Upcoming Schedule

April 16: Turning, demonstrations with Devon Thibeault at his shop in Medford.

May 21; Working with hinges at Cliff Clarke’s in Boston

May ?; Workshop, Plane making with Peter Wilcox in Boylston.

June 19; Fine tuning your machines

DMT Tour

On Wednesday, April 6, the Diamond Machining Technologies facility gave the guild a tour. Sixteen guild members were met by Stan Watson of DMT. Stan led the tour through the manufacture facility giving the members an up close look at how diamond sharpening stones are made. Many steps are involved in making a diamond stone from stamping the metal inserts, to molding the plastic bases, to fusing the diamonds onto the surface with nickel plating.

The tour was not only a benefit to our members, but I am sure Stan learned a great deal about the wants and needs of woodworkers. For nearly an hour, Stan was peppered with numerous questions about their products. Everything from how flat is flat enough to how long the diamonds adhere to the surface to the microscopic structure of the diamonds embedded on the plates. Stan and company founder David Powell answered all of the questions with honest and straight forward responses.

As a small bonus, each member received a small ‘credit card’ sized diamond sharpening plate perfect for small items like pocket knives and router bits.

The guild was also presented with the opportunity to attend a plane tuning/sharpening workshop. Stan felt that with enough interest, they would host this workshop so our members have a chance to use their products prior to purchasing. In the coming weeks, I will be working out some arrangement with DMT and hopefully this workshop can become a reality.

Thank you all for attending a Wednesday afternoon outing. I hope it was fun for all.

-Chris Kovacs

Next meeting

On Saturday April 16 at 9:00 am, Devon Thibeault will be hosting a meeting at his shop in Medford. Devon is a member of the Association of Revolutionary Turners and will be giving a demonstration at his lathe. For those not familiar with turning, Devon will cover topics ranging from wood selection, tools, techniques and finishing on the lathe. Please bring along your turning questions and your safety glasses since there will be shavings flying.

Directions to Devon’s shop:

574 Boston Ave.

Medford, MA

(617)-308-3241

From the south:

Take I93 north to exit 29 (Rt. 38 & 28). At the end of the ramp, go straight and merge with Mystic Park Ave. Go straight for three lights. Just before the third light, there will be a Dunkin’ Donuts on the right. Turn left at the light.

Go straight through two lights. You will pass under a railroad bridge (this time it really is there). Just after the bridge and before the third light, turn right into the parking lot. My shop is on the first floor towards the end of the hall.

From the north:

Take I93 south to exit 31 (Rt. 16). Merge to the right and take a right at the end of the ramp at the light.

Get into the center lane and go straight through three lights. You will pass under a railroad bridge (this time it really is there). Just after the bridge and before the fourth light, turn right into the parking lot. My shop is on the first floor towards the end of the hall.

From the Boston area:

It’s easiest to follow the directions “From the south.”

Ethical Considerations in Reproducing Period Furniture and Restoring Antiques

By Frank Woolley

The goal in reproducing earlier styles of furniture is often simply to recreate the outward appearance. Frequently the surface is “aged” and a finish applied that gives the impression of very long use. But some makers and buyers prefer also to reproduce the interior details. This can be taken so far that tools which are correct to the period but now obsolete are used so that even the tool marks will be consistent with the style.

Many people find that furniture becomes more attractive as it ages, acquiring signs of use and wear that provide a sense of continuity with the past. In addition, some people are strongly attracted to furniture associated with a known maker, previous owners or historic events. The impact of this attraction on the market price can be enormous, providing a strong motivation for unscrupulous sellers to fabricate histories of pieces. Fakes are pieces with intentionally misrepresented histories. Liars, not craftsmen, create fakes. However, I choose as a maker of furniture in period styles to reduce the temptation and increase the difficulty of creating fakes by incorporating features that make it obvious that the piece was recently created. This includes not only incised or burned marks and dates, but also the inclusion of materials and use of tools not available in the period.

Antique Finishes on New Work

Furniture acquires an appearance through use that many people find attractive. It is the result, primarily on the surface, of myriad small accidents in which the surface was scratched, dented, gouged, worn away and covered with grime. In addition, the finish and wood surface undergoes subtle changes of color, transparency and sheen under the influence of light, moisture and oxygen. The cumulative effect is called patina, and it is associated in our minds with great age. This appearance can be approximated artificially, although great effort and skill are required to produce a very good approximation.

Furniture newly built in a period style looks incomplete if finished in a way that makes it appear new. The inconsistency between the age implied by the style and the new appearance of the finish draws attention to the finish. Applying a finish that gives an appearance of age consistent with the style fulfills the design dictate that no singular element should dominate the appearance.

The creation of an aged outward appearance is not in conflict with the responsibility to prevent fakes. The features that make the recent construction of a piece obvious to the casual and uninformed observer need not be visible from the normal outside viewpoints. There are ample opportunities to indicate the correct age to someone making a serious inspection.

I visited a San Francisco dealer in high-style European antiques who also has a shop in which he produces reproductions on commission. He was trained as a cabinetmaker in Italy, then came to this country and started importing antiques and building a repair and restoration business. He trained his own cabinetmakers and finishers, and now has about 20 craftsmen in his shop. He showed me a reproduction that his shop had just finished of an 18th century Italian chest of drawers. It was made at the request of a client who had paid him $75,000 for an original, but wanted a matching chest to put on the opposite side of a hallway. The chest was elaborately decorated with inlaid woods, brass and mother-of-pearl. The copy had been “antiqued” so carefully that even the drilled wormholes were crooked. (I think that was done by drilling with a sharpened piano wire.) The inlay was cracked and curled in the way one sees in furniture subjected to wide swings in humidity. Then he led me around behind the piece. The back was a single piece of plywood, with the name of his shop prominently burned into the surface. There was no question that this was the copy.

Refinishing Antique Furniture

Restoration of antiques carries the same responsibility to make life difficult for potential fakers, plus an additional responsibility to preserve the record of the history of the construction and use of the piece. Every tool mark, damage and previous repair is part of the history of the piece. An attempt to restore the piece to its original appearance would necessarily have to erase its entire history of use. However, if it is in a condition that significantly reduces its function or appearance, then it may be reasonable to compromise the historical record to enhance these features. Often an appearance of a well-used and old but well-maintained piece can be achieved with only the loss of the evidence of its neglect or abuse, part of its history that is rarely worth preserving.

Bob Flexner (author of Understanding Wood Finishing, Rodale Press, 1994) offers these guidelines for restoring finishes on antiques:

Repair localized or superficial damage, rather than refinishing the entire piece.

Strip old finish by the least destructive method.

Sand only if absolutely necessary, and then only with very fine abrasives.

Avoid using chemical stains because of their relative irreversibility.

Avoid finishes that are so difficult to remove that future restorers may damage the wood.

In general, destroy as little of the original as possible, but make the furniture functional and attractive, so the owner will be happy living with it.

Odds and ends

The Lexington Arts and Crafts Society Woodworkers Guild will be having their annual Spring Wood Show in the 130 Waltham Street Gallery starting April 12 and going through the end of the month. Hours are Tuesday through Sunday Noon to 4PM. This year, four of Steve Olesin’s students will be displaying tables they built in his Introduction to Traditional Woodworking classes. Steve will be submitting a Chippendale chair and a piece of sculpture.

Steve Olesin is teaching a 5 week course on hand cut joinery in Worcester Crafts Center in June.

On the weekend of June 25 and 26, Steve Olesin will be demonstrating stringed instrument building at Canterbury Shaker Village in New Hampshire during their annual Wood Days festival. There will be around 30 craftsmen demonstrating various woodworking techniques plus there will be several vendors selling things from raw wood to hand made tools. Admission charged.

The Live Free of Die Antique tool auction and sale will be going on Friday and Saturday April 29 and 30 at the Holiday Inn in Nashua, NH.