Читать книгу Great Book of Shop Drawings for Craftsman Furniture, Revised & Expanded Second Edition - Robert W. Lang - Страница 5

It has been my good fortune to spend nearly all of my adult life earning my living by working with wood. The idea for this book actually came to me quite some time ago, but it was always on the “someday” list. Like most woodworkers, it takes me a while to get around to the big ones.

My first introduction to Craftsman-style furniture was in the late-1970s, and my appreciation and fascination with this style has only grown over the years. At that time, I was still in the “eager-apprentice, soak-up-as-much-information-as-I-possibly-can” phase of my career, and some of my favorite sources were books of drawings of furniture, particularly Ejner Handberg’s books on Shaker furniture and Gustave Ecke’s book on Chinese furniture. The drawings in those books taught me as much or more about styles, design, and techniques than any of the other sources available to me. I kept expecting that someday someone would produce a book of drawings for Craftsman furniture.

Years passed and the book I wanted to see never appeared and I realized I should go ahead and do it myself. I began by scaling the illustrations in reproduction catalogs, then producing working drawings by hand from that. During the process, I read all I could find about how these pieces were constructed, and took every available opportunity to observe and study actual pieces.

This is more or less the process used to produce these drawings, although it was simplified by the personal computer and AutoCAD software. I scan as many photographs and drawings of original pieces as I can find into AutoCAD, and adjust their size to full scale. Then it becomes a matter of making a mechanical drawing from a perspective image. Details are zoomed in and measured, and then compared to known dimensions from pieces I have measured, similar pieces, or published information. Combined with my experience in the industry, and research on this type of furniture, a relatively accurate shop drawing is then produced.

These drawings are close to the originals but not perfect. There are places where I have had to make educated guesses as to the exact size of a part. Usually my guesses are very close, and many of the pieces in this book that were originally drawn from photographs were later measured and the accuracy of the process was confirmed. In some ways, I think the imperfections are a good thing.

The intent of this book is to give the average woodworker or devotee of Craftsman furniture the ability to produce, for his or her own pleasure, pieces of furniture that represent the style and spirit of the originals. It is not intended to be an aid to anyone attempting to fool the collector’s market by passing off new work as antiques. If your intent is to commit such fraud, please look elsewhere for an accomplice. I urge everyone building furniture from these drawings to sign and date their work to avoid future confusion.

The other issue of accuracy comes from the original pieces, which can vary from one example to another. Not everyone measures furniture the same way. An antiques dealer or catalog copywriter without training in woodworking may ignore some of “those funny little marks” between the inches, or may not hold the tape measure squarely. Some consider the height of a dresser to be to the top surface; others measure to a piece of back trim.

The nature of wood and woodworking are also sources of variations. Solid wood expands and contracts as humidity and temperature change. If two identical pieces of furniture leave the factory, they likely won’t be exactly the same size after a hundred years, particularly if one has been taken care of and one has been abused. At an auction I saw three examples of Roycroft “Little Journeys” stands. All three tops had different dimensions, varying about half an inch from the smallest to the largest. All were authentic, yet which one was the right size? None matched the dimensions in reference books and auction catalogs.

Factory-made furniture is generally produced in “cuttings”—the amount the manufacturer believes will sell over the next few months. All of the parts for that number of pieces will be milled and stored to be assembled as orders come in. It is common to adjust sizes and make minor changes from one cutting to another, for reasons of appearance, improving productivity or yield, or to utilize a new piece of machinery. If someone makes a mistake and produces a batch of parts that are not quite the proper size, those parts most likely will not be thrown out—they will be used. Many of these pieces were in production for several years, and underwent quite a few minor changes.

While I have tried to be true to the originals, the original pieces themselves don’t always match previously published information about them. The answer to the question of “how accurate are these drawings” depends on all of the above factors. They are accurate enough for today’s worker to build a very nice, structurally sound piece of furniture, which will be recognized as a Craftsman piece. They are true to the style, and that is not only the best we can do today, but also the best that Stickley himself ever did.