant it took the builder, who understood the wood and the joint, to hold it together. He taught me to use power tools, I use power tools. He taught me to use hand tools, I use hand tools.
To make a piece, I generally need to start with one flat face. facing on the joiner is the easiest way for me to start.
If the piece is too large(heavy) for me to pick up comfortably, I have to flatten by hand.I can. If it HAS to be done. As long as I arrive with the flat surface, I can see no difference as to how I got there. I think if I had to flatten 20 inch wide case ends with outany help from my joiner, the job might become too laborious for me to enjoy. So I vote to defend power tools for facing, jointing and thicknessing. I usually rescrape inside and outside to remove the tool marks. I don't particularly care if the plank is a bit too thin and doesn't thickness everywhere after flattening on the inside case, I kind of work from the outside-in.
For other jobs, I would be more critical. I don't really understand how those router jigs make dovetails, and do not believe they can cut as tight a joint as a builder with a sharp saw and chisel. Case drawers are almost always graduated, and I think I can lay them out and cut them by eye faster than use some jig(but I will admit I have never really looked at a jig-thing in person).I have seen machine-cut dovetails on factory-made furniture. The ones I have seen have rounded corners, surely that is not a real dovetail. Dovetails have to be best by hand.
For the mortise and tenon, I really only make things with just 4 or 8 mortises at a time, surely this is best by hand. There is something hanging on the wall of my shop that is supposed to cut mortises if attached to a drill press, and I appreciate the thoughfulness of those who bought it for me, but it has never been off the wall. Hammer and chisel with dovetail saw have to best here, me thinks.
So most joints I think, are best by hand-BUT I want my jointer to flatten that board. I learned long ago that if I dovetailed 4 flat boards with sqaure ends together, I somehow end up with a pretty darn square case.
I thought that was magical, 20 or so years ago.
I don't see much difference between my joiner and the 18th century apprentice. They both do chores the cabinetmaker doesn't want to do. Just make sure your power tools are working for you- not defining
your work.
 
Hi Jeff, Bob , Mike     I can relate to your situation. Its just that I am coming from a different angle.I work on historic furniture {finishes}all of witch are original,now that is a joke!You see, the dealer buys at auction, or private party,and sends it to me,to make it look real.It then goes back to auction or private party or museum,sold as original,right? Well,Jeff, I've seen your work, and I would have to say ,it's pretty good. Have you seem mine? Maybe,maybe not, but I'm not suppose to talk about it. You see in my field, the dealer, or person selling, does not want it known the piece has been worked on, because original is worth more, right?On the other hand ,The museum wants 4 pages of documents for filling a nail hole that didn't belong there in the first place.And of course, I,m not suppose to talk about it because we all know, every thing in a museum is real, right? So, after 30yrs of work,{all of witch was photographed}I don't have a web site,and I still am not suppose to talk about what I'm working on. Are there others doing the same work as me? More than you know.Am I purposely trying to falsify antiques?, no, I just do what I was trained to do, fix antiques.{New York Times, Hobbs}. Just for some good reading.    So ,when someone is poking you with a stick,{good one Mike} there are others getting hit with a bat.        We should get to gather,  your work and my finishing , we could cause some real talk!   More humor , right? Use  the tool it takes to do the job!  Randy
 
Hi Jeff,

I think the reason this keeps getting brought up is because it's a complicated issue.  Here's my take:

If you want an accurate reproduction, you've got to use accurate tools and techniques.  If you don't, you will find that the machines do things to the design or final form that don't represent original pieces well.  

Now the flip side is that some modern tools have a greater effect than others.  I would argue the tools most guys think have no effect- especially table saws, have the biggest effect.  A hollow chisel mortiser may have little or no effect.  The trick is knowing how things were done (as you do, Jeff) and knowing when that HCM is driving you.  

The mortises in chippendale chairs rear legs weren't perpendicular to anything.  But in Ron Clarkson's book about chippendale chairs,  he made them perpendicular likely because he uses a HCM.  In my opinion, that takes something away from the final product.  It also takes something away from the reader's understanding of the originals.  

The next issue is the experience of the builder.  The use of hand tools brings us closer to the product and process.  I think it's true that wherever we have developed hand tool skills, our perception of period furniture has changed. These personal experiences are really helpful.  After doing the work, the features that look like a million bucks but really aren't that hard to produce begin to take a back seat to the less noticed but more challenging.  That personal experience gives us a new appreciation for the original that the router can't.  

I'm not sure of the reason behind the question, but having seen you work and your work, my feeling is that this issue is more difficult for you to see clearly precisely because you've done the hand tool operation 10,000 times.  Its easier for you to select a piece of stock that someone would have used for a molding 200 years ago because you've worked with molding planes enough to know how grain orientation effects the finished molding.  So your use of power tools is informed by your hand tool experience.  You can't assume everyone has had that experience or sees things the same way.  That's why it's important to keep hand tools at the fore.  

My 2 cents

Adam
 
Adam,
I have never read the book you describe, but to me the situation is just the trap one falls into if you rely on modern tools, one's vision becomes clouded looking at old furniture with a hollow chisel mortiser in hand. Your comments have caused me, however, to become suspicious of my table saw. I only use it to rip lumber, and with nice fence and blade, it is better at that job than myself. I will worry so more about that tomorrow.
Factory made router bits and shaper bits are probably the beggining of the slippery slope. It seems to me that almost any molding can be made with a few old hollow planes and a rabbet plane. My old mentor did not even own a router, and as far as I know he never used one in his 90 plus year life. Since Jeff's question was about joinery, I did not mention this before.
In any event, I will walk more carefully around my table saw. I do have a router, but I already keep it in a locked box.
 
The hand versus machine debate is an interesting one. Here's my take-

As a professional, speed is important, but I happen to love to work wood by hand, so I try to cultivate customers who will pay for the extra time involved. There's no shame in making mortises and tenons by machine, as they're buried when you're finished anyway. The time saved there I can use doing something else by hand that matters-and that's more fun.
Dovetails, for instance. I'm fast and I like it, it's relaxing and the results are visible.
Molding- I make it by hand with a little help roughing out on the saw. Stock molding cutters rarely are the same profile as the originals. These subtle differences add up and in my mind separate the good copy from the not-so-good.
This is an endless subject, but in short, my theory is:
First- don't be a snob and expect everyone to work to the same standards that you might.
Second- don't let your designs be ruled by machines and what's available- "stock" cutters, for example. Third-If you want to really make an extraordinary reproduction you'll have to sometimes use extraordinary( and time consuming) methods.-Al
 
When I look at old furniture, I often see the guy struggling to deal with imperfect stock.  And this often finds it's way to joints.  Lots of guys talk about learning to 4 square a board by hand.  And everyone needs to be able to do that.  But we practice it because it's NOT easy.  With a table saw, you can take such skills for granted. You get a quick cut, a parallel cut, and a square cut in one screaming, potentially finger eating, dust in your face moment.  If you run another board thru right after the first, you get two perfectly uniform boards.  You know how hard that is by hand?  How long it takes?  

In my shop, I find ways to deal with whatever I've got so I don't have to do that.  But this absolutely causes problems with the joinery. A good craftsman must know how much variation he can get away with and precisely how to make the tiny adjustments only a human hand can make to account.  In my mind, this is a much more difficult art, one worth developing, and one that is a joy to behold.  

I was looking at a drawer of a Philadelphia highboy a year or so ago.  The bottom was made up of riven cedar "shakes" glued together side by side.  There may have been 8 of them across, shoulder to shoulder.  And each was a different size and shape. There they stood like crooked teeth.  It made me smile to see them.  Guys with table saws would never do this.  Each board would look just like it's mate if they would use solid wood at all.

But I could understand why each wasn't ripped parallel and uniform in size with it's mate. I imagined the journeyman piecing these bits of trees together at his bench before gluing them up. And I knew exactly why that was the faster approach for him.  

I really enjoyed seeing that drawer bottom and thinking about the craftsman who made it so long ago.  And what better reason is there to use hand tools than that?  If you love period funiture it seems liek a no-brainer.  I hasten to add you can love period furniture and adore your table saw.  That's all right too!

Adam
 
  My first thought when I saw the title "What makes a joint",was one of our members had an ache ,that their physician felt only a little grass could treat and forgot to include the manual on "How to roll a doobie".Upon further reading,I discovered it was about that turbulent topic by hand or power. My personal opinion is, whatever it takes to eat on a regular basis. The sun will be back out ,you can count on it.
                                                                                Ed
 
It is important to remember that all joints can be cut aided by a power tool. Mortises can be cut at any angle you want, dovetails can be sawn by hand and the waste removed with a bandsaw or a router or even a mortiser. Locks can be mortised with a router and cleaned up with a chisel. All of these joints would be indistinguishable after assembly from originals. It is important to not design around the capabilities of the machine but to design around the capabilities of the craftsman and, if making a reproduction, the original piece. I, like Randy,, have repaired some pretty nice antiques. The dealers are very knowledgeable about their subject. What they want to see must look like the original, they don't care if machines were used or not. One of the greatest compliments I have received as a woodworker was overhearing an antique dealer showing several other antique dealers the bottom of a chest on chest I had repaired, He said" Can you believe these feet are replaced." Power tools were used in the process. The wood can only testify to the last tool that touched it. I personally prefer working wood by hand for the enjoyment of it, the tactile sense, and the connection with past makers and their tools, but I also know that most people won't pay for that and they can't hear the noise of the router in their home but only the silent song of a well composed, finely crafted piece of furniture. Knowledge, research and appreciation of wood, woodworking, history and furniture is by far more important than what kind of energy is used to get the piece made.
I wonder how Jeff is doing?
Mike
 
I am doing OK. My comments come from going into an antique shop close to DC and being told no one wants that brown furniture anymore and then a conversation with a client, bad day. Luckily no family problems. I love my brother but don't tell him I said so. With the economy and our throw away furniture industry it is discouraging. Times are changing and we live in the past. How do you compete with advertising blitz's from our local brand name furniture store's which tell everyone to buy cheap and throw it away in less than 10 years. Instead of tenons lets try duct tape and biscuts. I do like biscuts and corn beef gravy, not sausage gravy, but I get distracted.  We all try to build pieces that will last several lifetimes. Semantics from someone that wants to see our American furniture industry be close to what it once was. I know it's a dream but it's a good dream! I am tired of the snow and will be glad to see some grass and no it had nothing to do with the joint.
 
I feel for you and others out there trying to run a furniture making business in a harsh environment with shifting sand beneath your feet. Having been knocked down and bloodied myself (in another field) I can only say that it always helps to stay focussed on the bigger picture. Fashions change but some things remain true. Do good work. Create furniture that will be admired for generations to come and possibly inspire imitation. Marcus Polio Vitruvius, a 1st century Roman architect and writer conveyed an ancient tradition that period artisans and we share alike. He wrote that good building should have three qualities: firmitas –sturdiness, commoditas – function, and venustas – beauty. Regardless of how you get there, power or hand tools, if you keep those three legs of a stool balanced, you have 2600 years of western tradition backing you up. 

George R. Walker
 
Jeff - I think what you're referring to is the fact that very, very few potential customers will pay the price that it takes to make a historical reproduction (or "after the design of" new piece) with the tools and methods that were current when the piece was new.

The reason I eschew power tools when I make such a piece is very esoteric - I desire a result that is indistinguishable down to the materials and tool marks of piece made before power and modern tools were available.  The idea is that after 100 years or so, no one - not even someone equipped with a microscope and a GC/Mass Spectrometer - will be able to tell the difference between something I made in 2010 from something an anonymous craftsman made in 1783.

But I expect that trying to build a successful business on such a basis would be nearly impossible.
 
The tulips are beginning to emerge here in western KY. The grass will eventually be green.
Visit your lumber stock. It is full of happy dreams of pieces yet made. Perhaps your stock has the dreams of four prior generations.
Yes the world is full of furniture meant to last only a few years(I think really, like an automobile, only meant to last as long as the payments). Ordinary furntiure will attract the ordinary. This is not your competition. Visit someone you have built for in the past. They already know.
Someone will see what you see.
 
You'd have to pry my compound miter saw out of my cold dead hands, probably the bandsaw and Barnes foot mortiser, too, maybe even the tiny table saw; however, don't kid yourselves that the wood is not affected by rapidly spinning blades and that often coped and stuck "joints" cut by routers fall apart. Burn marks and joinery too burnished to accept glue, anyone?

So, I almost always use hand tools, Japanese ones at that. I'm healthier from lack of noise and sawdust and a modicum of exercise, and I think the wood is healthier and readier for stains and/or glues. But then, I don't do this to convince someone else to part with their money, so an easy choice.

Pam
 
Interesting discussion and one that just took place on Chris's blog a few days ago when i commented on trying to interest my son in taking a traditional woodworking class.

http://blog.woodworking-magazine.com/blog/Why+Do+This+Crap+By+Hand.aspx
 
Jeff,

I'm right there with you, brother. I hear the same things from the antique dealers I work with. The most discouraging thing I hear (and see) is the lack of interest among the younger people of this country. Not sure if you've been doing many shows lately but the average age of the attendees isn't declining. It's a rare thing to see a couple in their 30's or even early 40's wandering a show in search of an education let alone actually buying a piece of furniture.

As to the original question, I always believed that the professional would most likely choose to do things by machine until the only way to do them better is by hand. That's why I cut all my dovetails by hand. A machine can do it faster if I was a production shop but faster isn't better. All that being said, I cut my mortises in my Chippendale chairs with a hollow chisel mortiser. I just don't compromise by making the mortises fit the capabilities of the machine. I modify the way the machine works in order to cut the mortises the way they were originally cut. Again, it's a matter of doing by machine until it can only be done better by hand. If there is no structural difference and no shift in design to accommodate the machine, what difference does it really make?

I've never found it hard to find customers willing to pay for the added time and effort to do things properly, whether by hand or machine. Being quite a distance from retirement myself, I am concerned that I may have that trouble in the future. It's refreshing to see guys like Freddy Roman out there. It gives me hope that all is not going to be lost to duct tape and biscuits.

Keep dreaming that dream. It IS a good dream, and if those of us involved with SAPFM keep dreaming that same dream, we might just help make it a reality.
 
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