Hand cut dovetails in sapele

[Jacob]

You know what Einstein once said, Mike: Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds

It's OK don't worry about me I'm used to violent opposition!

 

[cowfoot]

This thread has taken a few interesting twists and turns!

For what it's worth, Kirkham's "London Furniture Trade 1700-1870" points out that individual makers were on the absolute bottom rung of production, making items from substandard materials and having to hawk them around for a very low price. Georgian furniture of high quality, it seems, was a collaborative effort involving at least some degree of specialisation.

 

[Jacob]

This thread has taken a few interesting twists and turns!

For what it's worth, Kirkham's "London Furniture Trade 1700-1870" points out that individual makers were on the absolute bottom rung of production, making items from substandard materials and having to hawk them around for a very low price. Georgian furniture of high quality, it seems, was a collaborative effort involving at least some degree of specialisation.

it's pretty obvious really. Having designed the stuff and printed the directory you aren't going to sit around staring at a piece of wood waiting for orders! There'd be some finished stock of best sellers and for display, and a great deal of material in various stages of preparation, perhaps ready to be adapted to different design options.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

The coming of the railways in the 1850s and '60s changed furnituremaking a lot, by making distribution easier. Prior to that, furniture tended to be built and repaired close to where it was used, often using timber sourced locally.

There was scope for some specialisation and batch production in larger towns, especially London, which was by some margin the biggest market in the country. It can't necessarily be assumed that London practices of the 18th and early 19th century were typical, however; in a small market town away from London and the major ports, the local carpenter would have dealt with all manner of wood work; house and commercial carpentry, undertaking, wagon repair and furniture making, along with just about anything else wooden needed in the area. There wouldn't have been much sense in batch production for such businesses, since just about every job would be a one-off. Worth reading 'The Village Carpenter' by Walter Rose for a flavour of such a business.

That would reflect in techniques used. Country furniture tended to carry on using techniques long after they were superceded in fashionable London work. We've already heard about nailed drawer bottoms, but the same applies to other features as well.

 

[Trafalgar]

Alan Peters, in Cabinetmaking, the Professional Approach, refers in several passages to certain items being 'best sellers' and other words to that effect. Once you've put people on the payroll they need to be doing something and that something usually means building for least a little bit of salable inventory. Perhaps they didn't build until they had an actual order in hand, but it's clear he sold the same or essentially the same designs repeatedly, though clearly along with special one-off orders too.

 

[woodbrains]

Alan Peters, in Cabinetmaking, the Professional Approach, refers in several passages to certain items being 'best sellers' and other words to that effect. Once you've put people on the payroll they need to be doing something and that something usually means building for least a little bit of salable inventory. Perhaps they didn't build until they had an actual order in hand, but it's clear he sold the same or essentially the same designs repeatedly, though clearly along with special one-off orders too.

Hello,

Yes, this is true and even one man outfits will have items repeated in a batch production. But the quality would be maintained. Alan Peters made English piston fit drawers with slips and fine dovetails (sometimes mortice and tenon at the back) in much the same as Custard has illustrated here. No nailed in drawer bottoms, overcut dovetails or any sloppiness anywhere. High standards remained, batch produced or bespoke.

Mike.

 

[Trafalgar]

No doubt, but within a certain range of production quality and consistency improve rather than decline.

 

[Jacob]

..... Country furniture tended to carry on using techniques long after they were superceded in fashionable London work. ....

Couldn't be wronger. Innovation came from the 'country' and ended up in London (maybe). Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Sheraton were all form oop north.
The main driving force for innovation would be ship building - a massive industry with many spin offs.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Most 'cabinetmaking' techniques (as opposed to 'joinery') were developed in continental Europe, and brought to England by continental craftsmen. They went were the fashionable market was - London - and the techniques they brought (veneering, inlay, marquetry, Boulle work, French polishing etc) filtered out to the provinces over many decades.

I know you like to provoke an argument by posting any old bull, but even by your standards the claim that shipbuilding drove furniture design is pretty laughable.

 

[Jacob]

Most 'cabinetmaking' techniques (as opposed to 'joinery') were developed in continental Europe, and brought to England by continental craftsmen. They went were the fashionable market was - London - and the techniques they brought (veneering, inlay, marquetry, Boulle work, French polishing etc) filtered out to the provinces over many decades.

I know you like to provoke an argument by posting any old bull, but even by your standards the claim that shipbuilding drove furniture design is pretty laughable.

Ship building drove timber technology and developed woodworking skills. The skills would have filtered back into building architecture and furniture making. You can still see the influence in shop fronts and buildings in coastal towns with a ship building tradition.

In their day ships were the biggest and most complex wooden artefacts ever made, compared to which the decorative fiddlings about of cabinet makers was trivial stuff.

Coincidence - but in many ways the last vestiges of the great tradition of British woodworking was local to me in the carriage and wagon works of British Rail in Derby.

 

[woodbrains]

..... Country furniture tended to carry on using techniques long after they were superceded in fashionable London work. ....

Couldn't be wronger. Innovation came from the 'country' and ended up in London (maybe). Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Sheraton were all form oop north.
The main driving force for innovation would be ship building - a massive industry with many spin offs.

Hello,

There is a paradox here, that cannot be explained, except by the fact your statement is beyond stupid. If innovation came from the country, what exactly is 'country vernacular furniture?'

Mike.

 

[Jacob]

..... Country furniture tended to carry on using techniques long after they were superceded in fashionable London work. ....

Couldn't be wronger. Innovation came from the 'country' and ended up in London (maybe). Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Sheraton were all form oop north.
The main driving force for innovation would be ship building - a massive industry with many spin offs.

Hello,

There is a paradox here, that cannot be explained, except by the fact your statement is beyond stupid. If innovation came from the country, what exactly is 'country vernacular furniture?'

Mike.

Good question. Vernacular furniture is by definition 'local'. Not sure if there is a London vernacular - they generally borrowed everything from the regions. If you want to know about it have a look at https://regionalfurnituresociety.org/
If you want to understand a bit more about furniture design have a look at some of the books about regional styles - Richard Bebb, Claudia Kinmonth etc. Good place to start!

NB London had little influence on 'vernacular' styles - it was the other way around. As i said Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Sheraton were all regional, not to mention Mackintosh, and so on. The London-centric tendency is very strong but quite ill informed.

Hope that helps. :lol:

PS the Beatles came from Liverpool - I bet you didn't know that!

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Wow, Jacob do you even know what a rhetorical question is?

Mike.

 

[Jacob]

Hello,

Wow, Jacob do you even know what a rhetorical question is?

Mike.

If it was rhetorical you'd have to explain what you meant by your term 'country vernacular' as it doesn't quite mean anything to me.

 

[Jacob]

Another great driving force of craft and design innovation was of course the church (and the chapel). Not just the buildings but right down to the details of furniture, music, art etc. We can still see this in surviving buildings which some might be surprised to find aren't all in London.
In fact if you bother to look you find that that things were being made/built all over the place including the colonies, with creativity and originality wherever the opportunity arose.

 

[AndyT]

When looking at exterior paint and judging how well it has lasted, I find it's important to consider the aspect.
For instance, the front of our house is in shadow most of the time. The original woodwork and the paint last very well. Before I take all the credit for it, I need to compare it with the back of the house, which gets full sun plus wind and rain. The work I have done there doesn't last nearly so well. Probably the paint maker's fault.

 

[Jacob]

Try linseed oil paint on the south side. It's extremely durable, though colours will fade faster than modern paints.
I've been doing a ten year test on a very exposed south facing shed door. Ledge braced and battened hence not ideal for paint. So far it has not lost the tiniest flake of linseed oil paint, but the previous 'properly done' paint job was lifting off really badly after two years.
Hope that helps!

 

[AndyT]

Woops, I seem to have replied to the wrong hobby horse.
I hope I won't upset anyone by doing so.

 

[cowfoot]

..... Country furniture tended to carry on using techniques long after they were superceded in fashionable London work. ....

Couldn't be wronger. Innovation came from the 'country' and ended up in London (maybe). Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Sheraton were all form oop north.
The main driving force for innovation would be ship building - a massive industry with many spin offs.

Even if you accept that innovation came from the country (a proposition that contradicts pretty much all economic and social history), the transmission and adoption of that innovation would have been impossible outside of urban areas. Cities are the seedbed of technology, ever since Ur.
You should read some Adam Smith, or perhaps Pepys if you're interested in how a Londoner can influence shipbuilding!

 

[Jacob]

..... Country furniture tended to carry on using techniques long after they were superceded in fashionable London work. ....

Couldn't be wronger. Innovation came from the 'country' and ended up in London (maybe). Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Sheraton were all form oop north.
The main driving force for innovation would be ship building - a massive industry with many spin offs.

Even if you accept that innovation came from the country (a proposition that contradicts pretty much all economic and social history), the transmission and adoption of that innovation would have been impossible outside of urban areas. Cities are the seedbed of technology, ever since Ur.
You should read some Adam Smith, or perhaps Pepys if you're interested in how a Londoner can influence shipbuilding!

That's a bit obscure. If the transmission would be impossible how would it find it's way out of the cities to influence the country bumpkins?
My point is that creative talent was at work everywhere there was human activity. Much of it would drift to the cities as that is where the money is to be made.
Historically the biggest 'seedbeds of technology' in Britain were water powered early mills and the iron and coal fields - all of which got going in rural areas nowhere near cities. I happen to live not far from Arkwright's Cromford/Matlock mills - arguably the first 'factories' in the world, and not associated with any city. The early ironwork used here came from Telford and Coalbrookdale, also nowhere near a city. Not only did innovation travel widely - so did the product; massive cast iron beams cross country horse drawn on rough roads.
Another local innovator/designer was a gardener at Chatsworth (Paxton) who came up with some greenhouse designs which eventually lead to the Crystal Palace - a major step in the development of modern architecture.
This was just up the road from me and built before the Crystal Palace and nowhere near any city: