Since its first publication in 1970 The Technique of Furniture Making has established itself as the bible for all woodworkers. However, in nearly twenty years there have been considerable changes in the craft, and so this book has been revised thoroughly in order for it to continue to be as useful and relevant to today's furniture makers. The revision has been carried out by Alan Peters, one of Britain's leading furniture makers, whose own training has led him to have a ready sympathy and understanding for Ernest Joyce's approach. In addition to a great deal of new material, the whole book has been redesigned so that it is now much easier to work from. The biggest advances in the world of woodworking in recent years have been in the range and capabilities of power tools, and so this section of the book has been much expanded. Adhesives and abrasives have also developed con siderably, and the large selection of products available, their applications and individual qualities are explained. Looking to the future, computer controlled machinery and computer-aided design will soon be at an affordable price for the small workshop, so the book takes a look at some of the machines already being used in industry. The book is in three parts, the first part dealing with materials, tools and techniques, the second part with advanced construction techniques and metal fittings, and the third part with running a workshop, draughts manship, furniture designs and restoration. For the first time, too, there are colour sections on wood identification and examples of some of the best pieces of modern furniture design. Anyone with a serious interest in furniture making, whether student or teacher, enthusiastic amateur or committed professional, is guaranteed to find an answer to most of their questions somewhere in this book, and will understand why it has proved an invaluable work of reference to craftsmen for so many years. 295 black and white photographs 288 line illustrations 32 colour photographs ABATSFORDBOOK ISBN 0'134 4407 X £35.00 net ERNEST JOYCE The Technique of FURNITURE MAKING Fourth Edition • Revised by ALAN PETERS B T BATSFORD LTD LONDON . Acknowledgement Many thanks to Alan Smith, of the London College of Furniture, for checking the sections on abrasives and plastics, and for supplying new material on computer controlled machinery. The first and last lesson of the useful arts is, that Nature tyrannizes over our works. They must be conformed to her law, or they will be ground to powder by her omnipresent activity. Nothing droll, nothing whimsical will endure. Nature is ever interfering with Art. You cannot build your house or pagoda as you will, but as you must. There is a quick bound to your caprice. Emerson Essay on Art, 1841 The inferior man always embellishes his mistakes. Tzu Hsia Analects of Confucius First published 1970 Reprinted 1974, 1976, 1980, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 2000 © Ernest Joyce 1970 © Revised text, Alan Peters 1987 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, without permission from the Publisher ISBN 0 7134 4407 X Typeset by Tek-Art Ltd, Kent and printed in Singapore by Kyodo Printing Co. for the publishers B.T. Batsford Limited 9 Blenheim Court Brewery Road London N7 9NT A member of the Chrysalis Group pic Contents Preface 22 Leg and frame construction 208 Introduction 23 Door construction 227 24 Drawer and tray construction 244 Part I Basic materials 25 Fall flaps, secretaires, cylinder falls and tambours 256 1 Woods (hardwoods and softwoods) 1 2 Veneers 46 3 Manufactured boards 50 Part V Metal fittings/fasteners and 4 Plastics and leathers 58 their application 5 Metals 68 26 Screws, nails and pins 265 6 Adhesives 73 27 Hinges and hinging 267 7 Abrasives 81 28 Locks and locking actions 275 29 Stays, bookcase fittings and castors 282 Part II Tools and Equipment 30 Catches, bolts and handles 286 31 Knock-up (KU) and knock-down (KD) 8 Cabinet maker's bench and accessories 87 fittings 291 9 Hand tools 90 10 Portable power tools and accessories 118 11 Woodworking and allied machinery 129 Part VI Advanced techniques 12 Workshop layout and furnishings 141 32 Veneering, marquetry and inlay 294 33 Table lining 323 Part III Basic techniques and joint 34 Mouldings and lippings/edgings 325 construction 35 Curved work 332 13 Wood preparation 146 14 Jointing techniques and methods 150 15 Edge jointing 152 Part VII Running a professional 16 Housing/dado, halving and workshop bridle joints 156 36 Setting out and cutting lists 348 17 Mortise and tenon joints 160 18 Dowelled joints 167 19 Dovetailing 170 Part VIII Draughtsmanship and 20 Mitre, scribed and scarf joints 182 workshop geometry 37 The drawing office 352 Part IV Advanced areas of furniture 38 Projections commonly used 355 construction 39 Perspective drawing 359 21 Carcass construction 187 40 Workshop geometry 363 Part IX Furniture designs and Part X Restoration, repairs and constructional details wood finishing 41 Tables and desks (domestic 47 Structural repairs 500 and office) 380 48 Surface damage 503 42 Chests, cabinets and sideboards 422 49 Wood finishing 505 43 Bedroom furniture 440 44 Seating and upholstery 458 45 Church furniture 481 Appendix: Costing and estimating 512 46 Miscellaneous furniture 492 Index 515 Preface to the revised edition It was with some trepidation that I accepted the however, is the choice available. From the task of revising Ernest Joyce's work, for in the humblest hand tool to the most powerful eyes of so many it had become the wood woodworking machine, we are now no longer worker's bible, helping countless people in their restricted to what is made in our own country search for woodworking knowledge and their but have a wide choice from all over the world. own personal search for excellence. This Also, because power tools were relatively new reluctance to tamper with the bible, which was fifteen years ago, it is natural that the biggest strong, and shared by many other people, was advance in choice and technical development tempered by the knowledge that much had should have been in this area, and consequently changed in the world of craft furniture since this section of the book has been expanded. 1970 when this work was first published— It would be impossible to revise this book changes that Ernest Joyce himself would well without getting involved in the question of have approved. Writing as he did in the late furniture design, for here, too. thinking has sixties, he could never have envisaged the changed. It was inevitable that fashions would tremendous boom that was to take place in the change since 1970, and no craftsman can afford crafts, nor how this was to spread so rapidly to ignore fashion, whether he wishes to follow around the world. In particular, the craft of its dictates or not. But more important than the furniture making as practised in small work changes in fashion has been the emergence of shops is now more healthy, relevant and such strong influences as the American school exciting than at any time since the turn of the of craft furniture making, led by such inter century. national figures as Wendell Castle and James We no longer have to apologize for working Krenov, and magazines, such as Fine in wood, for using hand skills and traditional Woodworking in the United States; the rise, joints, nor for stressing quality and individuality too. of the Crafts Council in Britain, and the or any of the other qualities of the individual influence of such household names as John craftsman. These are now so widely recognized Makepeace. Habitat and MFI; and lately in that I have purposely shifted the emphasis in Europe, as a climax to a decade of Italian this book even further towards the self- domination of the industrial and contract employed craftsman and away from industry, furniture scene, the impact of Memphis design. not from any feeling of antipathy to the latter, All these influences have combined to throw but simply because, just as the craftsman has wider open than ever before that thorny moved on these past fifteen years, so too has the question—what is good design? In 1970 it was furniture industry. Streamlined and increasing somewhat easier to answer that in Britain. ly international, so much of its technology and People tended to look to the Council of marketing techniques is far removed from the Industrial Design and its London Design Centre message this book has to give and Joyce himself to give us the answer. But the public was was so anxious to impart. becoming bored with acres of clinical, flush If much has changed in regard to the status of veneered doors and surfaces, and craftsmen too the craftsman and the role of industry, many began to question the relevance of industrial other things have not. Many of the skills and design to their own work, where they were using techniques practised in workshops today vary low scale technology and designing not for a little from those of centuries ago. The hand mass market with all the restrictions imposed by tools we use daily differ little from those of 15 or the production line, but for individuals and for even 150 years ago. What has changed. themselves. Thus there has been a reaction against the gimmickry is thrown up side by side with much anonymity of much of the industrial furniture of that excites and stimulates, and there is a sense the early 1970s, and a greater emphasis on of expectancy in the craft field that makes individual creative work amongst craftsmen, furniture making no longer one of our weaker and, more generally, a wider use of colour and surviving crafts, but one of the strongest and decoration in the furniture in our shops. most vibrant. The result in 1987 is that furniture design is Alan Peters very much in the melting pot. Some worthless 1987 Introduction to the first edition Any textbook concerned with the techniques of out of hand for sooner or later we shall be forced furniture-making must deal primarily with the to come to terms with the leisure automation basic handcrafts for it is upon this groundwork will increasingly thrust upon us. Handwork, that machine production is built, and in fact all whether it be sawing a piece of wood or shaping the machine can ever do is to translate the a lump of clay, is one answer, and no apologia is essential hand operations into rotary needed. movements of the cutting tool. In effect, therefore, mechanised production is no more than a speeding up of hand production, Scope of the work simplifying wherever possible but not radically Terms in daily use often stretch their meanings interfering with methods which have taken over and the expression 'handmade" can no longer be 4000 years to perfect, for wood is a natural accepted as signifying only that work which is material and imposes its own strict limitations. produced exclusively by hand-methods without Where other forms of material are concerned recourse to the machine. Instead, it must now techniques can of course differ, and not doubt in be taken as more descriptive of the approach the future both plastics and metal will usurp than the means adopted, and a fair much of the importance of wood, but it is hardly interpretation would include pure hand likely that it will be altogether supplanted, at methods and those other methods which enlist least in the foreseeable future, for quite apart the help of the machine without allowing it to from aesthetic values it is still the cheapest dictate in any way. The inherent danger of mass medium; it can be worked with the simplest production is that costly and complex hand tools and is always easily repairable. To machinery is always greedy for output in order those pundits, therefore, who may claim that to justify its existence, and it will tend to impose the teaching of hand skills is no longer relevant limitations on the designer and actively in this day and age it can be pointed out that influence his work. In the so-called 'handwork' anyone who has only been shown how to force a no such limitation is permissible and man piece of wood against a mechanised saw will continues to be the master, using the machine as have learnt very little, but if he has had to saw- an extension of his hands only and not as an that piece of wood by hand he will be more independent entity liable at any time to likely to know that much more about it, he will question his decisions. It is with this 'handwork' have greater respect for it and will understand in and with this 'machine-assisted work' that the greater depth the problems that will have to be book is chiefly concerned and not with the faced in its manipulation. mechanics of quantity production which belong Additional to this need for all machine more properly to the theory of wood machining, operators to know their material and how best it a subject which calls for a high degree of can be shaped are questions of quality, not only engineering skill. Having made the point, the in the artefact, but also of the artificer himself. term "handmade' is retained failing a more Actuating a lever all day long is soul destroying, comprehensive description. and modern civilisation must eventually deal The general term 'cabinet-maker' is also with the inherent problems the machine outdated, for so-called "cabinet-work' is no imposes. Handwork allows a man to express his longer confined to straight carcase furniture, own individuality; it is creative, it is definitely with chair-making and other special activities as therapeutic. The ideal of more handwork, more separate trades. Moreover, the Furniture individual fulfilment, less automation of both Industry increasingly uses plastics, plastic man and machine may be economically laminates, metal sections, and many other new impracticable, but it should not be dismissed materials, all of which the cabinet-maker should know about, and he should be prepared to is usually strong, sturdy and not so intimately undertake any work within the general context concerned with appearance, whereas the of 'Furniture', with the possible exception of cabinet-maker's approach is towards deep upholstery and hand and spray polishing, compactness, lightness and delicacy of both of which require other aptitudes and treatment. In self-contained, free-standing training. The tendency, therefore, is to replace furniture there is no doubt as to the more the term 'cabinet-maker' with the more suitable type of craftsman, but a good deal of comprehensive 'furniture-maker', but custom fixed church-work, panelled work and dies hard and both terms must be regarded as particularly built-in fitments could be done synonymous. equally well by either and it is difficult to draw It remains to define what precisely is meant sharp demarcations. In substance, however, the by furniture as distinct from joiners' work. The book is concerned with furniture only, which traditional sharp division between the two types includes chair-work and those types of built-in of craftsmen has to some extent disappeared fitments which are designed to replace free and is now more a matter of approach than standing furniture. It excludes such things as anything, for each follows the same principles of shop fitting, museum- and ship-work, etc., as construction and both have the same basic specialist trades outside its province. skills. Joiners' work which is normally Ernest Joyce considered to be part of the fabric of a building 1970