The Old House Blog

An Artist's Look at The Landing's Cabinet Shop

2011-12-18T19:17:00.009-06:00

Every year The Landing, a living history museum in Shakopee, MN, celebrates the holidays by holding the Folkways of the Holidays. This event is held on weekends in December and shows visitors how Christmas and Hanukkah were celebrated on the Minnesota frontier during the 19th century. My friends Kevin Alto, Dave Winter and I are always on hand to man the cabinet shop and demonstrate how woodcraft used to be done during the good ol' days. Dave, the shop's Scandinavian flat carver/instrument repairman/fiddler/bowl turner and general entertainer, has developed yet another trade: watercolors. This weekend he captured the essence of yours truly as I busily worked away on a small hanging cupboard.

Here I am at the bench cutting some dovetails on the cupboard's carcass.

Here I am "repairing" a 19th century glide rocking chair with
what appears to be a medieval battle axe.

I think it looks just like me, though I usually only use my battle axe on larger projects.

Thanks Dave! I've never looked better!

Tin Cans and House Paint in the 19th Century

2011-11-05T14:42:00.010-05:00

Once in a while a seemingly simple invention or discovery ends up having significant and wide-ranging consequences. One example is the tin can. Today tin cans are so common that we give them little thought, but after the Civil War they were a novelty that truly revolutionized commerce, diet and made the new consumer society possible. Among the many industries that cans changed was the production and marketing of house paint, as they made it possible for the owners of Victorian homes and professionals alike from all across the country to buy ready-mixed and colored paints.

At the beginning of the 19th century house paint had to be prepared by mixing ingredients such linseed oil, white lead, turpentine, driers and pigments. Some of these ingredients were often only available in bulk containers such as wooden casks or barrels while the coloring pigments had to be ground by hand. This made it difficult for homeowners to mix small batches of paint for jobs around the house. However, during the Victorian era tin cans not only made it possible for professional painters and homeowners to buy smaller amounts of paint, the paint was of better quality. Since canned paints were mixed in factories in bulk, the quality was more consistent. Whereas the color and consistency of hand mixed paints always varied slightly depending on the amounts and quality of the ingredients, commercial, ready-mixed paints were uniform. Commercial manufacturers used pigments that were finely ground by mills so the colors were even. National brands such as Sherwin-Williams and John Lucas & Co. tested their different ingredients so they could avoid adulterated pigments and additives that were common on the consumer market.

The John Lucas & Co. of Gibbsboro, NJ was one of the innovators during the last half of the 19th century and was among the first to package house paint in tin cans. Founded in 1852 by the Englishman John Lucas, the company developed new pigments, improved the production process of white lead and was a pioneer in prepared and ready-mixed paints.

This can of Indian red paint from around 1880 is an early example of John Lucas's ready-to-use paint. The soldered lid was removed with a can opener and the contents poured into a bucket. After additional boiled linseed oil was added to thin the paint, the professional painter or homeowner could brush it on the walls, ceilings and millwork. Since the top was soldered, the can could not be resealed (Henry Sherwin patented the first resealable can in 1877) and all the paint had either to be used or the remainder stored in an airtight container.

A ca 1880 paint can (still full of paint).

Top of the paint can showing its soldered lid.

Although this little can might not look like much, it represents a revolution in the way house paint and hundreds of other products were marketed and used during the last half of the 19th century. Small innovations certainly can have large and lasting consequences.

The Greek Revival: America's First National Building Style

2011-09-17T23:14:00.009-05:00

The Greek Revival has always been my favorite American building style. I find its simplicity appealing while its strength and solidity remind me of the growing confidence and wealth of the new republic. The Greek Revival was significant because it was America's first national style. Although based on a European precedents, it was unique to America and was found coast-to-coast during the first half of the 19th century. This popularity was due principally to the widespread use of several pattern books, including Minard Lafever's The Modern Builder's Guide (New York, 1833) and Asher Benjamin's Practical House Carpenter: Being a Complete Development of the Grecian Orders of Architecture (Boston, 1830). These pattern books were written for carpenters and house joiners who used the books' descriptions and lithographic plates as models for their own designs.

The Greek Revival was a favorite with the burgeoning East Coast merchant class. The Whipple House of Salem, MA was built in 1843 and is a classic example of the new style. Jonathan Whipple prospered after he established a factory in Salem around 1835 which sorted and processed copal, an African resin which was used to make furniture and maritime varnish.

The house has several features typical of the Greek Revival, including Doric pilasters at the corners, a recessed doorway with rectangular sidelights and transom, and a wide entablature running the length of the front. The trim around the front door is particularly striking and closely resembles a plate from Asher Benjamin's book Practical House Carpenter.


Jonathan Whipple House, Salem, MA, 1843

The Ard Godfrey House was built in 1849 and is the oldest remaining frame building in Minneapolis, MN. Godfrey was a millwright who moved with his family from Maine after Franklin Steele, a prosperous speculator and mill owner, asked him to construct a sawmill at the Saint Anthony Falls. Godfrey was one of the first permanent settlers around Minneapolis and is notable for being the first to bring dandelions seeds to the area.

The proportions and shape of the Godfrey House resemble those of the Whipple. The house is symmetrical with a similarly pitched roof. However, its ornament is less bold. The Godfrey House has Doric pilasters like the Whipple, but they are narrower and molding on the capitals is simpler and less prominent. The front door is not recessed but has rectangular sidelights and is framed by a temple-like door surround with two pilasters and a simple but strong entablature. The Godfrey has a simple frieze board along the top of the wall rather than the Whipple's more elaborate entablature.

Ard Godfrey House, Minneapolis, MN, 1849.

Although these houses were built over a 1000 miles apart, they share many characteristic features of the Greek Revival. As such, the Godfrey and Whipple houses are excellent examples which show the national character of the building style.

Selecting Doors for your Historic Home

2011-05-29T19:45:00.013-05:00

One frequently neglected step when restoring a Victorian home is the selection of millwork that is appropriate for the building's age and style. This includes interior and exterior doors, which are often hastily chosen after thumbing through a catalog or browsing in a showroom. Few salespeople in home centers or millwork outlets know the differences between building styles such as Queen Anne, Greek Revival, or Eastlake and are unable to help homeowners make informed decisions. The result is doors that look out of place and detract greatly from the character of a historic home.

If you are considering replacing doors one of the first steps should be to identify the age of the originals. Around 1700, frame and panel doors appeared in America and quickly replaced board and batten doors in all but the most rustic buildings. Frame and panel doors are the type we see all around us today. They are composed of vertical boards called stiles, two or more horizontal pieces called rails and a number of floating panels fitted into grooves.

Frame and panel door from The Practical Woodworker, Bernard E. Jones, ed., showing stiles, rails, panels and the mortise and tenon joinery.

One way to determine the age of a door is to find out whether it was hand-made by a house joiner (a joiner is the 19th century version of a finish carpenter who made and installed doors, windows, molding, stair parts, etc.) or was machine-made in a factory. Before about 1850 much millwork was still made by hand using saws, special planes and chisels. Hand-made doors from this era have a few characteristics that make them relatively easy to spot.

Hand-made doors often had pinned mortise and tenon joints where the tenon was secured in the mortise pocket with a round or square wooden pin. Joiners frequently used a technique called "draw boring" where a hole was bored through the mortise and tenon for a pin, but the hole in the tenon was bored slightly off to the side. When the pin was driven through the mortise and tenon it pulled the joint together very tightly.

Circa 1855 door with two pins securing its tenon in mortise.

Another way to identify hand- made doors is to look at the way the panels were raised (for an explanation of panel raising using hand tools, look at this earlier post). Hand-made door panels from the Federal, Greek Revival, and Gothic Revival styles often show tool marks that indicate which tools were used to make them. Hand planes often leave subtle marks called "tracks" where there is a line left by the edge of the plane's cutting iron. These marks are especially visible in flatter, Greek revival doors where the cross-grain and long-grain meet at the corners of panels. The edges on the raised fields of the panels are usually square rather than rounded (which was common on later, machine-made doors).

The faint horizontal lines on this ca. 1853 door were made by the edges of a plane iron when the joiner raised the panels. Note also the square edges on the raised panel field.

Planes marks can also been seen on the molding profiles, or sticking, in the rails and stiles surrounding the panels. Unlike machine-made molding, which is perfectly even, hand-made molding sometimes will have slight variations, chatter around twisted grain, and the occasional "tracks".

Industrialization quickly changed the way millwork was produced in the U.S. Aside from isolated, rural areas, most doors produced after the Civil War were either machine-made or a combination of machine and hand work. Steam powered factory equipment was well suited to the production of stock doors as it eliminated the need to pay legions of craftsmen to cut, saw and plane hundreds of rails, stiles, mortises, tenons and molding.

One easy way to identify machine-made doors is to look at the ends of the tenons. Rather than securing the mortise and tenon joints with pins, machine-made doors usually have two wedges driven into the ends of the tenons. This causes the ends of the tenons to fan out slightly and hold the joint together. Although wedging was done by joiners, pinning was more common in early hand work.

Although difficult to see under 120 years of encrusted paint, wedges have been driven into the ends of the tenon to secure it in the mortise slot of this ca. 1870 door.

Another feature of machine made doors is the coped joints. Machines that cut the molding in rails and stiles had two cutting heads: one struck the molded profile that was visible and another struck its exact opposite or negative. This allowed the joints to fit together, where the oppositely struck piece was able to fit snugly over positively molded section. This is the way doors are machined today.

The right piece is the stile with a machined cut molding profile. The left piece is the rail with a machine cut coping profile, which is struck as a negative of the molding and fits snugly over the positive profile.

There are exceptions to this, however, as some plane manufacturers did make coping planes that were paired with door and sash molding planes. These struck the opposite of the molding profile just as machines did. However, these planes are rarely found today, suggesting they weren't used often. When they were used, they were normally used to produce the muntins on windows.

I hope this quick primer will help you determine the age of interior and exterior doors. Knowing these details will allow you select replacements that are appropriate for the age and style of your home. The next step is to select the door configuration, including the number and arrangement of panels, the type of sticking or molding, and the dimensions of the rails and stiles. If you are unsure what configuration you need, consult with a competent professional who is familiar with Victorian homes.

The Greek Revival

2011-03-05T13:05:00.005-06:00

Most architectural historians recognize the Greek Revival or Grecian Style as the first “national” building style in America. Although based upon classical Greek designs, many aspects of the new Grecian Style were peculiar to America and so is thought of as a truly indigenous, American creation.

Interest in Greek art and design grew following an expedition to Greece in 1751 led by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett. Stuart and Revett began publishing a multi-volume work The Antiquities of Athens in 1762 which contained hundreds of engravings depicting the ancient monuments in Athens. Antiquities of Athens stimulated interest in Greek architecture and influenced the first generation of American architects, including Benjamin Latrobe, whose designs included the Bank of Philadelphia, and Alexander Jackson Davis, who designed the New York customs house .

Greek designs were later popularized by pattern books and carpenter’s guides, including The Modern Builder’s Guide by Minard Lafever and The Practical House Carpenter by Asher Benjamin. The new style began to be applied to more commonplace buildings such as middle class homes and farmhouses. Interest in the Grecian Style was further heightened by the Greek War of Independence fought againt the Ottoman Empire. Many Americans, who associated earlier Georgian style and Roman classicism with England, saw much in the Greek’s struggle against the Ottomans that reminded them of their own fight for independence. As settlers moved west in the 1840s and 1850s they brought the new style with them and it became the predominant building style through the Civil War.

This ca. 1865 house in Mantorville, MN is a classic example of the Greek Revival. Builders sought to mimic a Greek temple (think of the Parthenon in Athens) by using rectangular floor plans and presenting the gable end towards the front. Classical pediments and eave returns were common and exteriors were decorated with details including Doric or Ionic columns or pilasters, wide frieze boards and ogee moulding.

The gabled front of the house. Please ignore the horrific paint colors!

The front of the house features four fluted pilasters with stylized capitals resembling Greek urns. Wide boards are applied under the eaves of the gable end and eave returns rest upon frieze blocks at each corner. Like a Greek temple, the arrangement of windows, doors and decoration is symmetrical, proportional and ordered. The affect of the house is strong and square which seems to reflect the confidence and determination of the new republic.

Close-up of the front entrance.

Greek Revival entrances often resembled miniature temple fronts. Doors were framed by pilasters or sidelights and topped by entablatures. In this case the door is flanked by fluted pilasters with stylized urn-shaped capitals identical to those found on the corners of the building front. These pilasters support a squarish entablature with a wide frieze and a molded cornice.

Detail of a pilaster, capital and frieze.

Detail of the front door.

Greek Revival doors often have four raised panels. The upper panels are sometimes elongated with wide lock rails and squat lower panels. High style examples often featured molded sticking on the rails and stiles surrounding the panels. In this case, as was common on the frontier, there is no sticking and the borders around the raised panel fields is flat rather than beveled.

Mantorville, MN is located a few miles west of Rochester, MN just off of US Highway 14. The town is well worth a visit as it has numerous, well-preserved examples of commercial and domestic architecture from the first decades of Minnesota's founding as a state.

Historic Paint Colors for the Victorian Home

2010-12-24T18:03:00.004-06:00

I was asked recently if I used colors from the historic color palettes of major paint manufactures such as Sherwin Williams during my paint consults. My answer was no. In fact, I really don't know much about these "historic" lines of paint colors because I have never had much use for them.

Unlike many of today's colorists and consultants, I do not rely on someone else to research historic paint colors and select which ones I might want to use. Instead, I do the research myself and use the same tools that homeowners did in the 19th century. This includes a collection of original advertising brochures with sample paint chips.

Below is a ca. 1900 paint brochure from the Masury Paint Company with a few of its sample chips:

Here is another, somewhat older example from the Breinig's Ready Made Paint Company:

When helping my clients select interior and exterior color schemes I start with the colors found in brochures and other period documents. I then match my selections to chips in the fan-book of a modern paint manufacturer. My client then can easily go to their local supplier and have them mix as much paint as needed.

Why go to all of this effort to pick out a few paint colors? My specialty is providing paint schemes for historic homes that are appropriate for the era when they were built. Although several modern paint manufacturers advertise a "historic" palette, they often only offer paint colors they consider most suitable to current tastes. This means some historic shades and tones might be left out. By relying on period documents I can be sure that my selections are accurate and faithful to Victorian tastes.

For information about a color consultation for your own home check out the Historic Design Consulting website.

Handmade Step Back Cupboard

2010-12-11T10:07:00.002-06:00

Each year The Landing holds an event called Early Minnesota Trades when the site invites a number of people to demonstrate authentic 19th century manual trades and crafts. For the past three years my fellow woodworker at The Landing, Kevin Alto, and I have been joined by our fellow members of the Society of American Period Furniture Makers to make a woodworking project. This year, under the direction of our fearless SAPFM leader Mike Siemsen of the Siemsen School of Woodworking, we built a typical, 19th century step-back cupboard resembling those once found in farmhouses across the country. It proved to be quite an undertaking for a weekend’s worth of work but we are all pleased with the results.

It seems every workshop needs more space to stow tools and help keep workbenches clear. In our case we needed a place to put wood planes where they are easily accessible and can be viewed by visitors. We also wanted a place to hide 21st century items like water bottles, nylon bags and our good friend Dave Winter’s Dremel (Dave is the site’s old- time instrument repairman and wood carver). Our new cupboard fits the bill quite well.

The cupboard is made of white pine using the usual dovetailed case construction. The face frame was made using mortise and tenon joints and attached with glue and square pegs. The shelves are set and nailed in dadoes and the back fitted with 1x4 ship-lap boards.

Since high-style furniture would be out of place in a workshop, our cupboard is rather plain but does feature a bit of stylish ornament. It is topped off with a nice crown consisting of a graceful cove and bead. The bottom is fitted with a dovetailed skirt with an cove planed along its top. Kevin and I finished our new piece with a couple coats of milk paint.

Like all our projects at the Landing the cupboard was made by hand using tools and 19th century techniques. This gives our furniture a distinctive look that sets it apart from modern, machine made furniture.

Why Use Hot Hide Glue?

2010-12-05T19:35:00.025-06:00

Years ago in elementary school I remember being warned not to eat my glue because it was made out of horse’s hooves. I thought this was an odd thing to tell someone since I couldn't imagine any reason to eat glue in the first place regardless of what it might be made of. Many years later I learned that my classmates weren’t quite correct. We used good old Elmer’s white glue, or polyvinyl acetate (also called PVA), which is a chemist’s concoction and contained no hooves. However, there was a time glue was indeed made from hooves, skins and other bits of connective tissue so I suppose my classmates weren’t completely off-base.

Today I use traditional hot hide glue almost exclusively both because it’s use is historically accurate to the 19th century and because it has several advantages over modern PVAs, polyurethanes and epoxies. It is reversible, cleans up easily, is non-toxic and essential for repairing antique furniture.

Hide glue is rendered from connective tissue and other parts of animals that contain lots of the protein collagen. The treated hides and other parts are boiled in large vats of water, the nasty scum skimmed away and the reaming accumulation collected and dried. During the 19th century the glue was usually shipped in small blocks but today is broken up and sold in granular form. I keep mine sealed in an air-tight container: an old mason jar.

Here is some granular hide glue up close. Since hide glue can be re-heated and re-used it once was to be the responsibility of the shop apprentice to gather up all the waste bits of glue and return them to the glue pot so nothing would be wasted.

The granular glue is soaked in cold water over night until the water is absorbed. The usual ratio of glue to water is one part glue to two parts water. Thicker or thinner glues can be cooked for certain occasions. I use a cast iron glue pot which is actually two pots in one: a smaller pot which holds the glue/water mixture and an outer jacket pot that holds water and functions like a double boiler.

I place the glue pot on our shop's wood stove until it reaches about 150 degrees. Despite being made from the skin and tendons of farm animals the hot glue has almost no odor.

Once the glue reaches the correct temperature it will become viscous, have the consistency of egg whites and can easily be applied with a brush.

One disadvantage of hide glue is its short open time. That means it sets up quickly so large glue-ups must be planned and executed quickly. Here I am doing a simple glue-up of a small table top. I apply the glue liberally to both surfaces with a glue brush. It is important to use plenty of glue and not to clamp so firmly that all of the glue is squeezed out. Sometimes urea was added to the glue to increase the open time (it is also added to liquid hide glue which you can buy in bottles) but this can weaken the glue.

I usually clamp when using hide glue because it can thicken and gell-up so you don't get a tight joint. In this case I rubbed the joint until it just began to stick and then quickly clamped the pieces. As you can see it can be a messy process but excess glue can easily be softened with a damp cloth and and then scraped away with a knife. I have dedicated an old, dinged-up chisel to the task of scraping away the gluey mess. Be sure the surfaces are warm. If they are too cool the glue will shock, or gell, and the joint will not be tight.

So, why use hide glue? Its greatest advantage is that it is reversible. Heat and warm water remove spills and messes. Reversibility is particularly important when restoring or conserving antique furniture because any work that you do can be undone later on with no damage to the piece. Epoxies, PVA and and polyeurathane glues often cannot be satisfactorily removed and can leave residue. This residue cannot be re-desolved by fresh glue meaning later glue-ups might not adhere to the old glue and result in a weak joint. Old hide glue can be scraped away quite easily or reactivated with heat or fresh hot hide glue. It is very strong and (depending on the grade of glue) creates a bond that is stronger than the wood itself. It is also compatible with stains and finishes. Since modern glues can leave residue in wood pores there are often spots and blotches when finishing. Hide glue can even adhere to glass!

Like all glues, it does have some weaknesses. It is not resistant to water, although some additives can be mixed in to make somewhat more resistant. It does not fill gaps well, meaning close-fitting joints are essential. I am convinced that most of hide glue's poor reputation comes from failures attributable to poorly fitting joints rather than problems with the glue itself. Left-over glue will deteriorate quickly if left in the pot so it is best to make just enough for your project and throw the remainder away if not used within a few days.

Even though it is all-natural and non-toxic I cannot recommend eating hide glue. But, if on a dare, make sure it is hot hide glue and not the stuff in the bottle. I hate to think where the urea might come from that is added to keep it liquid. Bon appetit!

The Berkeley Plantation

2010-02-28T14:51:00.021-06:00

In his book Architecture in the United States, Dell Upton proposes there are two themes in American architecture: The classical, which is “regular, ordered, modular, symmetrical, balanced,” and the picturesque, which is “less obviously ordered, asymmetrical, less obviously unified, often accretive.” Upton’s views echo those of E. K. Rossiter and F. A. Wright, who wrote in their 19th century guide to house painting “There are strictly speaking but two great styles of architecture, the underlying principals of which are based upon construction. One is the classical style, based upon the lintel as its chief constructive feature, and the other the medieval Gothic in which the arch is used to span openings.” Several of my posts have focused on the picturesque (see my posts below on the Cummings house and the LeDuc). In this post I will venture far from the frozen tundra of my native Minnesota and examine a wonderful example of the Neo-Classical Georgian style in tidewater Virginia.

During the 17th and 18th centuries younger sons of English peers and less prominent gentry families found it increasingly difficult to establish themselves financially and socially. Primogeniture favored the oldest sons, who were able to inherit titles and estates, leaving second and third sons with little aside from land grants in the American Colonies. Many royalists also felt threatened during the English Civil War and Interregnum, leading some to emigrate to the colonies where they sought to create a new, landed aristocracy in the wilderness.

An early example of this aristocratic migration to the New World is Berkeley Plantation. Berkeley was founded in 1619 on the north bank of the James River about 20 miles upstream from Jamestown, the first permanent, English settlement in colonial America. The estate was acquired by Benjamin Harrison III in 1691 and the mansion built in 1726 by Benjamin Harrison IV. Later inhabitants of the estate included Benjamin Harrison V, a governor of Virginia and signer of the Declaration of Independence, and William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison, both of whom would become president.

Constructed with bricks fired on the plantation, the building was designed in the Georgian Style. The Georgian Style reflects its classical heritage, where symmetry and order are the rule. The front of the house is perfectly balanced and centers on a pedimented, 8-panel front door (sadly obscured by an ugly, steel storm door). The bricks are patterned in the Flemish bond, where courses are composed of alternating headers and stretchers. Brick was favored in the Middle Colonies and the Flemish bond was characteristic of Georgian style.

The cornice features heavy molding and dentils, which are more prominent than those found on the more refined Federal Style homes of the early 1800s. Try to ignore the ugly, aluminum storm window!

The gable end also shows the characteristic classical pediment with heavy, projecting molding and dentils. Also common on grand Georgian homes in the Middle Colonies are paired interior chimneys.

Berkeley Plantation is open daily for tours during the summer and is located at 12602 Harrison Landing Road, Charles City VA 23030, which is just off of Route 5 between Richmond and Williamsburg, VA.

How to Repair a Split in a Wood Door Panel

2009-10-03T18:40:00.024-05:00

A common problem with older wood doors is split panels. Wooden panels were typically fitted into grooves plowed in the door rails and stiles and left to float so they could expand and contract without binding and splitting (for a primer on making wooden panels, see my last post). However, varnish, wax and dirt can build up over the years and stick the panel in place so it isn’t able to expand and contract. Since the wood can’t move, stress builds up and the panel eventually cracks and splits. This common problem usually isn’t a difficult repair and can be done by any homeowner with a few fix-it skills. Below is a step by step outline of the repair process.

This white pine exterior door was built in a Minnesota millwork shop around 1863 and hung in the rear entrance of the LeDuc House in Hastings, MN (for pictures and a description of the LeDuc, see my post below). The exterior side of the door is very weathered and one panel has failed, leaving a large split which lets water and drafts into the building.

The interior side of the door is in good shape, although it appears the LeDuc family owned a large dog which badly marred the lock rail.

The first step is to remove the bolection moulding around the panel. The safest way to accomplish this is to use wooden shims. I use a razor blade to score the varnish and gunk between the moulding, door and the panel and then slowly push wood shims under the length of the moulding. Work slowly and carefully since the thin strips of moulding are fragile and can easily break. The card stock under the shims keeps them from abrading the old varnish.

Continue to slide more shims under the first ones until the moulding begins to lift. Once it is lose, carefully use a small pry bar to pry the moulding up. Be sure to place the end of bar near nails as that will put less stress on the molding. You can also slide shims under the back edge of the moulding. The trick is to keep even pressure along the length of the piece. Be sure to number the pieces as you remove them so you can return them to their original position.

Once all the moulding on both sides has been removed, gently clean the edges of the panel using mineral spirits or naptha and a soft cotton rag. Use 0000 steel wool if the dirt and grime are especially thick. Once you are done, carefully scrape away any remaining gunk and allow the panel to dry completely.

The next step is to open the split as carefully as possible. This is necessary because glue will not adhere to dirty, oily or decayed surfaces. Exposed wood oxidizes and erodes over time leaving a poor surface for gluing. Years of dirt, grime and gunk also make good glue-ups difficult. Once you have opened up the split you can use strips of cloth with solvent, dental instruments, small knives and 220 git sandpaper to clean the surfaces. BE VERY CAREFUL AND DO NOT REMOVE TOO MUCH WOOD!! If you are sloppy and sand or cut away good wood along with the dirt and grime you will not be able to close the joint completely and get good glue adhesion.

A close-up of the cleaned split which is ready for gluing and clamping.

One difficulty in gluing up a door panel is clamping it. To do this you need to glue wooden blocks on both sides of the panel along the split. Be sure to place the block on areas that will be covered by the pieces of moulding once they are replaced. I use a hot glue gun to do this because the hot glue really binds the blocks to the panel so you can clamp firmly. Once you are done the blocks can be removed easily and cleanly with a chisel because hot glue has very poor shear strength.

I used a syringe to inject glue into the crack and a bit of a shim to spread a good amount of glue on both surfaces of the split panel. I clamped the panel tightly and cleaned up any squeeze-out with a damp cotton cloth.

Once the glue set up I removed the clamps, blocks and replaced the pieces of molding using new cut nails. Be sure that the panel is floating in its grooves so that it able to move and will resist splitting in the future. Since this door was so badly weathered the split did not close up as tightly as I would hope despite clamping it quite tightly. To make the split less obvious I used colored wax matched to the stain to hide the crack.

Although you can still see the split, it is now less obvious, closed and weather tight. The key to maintaining exterior wooden doors is regular maintenance. Be sure to repair splits, refinish regularly and care for your doors as problems arise. If neglected, problems will worsen making repairs more difficult and less successful.

Raising Wood Panels the Old-Fashioned Way

2009-07-06T12:48:00.004-05:00

I have been asked a number of times about raising wood panels while working in the cabinet shop at The Landing, a living history museum in Shakopee, MN. So, I thought I would bring my camera to the shop and give a quick primer on raising panels for doors, drawers and paneling.

I used a piece of scrap pine from the firewood box for my demonstration. This piece turned out to be horribly mushy and prone to tear-out (see my discussion of the advantages of closely grained wood below) so the results are pretty embarrassing. However, what matters here is the process and rather than the results. One advantage of 19th century woodworking is that there is always a wood stove nearby to consume all your miserable mistakes so no one will ever know what horrible things you have done. That is, unless you are stupid enough to show them to the world on the internet.

First, I marked out the panel using a slitting gauge. Some people use a regular scratch gauge to lay out the dimensions of the raised field and then scribe the lines with a square and lay-out knife. I prefer a sharp slitting gauge because it is faster but still leaves a nice, deep mark like a knife would. Just be sure the edges of the panel are joined straight and smooth or your lay-out lines will be a mess.

I also scribed a line along all four edges of the panel. This way I will know how far down to plane the bevel so that it will fit snugly in grooves plowed on the edges of rails and stiles of a door, etc. In this case I am making a simple panel with a straight bevel planed to the edge. In other cases you might want to plane a rabbet around the panel so that the bevel does not extend completely to the edge. Rather than flat, bevels can be dished slightly with a round plane.

Next I roughed out the panel with a wide chisel. When you are removing lots of wood it is fastest and easiest to use a chisel rather than a plane. This is true even if you are using a rabbet or dedicated panel-raising plane, as both panel-raisers and rabbet planes need to be set fine for cutting across the grain on the ends of the panel.

The one thing always to remember is to work across the end grain first!! Even when you are working with sharp tools on good stock, there will be some tear out. If you work the end grain first, any tear out will be planed away when you are working with the grain down the sides of the panel.

After roughing out the bevels, I work the end grain using a wide rabbet plane to smooth and refine them. Be sure to use even strokes and be careful around the sharp edge of the raised field. I often use a smaller chisel to shape the bevel near the edge so I have some leeway when using the rabbet plane. A wide rabbet is perfect for this sort of work since the blade is skewed (good for working across grain) and the iron is slightly wider than the plane body so you can work right up to the sharp edge of the field.

The last step is to smooth and refine the the bevels on the long sides. Work with the grain on both sides of the panel. Again, the rabbet plane is ideal for this job since it allows you to flip the plane around and work with the grain on both sides. Planes with fixed fences force you to work with the grain only on one side and against the grain on the other. Use a cabinet scraper for final smoothing so you have a sharp edge where the bevels meet that runs at a 45 degree angle.

There you have it! Hopefully yours won't have the awful tear-out and ragged edges!

Old Growth Timber

2009-04-11T20:37:00.001-05:00

Old growth timber is one of those terms you run across on occasion but almost never hear defined. For the cabinet maker and timber frame carpenter old growth timber is the ideal medium for strong and stable furniture and framing. But what exactly is old growth timber?

Once upon a time in the forest primeval white pine and other trees grew close together in dense stands of timber. Since light was scarce under the thick canopy of leaves and pine boughs, young trees grew slowly but very straight as they strove to reach the sunlight far above them. Since there wasn’t much light near the ground, trees expended little energy growing branches and leaves low on their trunks. As a result the trunks of old growth trees were not covered with knots and produced clear lumber when milled.

The slow growth means growth rings were very thin, so the wood is very dense and stable. Another product of slow growth was a much higher percentage of fine heartwood. White pine was especially straight grained with little wane (i.e. the natural taper to a tree trunk) because the trees grew straight up to reach the sunlight of the canopy above.

In comparison to lumber sawn from true old growth timber, lumber today less dense, straight grained and much more liable to twist and warp. Below is a cross section of the sill from an 1882 depot from Chaksa, MN. This example has up to 20 growth rings per inch and is quite heavy and dense. Much pine harvested today has around 6 to 10 rings per inch and is far less dense in comparison. Anyone who has sorted through a pile of twisted, wracked and warped lumber at a lumberyard or supplier can appreciate the qualities of the old growth timber. It is little wonder that even some the most hastily built furniture from the 19th century survives with so little warping, splitting and decay.

Since virtually all of the old growth timber was harvested in the eastern U.S. and most of the remainder is now protected, old growth is now salvaged from building demolitions and remodels. A fair amount is also being recovered from lake and river bottoms where logs sank during the 19th century. Unlike the 19th century, when it was used for the most mundane purposes, old growth is scarce and expensive and used only for special projects.

Something Completely Different

2009-04-05T16:45:00.000-05:00

Since it is old and it is a house (of a sort) I am featuring one of my favorite buildings in my latest post on the Old House Blog. The Peterson, IA blockhouse is one of those architectural surprises you can find in many small towns across the country. Built in 1862 from hewn logs, this structure is an extremely rare example of a wooden military fortification from the upper Midwest.

First, a bit of history. Relations between the native Dakota Indians and white settlers in Iowa and southern Minnesota were extremely poor after years of tension and occasional violence. Armed conflict, including the Spirit Lake Massacre of 1857 and the Dakota War of 1862, and the absence of federal troops due to the Civil War led Iowa governor Samuel Kirkwood to form the volunteer Northern Border Brigade in 1862. As a part of this defensive scheme, a series of fortified blockhouses were constructed near white settlements such as Correctionville, Cherokee, Peterson, Estherville, and Chain Lakes, IA. Each was to be garrisoned by members of the Northern Border Brigade militia. However, the need for protection had diminished greatly after the rout of the Dakota in the Dakota Territory by Union troops in September 1863 and the forced resettlement of most of the Dakota remaining in Minnesota after the Dakota War. The garrisons were deemed unnecessary and the Northern Border Brigade was disbanded by the Iowa adjutant general in 1864. The blockhouse, which had been garrisoned by as many as two dozen soldiers, was abandoned sometime between 1865 and 1866 by the few, remaining federal troops.

The Peterson blockhouse was constructed by members of the brigade using locally harvested and hewn 10” oak and ash logs. The structure was surrounded by a stockade which provided protection for the garrison, its horses and supplies. Rather than a typical stockade made from a series of upright, pointed logs, the garrison constructed a fence made from massive, sawn oak planks and hewn oak and ash timbers that were as thick as 6”. Both the upper and lower levels were equipped with small, defensive gunports. The structure was built using square, lapped (and most likely pinned) joints rather than the more common half-dovetail or square-notch. The building was originally roofed with joined maple planks with grooves to lead away rain water.

After its abandonment the timber from the stockade was removed by settlers and used to construct other buildings while the blockhouse itself was dismantled and reassembled on a farm two miles west of Peterson. In 1977 Peterson Heritage acquired the building and moved it back to town. Although its original location was unknown, Peterson Heritage rebuilt it at the most likely spot, in the boulevard on Park Street just south of the intersection with Highway 10. In the mid 1980s volunteers restored the structure (without a stockade) using the original plans, replaced several logs and put the building on a concrete foundation. The restored building was dedicated in 1986.

The blockhouse can be visited anytime, but is open for visits during Peterson's heritage celebration held on even numbered years.

Minnesota Romantic: The LeDuc House

2009-03-07T19:11:00.000-06:00

Andrew Jackson Downing ([October 30, 1815 – July 28, 1852) was a prominent landscape designer, architecture critic and the most influential American advocate of romantic architectural styles. His pattern books, Cottage Residences (1842) and The Architecture of Country Houses (1850), were widely read and introduced Americans to revival styles popular in England. Jackson’s advocacy of the English pastoral picturesque, Gothic Revival and Bracketed Style helped bring about a shift from the regular, classical shapes and ornament of the Greek Revival to more organic, picturesque forms. Instead of angular, temple-like shapes that stood in contrast to the natural surroundings, Jackson proposed that Americans build homes that harmonized with the shapes and colors of the natural environment.

The William G. LeDuc House, located in Hastings, MN, is one of America’s best examples of a home based on a design from a Downing pattern book. This home design, which Downing calls “a cottage in the Rhine Style” was designed for J. T. Headley, a prominent clergyman, author, historian and politician and built along the Hudson River in New York State. Downing writes that the cottage:

“was built in a picturesque and highly appropriate position, where its steep roof-lines harmonize admirable with the bold hills of the Hudson Highlands. Though spirited and irregular in composition, it is simple in details, Mr. Headley’s object being to erect a picturesque rural home in keeping with the scenery.” (A J. Downing, Cottage Residences p. 174

The Headley house from Cottage Residences.

William G. LeDuc, an Ohio Attorney, moved to Minnesota in 1850 and settled in Hastings, Mn. He acquired land near the Vermillion Falls as payment for legal services in a dispute over a mill on the Vermillion River. William and his wife Mary used Downing’s design as a model for their home, which was built of local limestone between 1862 and 1865.
The LeDuc house resembles the Headley, except that it is stone rather than brick and the floor plan was flipped.

Although different from the example found in his pattern book, the vergeboard on the LeDuc is representative of Downing's emphasis on naturalism. Carved in the round to resemble living vines, the vergeboard serves as a symbolic link between the house and its wooded setting.

The front door, which is built of heavily molded white pine, combines the vine motif from the vergeboard with a gothic arch in the transom. The arch is topped with a stylized quatrefoil.

William Leduc was an ambitious man who's finances weren't able to keep pace with his plans. He was harried by financial difficulties while building the house, ran low on dressed stone, and was never able to finish the interior completely. On the rear wall (the right side in the photo) of the house you can see the change from the well-dressed, regular sized limestone blocks to smaller, irregular and more rusticated stonework.

The LeDuc House is located at 1629 Vermillion Street in Hastings, MN. The house is owned by the Dakota County Historical Society and is open for tours between May 27 and November 1, 2009.

What Style is it?

2008-08-29T17:24:00.001-05:00

“What style is my house?” This is a common query from homeowners as they wonder how their home fits into the local architectural landscape. This is, however, a question that can be difficult to answer. Is a house a Victorian, Folk Victorian, National Folk, Vernacular, Queen Anne, Italianate, Second Empire or something else? Answers depend on the eye of the beholder and the ways different people classify houses. Each observer focuses on particular architectural features and creates categories that reflect their own perspectives on style and history. Since such categories are arbitrary as people try to organize disparate things, there often isn’t agreement on which style a house represents.

The Cummins house in Eden Prairie, MN is a good example. The house was built between 1879 and 1880 by John R. Cummins, a prominent farmer and horticulturalist. The house is constructed of Chaska brick, a cream colored brick manufactured in nearby Chaska, MN, in the classic gable and wing form.

Most people would recognize it in a general sense as a Victorian, and they would be correct. But what else can we say about its architectural style? Its listing on the National Register of Historic Places describes it as having both Greek Revival and Italianate features, including wide trim on the gable ends and arched windows.

Segmented arch windows are characteristic of the Italianate just as wide trim boards are common on the gables of Greek Revival homes. So, does this mean the Cummins house is a Italianate/Greek Revival hybrid? Actually, no. Most Italianate brick homes do have arched windows, but not all arched windows are Italianate. The same is true for the trim.

This really gets at the heart of the matter. 19th century houses are broadly divided into two categories: High Style and Vernacular. High Style homes were designed by trained architects or master builders to suit the tastes of a client and complement a particular setting. These homes are more easily attributed to particular styles such as the Queen Anne or Second Empire. Vernacular homes were designed and built by local tradesmen or the homeowners themselves using simple forms such as the gable and wing or the side-gable. Often using pattern books as a guide, builders incorporated decorative details from High Style examples into their less complicated designs. This was especially common after the arrival of railroads, which allowed the wide distribution mass-produced architectural elements such as brackets, spindles, turned porch posts or barge boards.

Vernacular homes such as the Cummins House are often classified into sub-categories such as Folk, National Style, Folk Victorian or simply called Vernacular. I use all of these terms and make the following distinctions between them. I use the term National Style to describe homes constructed throughout the United States using simple, popularized forms such as the gable-front, gable-front and wing, the hall and parlor and the I-house. These homes have little ornament and are quite utilitarian. Builders of Folk Victorian homes utilized these same simple shapes, but decorated them with Victorian detailing found on High Style homes such as the Queen Anne or Italianate. The decoration on these homes is often quite eclectic as the builders used whatever ornament they liked in any manner that suited them. I use the term Vernacular to refer to late 19th and early 20th century homes that were inspired by pattern books and were built with machine made, mass produced components (indeed, many later examples were kit homes bought from companies such as Sears or Aladdin). Vernacular homes share shapes and ornament with higher style designs but are as a whole more simple.

So, what style is the Cummins house? My vote is Folk Victorian.

Tools of the Trades

2008-07-20T18:49:00.004-05:00

Wooden hand planes were found in virtually every 19th century tool box. Tradesmen, farmers and amateurs needed at least a few planes to size, true and finish wood stock. Most common were the bench planes that were used to square and finish boards for carpentry, cabinetmaking and joinery. These planes are long and rectangular with handles (called totes) and single cutting irons. This group includes joiners, which were used to true edges and faces of stock, and the shorter fore and jack planes, which removed larger amounts of wood easily and quickly.

Illustrated Catalog and Invoice Price List of Joiners’ Bench Planes,
Moulding Tools, Handles, Planes Irons, &c., Manufactured by the Greenfield
Tool Company. Greenfield: 1872. Reprinted by the Astragal Press.

Also common are molding planes that were used to shape and decorate molding and millwork. These planes were produced in a bewildering array of shapes and sizes and were given esoteric names such as scotia, astragal, ogee or torus bead. Some were quite simple in shape, like the hollows and rounds I used to make the bit of molding in an earlier post. Others were quite complex and were used to make the ornate cornices and architraves in fine Georgian, Federal and Greek Revival homes.

As styles in furniture and architecture changed during the 19th century, so did the types of molding planes. Historians and architects are often able to date furniture and architecture according to the differing styles of molding and decoration. The study of the molding planes is an important means to trace the development of these decorative styles. Following is a short primer on molding planes which shows a few of the many different shapes and profiles used in the 19th century.

The most common molding planes were the hollows and rounds. These planes were often bought in pairs of one hollow and one round of the same size. One plane could be used alone to form a groove or bead or in tandem to make more complex shapes like an S shaped ogee. Cabinet makers and joiners who frequently made molding often bought complete sets of hollows and rounds in graduated sizes. In this photo there are three rounds and one hollow from the #72 series of the Ohio Tool Company and one round from Chapin and Sons.

Also quite common were the various bead planes. Side beads, which cut a rounded profile on the edge of a board, were bought either singly or in graduated sets. Center beads, which cut a rounded bead profile in the middle of a board ,were especially useful for furniture makers. Reeding planes, which cut several parallel beads in the middle of a board were also common. Below are three graduated side beads from the #105 series from the Auburn Tool Company and a #41 center bead from the Ohio Tool Company.

The ogee, which is a gentle S curve, is the most common of complex molding planes. The ogee can have two profiles: The cyma recta, where the concave section is at the bottom of the profile, and the cyma reversa, where the concave section is at the top. Below are three graduated ogees from the Ohio Tool Company. Roman style ogees are, which are characteristic of the Georgian Style, are based on the circle while Grecian ogees are based on the ellipse and usually have quirk defining the inside edge of the top part of moulding.

Following are a few examples of some other complex molding planes. These include (from left to right) an ogee sash plane for making window sashes and muntins, a Grecian ogee, a simple cyma recta, an ovolo, a Grecian ogee with quirk and fillet and last a gothic bead.

The Gideon and Agnes Pond House

2008-06-27T23:06:00.004-05:00

The Gideon and Agnes Pond house was built in the Federal Style in Bloomington, MN in 1856. Gideon Pond was a Connecticut carpenter who came to Minnesota in 1834 with his brother Samuel to serve as missionaries to the Dakota Indians and to teach the natives European farming. He settled in Bloomington in 1854 and founded a mission near the village of the Dakota chief Cloudman. In 1856 he built this two-story house near the mission from bricks made on-site from clay found in the adjacent Minnesota River valley.

Although late for the Federal Style, which had been losing favor in the East since the 1820s, Pond decided to build in this refined style which was still prominent when he left Connecticut in 1834. Some experts hesitate to call later buildings such as the Pond House Federal, preferring to call them Federal Remnant or some variant thereof, instead. However, since the Pond House has some of the classic features of the Federal, I believe the name is appropriate despite its relative plainness and late vintage.

Federal buildings are usually box-like, with a symmetrical arrangement of windows and low-pitched gabled or hipped roofs. High style examples have refined, but decorated cornices beneath the roof line with fanlights and sidelights surrounding the entrance door. The Pond house features a symmetrical arrangement of windows, although many Federal examples of a similar scale have a third window centered above the entrance.

The focus of a federal building is the front entrance. Entrance doors are often flanked by half or three-quarter sidelights while higher style homes typically had fanlights. In this example there is no fanlight although full-length sidelights are present. Considering the rather primitive conditions on the Minnesota frontier in 1856, the absence of an elaborate and difficult to construct fanlight is not surprising. Although the sidelights appear somewhat wide and blocky (reminiscent of those often found on contemporary Greek Revival homes), the entrance suits the proportions of building. The door slab is a recent (and quite incorrect) replacement.

Rather than an elaborate cornice with dentils and molding as was common on more stylish homes, Pond constructed a simplified version in brick.

The Pond house is located at 401 East 104th Street in Bloomington, MN and is open for visits on Sundays from 1:30 to 4.

The Workshop

2008-06-07T14:45:00.002-05:00

I have already received a couple questions about the workshop where I made the molding in my first post. I was working in the Druke House, an 1854 Greek Revival home which is set up as an 1860s/1870s era woodshop. The Druke is one of many historic buildings moved to The Landing, a living history museum located in Shakopee, MN.

Here is an interior shot showing the workbench and some of my cabinet making and joiner’s tools. The house is divided into two rooms in the familiar hall-and parlor plan, with each room having a stove and chimney.

The house was built by a pair of brothers, Peter and Franz Karl Drüke, who had immigrated around 1853 to Chanhassen, MN from Nordrhein-Wesfalen, Germany (what was then part of the Kingdom of Prussia). Germans used stone frequently in their home country and the Drukes continued this practice in Minnesota, though they adopted a building style then popular in their adopted home. A few, similar examples built by German immigrants still remain in nearby St. Paul, MN. These were also constructed with stone and feature similar transoms over their entrance doors.

Like much frontier architecture, the house is rather small and has little ornament. The principal features that identify it as a modest example of the Greek Revival are the wide frieze boards on the gable ends, gable returns, the transom light over the door and windows with 6-pane glazing (only the attic windows appear to be original). Features that were common in on higher style examples but are absent here are wide frieze boards along the sides and columns or pilasters framing the entrance and the building corners. The windows on the lower level and the door have been replaced. The 1-pane window glazing and bead molding on the window muntins and door stiles are more characteristic of the 1910s.

The walls are constructed of local materials, including rubble stonework, field stone and brick. Often frontier builders started buildings using dressed stones taken from earlier structures and, as their supply ran out, used other, less refined materials. In other cases, builders simply ran out of time, money or ambition and resorted to coarser field stone or brickwork. It is not clear which is the case here, but the bottom sections of the walls are constructed of lightly dressed, coursed rubble. Above this are field stones. As can been seen on the east gable end, brickwork was used at the top. Bricks were sometimes used to repair stonework, so we can speculate that the bricks at the top of the gable end might have been added at a later date.

The Greek Revival appeared in America around1830 and spread into the Mississippi Valley as settlers moved west. It was popularized by several pattern books and carpenter’s guides, including The Modern Builder’s Guide by Minard Lafever and The Practical House Carpenter by Asher Benjamin. By the 1850s the Greek Revival began to be supplanted by the picturesque styles such as the Gothic Revival and Italianate, although the Greek style did persist much longer in the South.

Making Molding the Old-Fashioned Way

2008-06-01T20:30:00.000-05:00

I am occasionally asked how molding such as window casing or base was produced during the 19th century. The answer depends on where a building is located and when it was constructed. By the middle of the 19th century steam and water powered mills were producing millwork, including casing, base, cornices, spindles, doors and windows. However, in more remote regions people continued to rely on craftsmen who made molding by hand from locally produced lumber using a variety of hand planes. By the end of the century factory produced millwork was the norm, as railroads made quick and inexpensive transportation possible to most parts of the country.

In the following photos I will demonstrate how molding was produced by hand using 19th century hand planes. I am using a scrap piece of poplar approximately 4 inches wide and am working in the wood shop at Historic Murphy's Landing, a living history museum located in Shakopee, MN.

The first step is to lay out a groove which will serve as a guide for my molding planes. Here I am using an adjustable plow plane, which has a movable fence and depth stop which allow me to place a groove of any depth anywhere on the face of the stock.

Here is a closer view of the groove.

Next I will use a round, which is a molding plane that cuts a rounded profile into the face of the stock.

I am now using a hollow, which is a concave molding plane, to round off the higher parts of the profile.

After a bit of smoothing and finishing we have a piece of hand-made molding.