Roubo on Furniture

[DoctorWibble]

One big disadvantage Roubo has versus contemporary teachers is that he didn't make any videos. That is reason enough to avoid using Roubo as a learning resource. Hayward makes up for a similar deficit by writing in very clear modern English (well very clear fifties English which is arguably better still) and providing lots of very good drawings.
Schwarz meanwhile is first and foremost a professional journalist. As such he will rarely allow nuance or fact to get in the way of a pithily expressed opinion. He should be read with extreme caution.

 

[swagman]

Schwarz meanwhile is first and foremost a professional journalist. As such he will rarely allow nuance or fact to get in the way of a pithily expressed opinion. He should be read with extreme caution.

Well said Doc.

 

[G S Haydon]

Relief! You could prove that maybe as many as 10 people were? Excellent work!

 

[D_W]

What's even more funny is that you want to use a few links on an old forum to prove that Schwarz was not responsible as a catalyst for the Roubo explosion.

Good $DEITY, No! That was indeed Schwarz, no question.

I was attempting to address D_W's statement that he only knew of two people who had read or quoted Roubo before the 2008 reprint.

BugBear

So, I didn't read the oldtools list at the time (I was subscribed to it for a short period of time, but it's not exactly efficient). .02% of all woodworkers everywhere are on the old tools list and were aware of roubo. Well after George and Warren and at less depth. Perhaps Don McConnell and some others were as versed as George and Warren.

Somehow that is extrapolated to "science skeptics" and "all americans".

No wonder Jacob finds it so much fun to wind you up.

 

[bugbear]

I think Roubo was and is a pretty well known source for anyone interested on the history of woodworking techniques;
there simply aren't many pre 1800 sources, so the ones that do exist are famous (c.f. Moxon).

It happens that OLDTOOLs (probably due to Roy Underhill's show) had a good number
of historically minded people.

A more general point; does anyone know what proportion of woodworks are on a forum/mailing list/facebook group?

Following this argument, I've been wondering how representative internet discussions/fashions/trends are.

Is the discussion of Roubo (and his benches) still limited to a few obscure forums, and it only seems
common-place to people on those forums (e.g. this one!)?

BugBear

 

[D_W]

LV suggested a couple of years ago that 10% of their sales were to individuals who read forums, etc. Here in the states, we have local woodworking clubs (as I'm sure you do) in any reasonably large city, and some in smaller areas.

I went to one of them here, and I got no indication that anyone there reads forums. They go to the club weekly meetings instead, and to some extent, the club is a lot more functional (there are two sawyers who deliver wood bi-weekly, custom sawn to what you want and lower than the cost of coin sorter mill wood that's sold at millwork and hardwood stores around here).

The focus at the club here is power tools. There is one instructor here who teaches basic sharpening and plane-setup, etc, and then teaches other classes in furniture building, but hand tools are a fitting-only tool, and he instructs his students to:
* avoid buying expensive premium tools
* use the tools to get things fitted, or do rough preparation of surfaces
* finish surfaces with sanding
* stay away from online forums and blogs because the information on them is too inconsistent and often conflicting

I showed him a couple of my planes (he bought my old bench for his students), and then showed him the use of the double iron (after sharpening with a washita), which he thought was bizarre.

Point being, I've run into a lot of people who work wood around here, but not a single other person with a significant hand tool focus. I have seen a lot of premium hand tools bought by power tool woodworkers, though, and then left to sit in their boxes.

I'd bet the forums represent far less than 10% of woodworkers, even if they represent 10% of LVs sales.

 

[DoctorWibble]

I think I read somewhere a claim (from a magazine publisher) that there were around six million amateur woodworkers in the US.
The proportion actively engaged in hand work is unknown (or not published) but can be gauged from the scale of the businesses which make their tools. Private US companies don't publish figures but judged from advertising spend (a decent proxy) businesses like Powermatic are many times larger than LN or Veritas. Beyond those "big" two hand tool manufacturing appears to be little more than cottage industry and boutique makers.
If Sellers is to be believed though hand tool interest is on the rise. He claims a couple of millions hits a year on his blog. As for the upcoming Roubo reprint I'd expect there will be only one print run, notwithstanding the involvement of Schwarz.

 

[G S Haydon]

I'd disagree BB, I'm not sure how much Roubo was referenced before Schwarz. Of course it was used as a reference point by some, but the language barrier is a big stumbling block for the largest woodworking market. Since MR S used his influence as an editor of a mainstream magazine the interest really kicked off. I'd think Hayward would prove a much more likely recourse, thanks in large part to the language and how the tools are more in line with what most of us would use.

There are now also online courses that you can buy into, high end bench fittings and even high dollar weeks away making your very own Roubo. I didn't notice any of that before his work.

I would agree with DrW that perhaps it might be limited to one print run, however the fan base of the ATC would be likely to invest, and ATC has popular for a while now.

 

[bugbear]

I'd disagree BB, I'm not sure how much Roubo was referenced before Schwarz. Of course it was used as a reference point by some, but the language barrier is a big stumbling block for the largest woodworking market

Oh heartily agreed, Schwarz has made a new audience, much larger than the old audience.

But there was an old audience.

BugBear

 

[Corneel]

I reckon that Roubo always has been a primary source for historians. Just like the encyclopedia of Diderot for example. There are many like minded encyclopdia's and dictionaries from that period when people sudenly wanted to know everything and wanted to document the world around them. I have an 18th century copy of Berkhey, The Natural History of Holland. If I wanted to know everything about farming in the 18th century in Holland, I could dive into these 12 volumes. Historians are very well aware off the imense amount of information in these kinds of books.

But Schwarz, and of course Don Williams more in the background, made it popular among us, simple hobbyist woodworkers. And I think it enrichens us.

 

[Droogs]

from the research I've been doing over the last couple of years about marquetry/veneer covered furniture and getting to grips with truely traditional processes, speaking to a lot of the curators and restorers in various museums around Europe. It seems that as a written scource Roubo is heavily used but for actual examples people seem to look to Reissener or Roentgen for Louis XVI style stuff.