The Zen of Hand Tools or The "Protestant" Woodworker

I use hand tools for the majority of my woodworking, which is mostly making Windsor chairs and replicating parts for my perpetual 1800's farmhouse restoration.  Although I had a little childhood background in carpentry, I became interested in hand tools out of a need to replicate trim and other features of my house. I had a shaper at the time, but did not feel like having knives made, so off I ventured down the molding plane road. I ended up fabricating a fair amount of trim and a few window sash, all using hand planes. Through this process, I gained a tremendous amount of respect for the folks that built my house and their abilities as craftsmen.

It takes skill and knowledge to use power tools to create beautiful things out of wood. I think it takes a much broader base of skill and knowledge to create beautiful things out of wood using only hand tools. You can purchase a ready to use shaper, with ready to use knives and run a "borg" special piece of lumber thru it and get a nice, finished piece of trim. You don't have to understand much about wood selection, grain, sharpening, planing technique, etc. because the machine performs almost flawlessly in even the toughest of circumstances.  That modern machines perform so well is a testament to human ingenuity but it also means that not much skill can produce a highly refined product.

To some degree, the point about knowledge and skill is academic because isn't the goal to produce beautiful things? I think so, but it is noteworthy that perfectly executed creations tend to lose out to imperfect creations in a beauty contest. Great music is almost never in perfect time.  A computer can render piano notes perfectly, but the music is lifeless unless the programmer goes to great effort to introduce variations that stray from perfection. Furniture made to precise patterns using machines that guarantee uniformity generally lack something in the eyes of many, mine included. Machine cut dovetails look like machine cut dovetails most of the time - nice, but sterile.

I use hand tools because I am in awe of the human capacity to create nearly flawless things using hands and other senses. I like the fact that my turning skills get better as I replicate 90 spindles for a staircase and that the staircase looks better (to my eye) than one containing balusters produced on a lathe with a copy attachment, even with the obvious imperfections.  I relish plaster walls, even cracked ones.  One of my mentors was a WWII pilot who flew for a major airline and refused throughout his career to use an autopilot.  He would laugh and say the autopilot flies perfectly, but “I need the practice.”  He was the smoothest, best pilot I have ever flown with, whether he was flying a B747 or a Pitts Special.  He flew less precisely, but gave a better ride than the autopilot.

When I make a windsor chair, I strive to make every spindle and turning exactly the same but they never are. The chairs each have character.  Sometimes I really like a chair’s character and sometimes less so, but each is unique and interesting because of the variation. I like the flexibility I have to modify on the fly because the wood commands me to. I value people who can program machines to do amazing things, but I am even more impressed by a concert guitarist who sits down and flawlessly plays a 10 minute piece of music or a great turner who seemingly effortlessly knocks out a beautiful bowl or spindle, reacting on the fly to the variations in the medium. 

I appreciate too that once a craftsman can perfectly square a piece of wood by hand, he may choose to use a planer or a jointer because it is more expeditious or he simply doesn’t feel like doing it by hand.  I break out the compound miter saw when I go to replace siding because it is faster, but my sawing skills would improve if I did it all by hand. They could use improvement and I probably should.

I believe we humans value things that represent hard work and mastery of a medium. Why else would the Mona Lisa be a priceless work of art, when an exact machine made reproduction, which by all appearance is exactly the same as the original, can be had for hundreds or maybe a few thousands?

Peters Valley Auction Dinner

Peters Valley Craft Center hosted its annual auction dinner last weekend.  We had a good turnout and I think everyone had a great time.  Importantly, Peters Valley had a successful night fundraising.

Andy Schmidt, the photography artist fellow at Peters Valley took pictures of all of the auction pieces, including my chair.

A well-photographed Continuous Arm Windsor Chair

Thanks to Andy for taking such wonderful pictures!  The chair was well-received and raised $900 for Peters Valley.  A special thanks to the attendees for supporting Peters Valley!

Newel Posts - Part II

Eva wasn't so sure.  Big Jim stuck to his D8 guns.  Our friends quickly divided into "old house" and "new house" people.  Most couples had one of each.  The new house people were generally scowling before they finished getting out of their car.  Some of them even asked if it was safe to leave an automobile in the driveway.  Old house people would arrive and their eyes would immediately begin to water.  The look was much like a teenager in love.  My best non-scientific guess is that the old house thing is a chromosomal aberration.  If so blessed, one becomes sufficiently overtaken by romanticism and notions of grandeur lost that a gaping ten foot hole in a roof looks like a minor problem.  I am an old house person.

I did triage on the barns within days of closing.  They both needed major repair, but my hasty patches made for mostly dry roofs and enough closure from the weather to at least significantly slow the pace of decay and give us time to formulate a proper strategy to rebuild them.  We had never concerned ourselves too much with the house because we were leaning towards taking it down anyway.  With the tenants gone and deeper inspection, it began to appear that there might be something to preserve. There was a six foot hole in the same slate roof that several contractors had said needed replacing.   If we were going to save the house, the roof needed to be fixed before winter.  Part of the porch was caving in.  The porch wasn't critical from a structural perspective, but it did make the house the worst looking in the neighborhood.  Not that we had any neighbors to really complain, but I half expected to return each weekend from our apartment in NYC to a condemnation notice.  Eva was not a fan of the desiccated animals on the front porch.

A complete inspection of the house surprisingly revealed strong bones and a high degree of structural integrity.  As we would come to learn, the house was built in several stages in the late 1700's and mid 1800's, of traditional timber frame construction with clapboard siding and plaster interiors.  The interior woodworking was simple, elegant and extremely well-executed.  The structural timbers were all American Chestnut, a wonderfully rot and insect resistance hardwood that was wiped out by a blight from Asia in the late 1800's.  We have one huge chestnut stump in the backwoods of the farm that sprouts new growth every spring, only to fall victim to the blight before making any real growth.  There are many arborist working on developing a genetically resistant strain of the tree - I hope to see the reintroduction of a blight resistant American Chestnut in my lifetime.

While suffering from years of neglected maintenance, the house had been “enhanced” only lightly from its original construction.  On the exterior, a previous owner had added a layer of cedar shake over the original clapboard, obscuring the reveal of the exterior trim and putting lots of holes in the clapboard.  Plumbing and electricity had been added in the 40's and only minimally so on the first floor.  With the two family renovation in the 70's came two kitchens but no material structural changes.  There were fake walls poorly built to ensure tenant separation.  The Cat Lady's extended family had damaged the windows and one area of door trim on her side of the house, but otherwise the trim and doors were entombed in layers of lead paint and in nice shape.  The original chimneys were in need of repair and the main cooking fireplace had been closed off to provide venting for the two oil burners that supplied heat to the house.  A new exterior chimney was reasonably well done although the internal stonework and 70’s vintage “Heat-a-lator” wood stove left much to be desired.  Did I mention that the fireplace trim was pink?  All of the bedrooms had been upgraded with shag carpets over wide pine floors and faux wood paneling installed with furring strips over the original plaster.  As I would come to learn, the previous owners must have hired a framing carpenter to do the interior renovations in the 70’s because 16 penny (3.25 inches apiece) were used on the furring strips.  This installation played hell on my subsequent efforts to save plaster walls and ceilings.

The main staircase was lovely.  At the base of the stairs stood a very large newel post. The square pommeled base measured 7 1/2 inches across and the largest turning elements were of similar size.  The post was finished in shellac and appeared beneath the grime to be hard maple.  The balusters were simple and well-executed.  Upon close inspection, the hand turned nature of each baluster became immediately apparent. The sizes varied from as big a diameter as 1 5/8 all the way down to 1 3/8 for the small ones with about 1 ½ as an average.  They all had the same elements, coves and beads, an acorn and tapers yet they were all noticeably different.  Somehow, every one worked aesthetically and yet formed a cohesive whole when viewed so.  The banister was simple and elegant with lovely sweeping turns at the first floor landing.  The only damage to the stairs were two balusters on which one son of my local business owner tenant had decided to experiment with a small saw.   His experiments resulted in a decapitation of one at a cove detail and a fatal cut thru another at the start of the taper.  The finish on the newel posts and balusters, which I believed to be shellac, had browned and crackled over time and resembled elephant skin.  The banister finish was mostly worn away from use.

The main entrance to the house had been encased behind a partially built vestibule on the front porch.  Although hard to see, framed by a transom light, side lights and raised panels was a faded white etched glass farm door.  Etched into the glass was a wonderfully detailed scene of a “milk maid”.  The door itself was traditionally constructed rail, stile and raised panel with appliquéd detail.  The visual appeal of the door detail had been enhanced by a prior tenant with pink accents.  All of the paint was chaulking and cracked.  The center of the door had a small protruding brass knob – an antique door bell it turned out, but the bell and ringing mechanism were missing.  Buried underneath the paint behind the knob was a metal cover with embossed lettering, but the paint obscured all detail.

So my house project went from one made for a D8 to one suitable for the G8.  Martha Stewart and “This Old House” make it look easy.  I am guessing that it is more so with an unlimited budget.  For the rest of us, restoring old buildings takes a tremendous amount of time, research and money.  We have been at it for 11 years.  The house is in pretty good shape today, with just a few more big pushes until we can declare the restoration over and start anew.  Just kidding.  I have done about as well against my original budget as the federal government does with its forecasts.  Friends call it a labor of love.  Eva and I are still married and she is mostly friends with me and the house.  My articulate children call our home a “little junky” but want to live in it forever.

My latest project has been restoring the staircase in the Cat Lady’s side of the house.  The original staircase was steep, unsafe, unlit and enclosed.  Due to the slope of the roof, entering the second floor required either skipping a step or risking a sideways head butt into the ceiling.  Descending the stairs was plain scary. The original banisters were long gone by the time we bought the house.  As part of a bigger restoration project and subject of a future post, we built an entirely new staircase.   I had the brilliant idea of replicating the main staircase, complete with an identical newel posts, balusters and banisters.  Eva thought it was a lovely idea, but was moderately concerned about how long it might take.   I promised I could do it quickly.

As I have many friends in the old house restoration business at this point, we priced having a professional turner make us replicas.  At $10 apiece, the balusters were pretty reasonable, particularly given that I needed 95 of them.  Because of space limitations, we decided to terminate the banisters into second floor newel posts rather than make the lovely sweeping, but space consuming curves of the main staircase.  My turner friends told me we would not be able to replicate the original first floor 7 ½ inch square newel post with one piece of wood because that size maple was not available.  The second floor newel posts were smaller at 5 inches square, but could still be difficult to get in one piece maple.

I have learned much about attention to detail and careful craftsmanship throughout my life.  In most cases, the relentless pursuit of excellence and rigid adherence to chosen standards are prerequisites to great work.  Sometimes, though, rigid adherence to high standards can be a mask for bullheadedness or some other form of intellectual malady.  Is hand made tongue and groove flooring different than machine made?  Does anybody really know what time it is?  Does anybody really care?

I fall easily into the trap of insisting on making the tongue and groove by hand because that is how it was done originally.  Modern and antique manufacturing methods produce indistinguishable installed flooring.  I tell myself that I know the difference.  A more pragmatic part of me laughs at the internal dialog.  H. Jackson Brown, Jr. wrote that “character is what you do when no one is looking.”  I don’t know if character applies to old house restoration, but I have lost sleep over my election to use wire lath in lieu of wood when we replaced walls with new three coat plaster.  I am still not convinced that I haven’t started a negative global karmic chain reaction.

So I decided that I would make the newel posts and the balusters.  Ninety five balusters did not seem like that many from the comfort of my dining room.  I figured I can turn chair legs in 15 or so minutes from rough blank to finish ready – the balusters aren’t that much more complex.  At 3 balusters an hour, I would have roughly 30 hours in the project, my turning skills would improve dramatically and I would get the satisfaction of completing the project by myself.  As such things go, it all looked good on the drawing board.

I am relatively certain that the original balusters had been turned while the wood was wet or “green.”  Several have moved a crazy amount – more than I think dried wood could move, even over almost two centuries.  Hand splitting green wood ensures that the turnings follow the long grain fibers of the tree and are very strong.  Green wood is also really pleasant to turn, cuts faster and requires less frequent sharpening breaks.  The downside of hand splitting is that you waste a fair amount of wood and it is a lot of work.  The thought of hand splitting 100 or so 35” blanks for the balusters seemed overwhelming so I called my local sawyer and ordered kiln dried hard maple.  I inquired about pieces for the newel posts and he told me that maple would split during the drying process if we milled it 8 inches square.  I showed him pictures of my newel post and he challenged me that it could not have been made from one piece.

And so I started researching newel posts.  There are unquestionably large 7+ inch square newel posts from the 1800’s that were turned from a single piece of material.  I have seen numerous examples in beech, maple, oak, walnut and ash.  My newel post is most likely maple and I am most certain that it is one piece.  I have spoken with numerous sawmills and wood suppliers trying to source 8 x 8 maple.  The uniform answer I get is that you can not get unchecked American hardwoods of that size.  So a joiner in 1800, armed with far fewer tools and far less information figured out how to dry an 8 x 8 piece of maple, but the iPhone society can’t?   The commercial answer seems to be no.

So off I set on my own uncharted course.  My first attempt failed miserably.  My sawyer had cut several large maple beams for a project that was never picked up.  The beams had been drying for 2 years under a covered shed.  As many of you probably know, the rule of thumb for air drying hardwoods is one inch per year.  These beams were about 10” x 12” so I did not expect them to be dry, but I did expect that the 2 years would have stabilized the wood.  We looked through about 8 beams and found two that were clear and had not checked.  We then took the beams inside of the main sawing building, where the owners keep a very nice old Oliver 24 inch planer.  We ran the beams through the planer and they cleaned up beautifully.  Maybe the solution to large unchecked hardwood blanks was as simple as a few years of seasoning?

I took the beams home and sawed a 34” piece to turn the first of 4 second floor newel posts.  Things went reasonably well and I soon had a decent rendition of what I was trying to turn.  The top pommeled element looked a bit heavy, but seeing as it is very hard to add back wood, I decided to remove the post from the lathe and take it into the house for placement and scale.  Eva and I studied the post in place and agreed that the taper needed to be greater and the top square needed to be reduced in mass.  I promised to take it back to the shop the following morning and get it finished.  When I awoke the next morning, I passed the newel post, which I had left by the front door.  I immediately noticed a crack (a “check” in woodworking parlance) that started on the square base and continued up thru a bead and into the taper.   I pondered whether the low humidity of the house had anything to do with the checking but concluded that while the weather was still somewhat cold, being early spring, the house was not that dry and heat/dryness had not caused the checking. 

Remembering my bowl turning buddies who use cyanoacrylate glue to great effect with cracking green bowls, I resolved to fill the crack with super glue and go ahead and finish the post.  The super glue business is a great one because I bet not one person has ever used a whole bottle of super glue – it always dries up before you get more than about ½ way through the bottle.  In any event, I used all the super glue I had fixing this crack.  By sanding with wet super glue in the crack, I was able to repair the crack in a manner that was mostly invisible.  I turned the post down to a better taper and reduced some mass in the top square element and called it good for the time being.  I set the post aside in my shop to see if the cracks would stabilize.

Within about two weeks, the post had major checks in it and was no longer useable for my project.  The post is now shop ambiance or a nuisance depending on when you ask, but it is close enough to a finished product that I am struggling to use it for its best and highest purpose - firewood.  In looking at the piece more closely, I have several thoughts.  First, the beam was cut from the a portion of the tree that included part of the pith on one edge and a large section of heartwood.   Checking tends to occur because different parts of a piece of wood dry and thus shrink at different rates which creates tensions that literally pulls the fibers apart.  I think I need to use only heartwood.  Second, I would have been better off trying to slow the drying process down after I turned it.  There are several products on the market which slow the drying process considerably and really help with checking.

My second attempt is underway.  I sourced a very nice hard maple log that is large enough to give me four 5 to 6 inch blanks out of the heartwood.  My plan is to split out four blanks and hand plane them square.  I am then going to finish turn the newel posts.  I will apply a shellac finish to the finished post while still on the lathe.  I will probably paint the bottom end grain with a special sealer.  I am then going to install the posts.  Based on everything I have read and can conjure up, I believe that the 7 ½ inch newel post in my house was made exactly that way.  My more knowledgeable colleagues have proffered many opinions about my likelihood of success.  I will keep you posted.

....to be continued

 

Newel Posts - Part One

My entire woodworking career, to the extent you could call it that, can be traced back to a decision to go water skiing in 1999.  My wife and I were hanging out at Sussex Airport one hot summer day when a local buddy and next door hangar mate invited us to go water skiing at his lake house.  My wife is adventurous, loves maps and, bucking stereotype, encourages my instincts for short cuts and other intuitive detours that sometimes get us lost but almost always interestingly so.  My best buddy M.L. used to call it "bird dogging", a reference to the manner in which a hunting dog will traverse back and forth over territory until it finds its prey.  On this fateful day, she casually supported my desire to try a back road to the lake that I had found flying over the area.

So there we were, tooling along a beautiful country road in Northern New Jersey in a black 1983 VW GTI.  Before your brain kicks beautiful and New Jersey out as an oxymoron with visions of the Newark oil tank farms, I request that you graciously suspend judgment and remember that the powers that be must have named it the Garden State for a reason.  Because indeed it is.  Our journey took us past one lush farm after another, mostly well kept.  We rounded a bend on the crest of a hill and came upon two majestic, but dilapidated dairy barns, a smaller building and and a classic center hall colonial with a slate roof.  It looked like a farm scene out of a childhood story book.  Then I noticed 3 toilets in the front yard and farm equipment rusting and scattered about.  Nature was reclaiming this place.  My wife saw a sign - "Farm for Sale" and innocently proclaimed "we should buy that".  We talked about the barns being gorgeous and she wrote the owner's number down.  I promised to call on Monday.

We were not looking to buy anything at the time.  We were renting a very small apartment in NYC.  We had a baby on the way.  My career was in flux.  The economy was overheated and showing signs of strain.  We could not afford it.  My wife was more like Eva Gabor than Laura Engels.  Big Jim saw the place and told me the following and I quote:  "One word for you ole buddy - D8".  Now if D8 doesn't ring a bell for you, it is among the larger bulldozers made by one Caterpillar Inc. of Aurora, Illinois, about 80,000 lbs worth.  Big Jim also met the seller - whose mannerisms could resemble one Mr. Hainey from a popular 60's sitcom.  The sight of me (the lawyer), Mr. Hainey and my wife (a.k.a. Eva Gabor), in front of the ruins of this old farm, toilets and all, was too much for Big Jim.  I am pretty sure I could hear him laughing as he drove away.

You won't be shocked to learn that we bought the farm.  We took the whole thing about as seriously as one might go buy a new bed.  One minute my wife and I were driving down a country road and the next thing you know we owned a farm in rural NJ.  Mr. Hainey and I bonded and he gave us a very fair deal on the place.  Financing and a little windfall fell into place so we could make the down payment and close.  I chalk it up to divinity, because we couldn't have planned the whole thing if we tried.

On the topic of divine destiny, a grown son of one of the characters at Sussex Airport claimed for a time that he was the Messiah.  He even convinced two young women to follow him around.  The harem and worshiping thing was kinda cool, but overall he gave me the creeps and I allowed him wide berth.  Big Jim was always really nice to him.  One day I asked Big Jim - "why are you so nice to him - he is really strange."  Jim looked at me seriously and said - "you know he claims to be Jesus?".  "Yes" I replied.  "Well", Big Jim said with a wink, "you never know, the son of a bitch might be right."

Between the time that we found the farm and closed, we did research other places in the area.  I looked at several really nice pieces of land, but nothing that had the barns and the charm that the Hainey farm had.  We originally talked about taking down the house and building a new house elsewhere on the property.  The house was such an afterthought that we never properly inspected it before the close.  I looked thru the basement with a builder buddy but there were tenants in the house and Mr. Hainey didn't want us bothering them.  Another builder told us the slate roof was bad.  All in all, it looked like the house wasn't worth saving and that Big Jim would, once again, turn out to be right.

The closing was delayed for many months because I had asked the seller to have the tenants move before we bought the place.  NJ has wonderful landlord tenant laws if you are the tenant.  I didn't want to play landlord.  The house had been split into two living units, complete with separate entrances and two heating systems.  On one side lived the cat lady, with 15 or cats, who kept loudly proclaiming to my wife that the house was haunted.  Eva did not like the stories.  The other side of the house had a family living in it that moved in a few weeks after we signed - nice right?  The father owned a local business and they were supposedly in the process of rehabbing a house on a nearby lake and would be out shortly.

The cat lady left without any ado and we got to look at her side of the house.  Eva was not impressed.  It was a mess and wreaked of cat urine.  Did I mention that Eva was an executive at a fragrance company and has an incredible nose? The floors were all covered with 70's shag carpeting that hadn't been cleaned in decades.  There was old graffiti on the walls and flat purple trim upstairs.  Purple is my favorite color, but they should have used high gloss paint and the shade was off.  All of the muntins in the beautiful handmade wavy glass windows on the first floor were clawed up.  I guess the cats couldn't stand the smell either.

Our local business owner kept promising he would get out "next" month.  Mr. Hainey had never taken the "farm for sale" sign down and was getting frequent inquiries as the real estate market began the rise that would lead us into our current mess.  Nearing the end of our contract term, we had to either waive the tenant condition or let go of the farm.  By then, we (maybe it was I) had fallen in love with the place and so closed with a tenant in June 2000, almost a year to the date after we first saw the for sale sign.

The local business owner was not nice at all after we closed.  He would not pay his rent.  His wife said the place was a "dump".  I had to agree but wanted them out.  Four months later, on Memorial Day weekend, they finally moved.  We showed up early and found a refrigerator - technically our refrigerator - on the front porch.  They left garbage everywhere.  I wanted to raise hell, but my wife wisely told me to let it go.  We got the keys and finally got to really look around inside.  The house was resplendent in Pepto Bismol pink, 70's faux wood paneling over plaster walls and deep pile shag. I felt like an owner.

Peter and Leslie, friends from NYC showed up later that day to take a tour of the house and potentially "help" clean.  I roped Peter into removing all of the carpets with me.  Old pink shag is not a thing of beauty.  The whole house was filthy.   We threw away 30 pizza boxes.  We threw away bedding.  We threw away a paper Darth Vader head that was staring menacingly from its perch on the landing at the top of the stairs.  In a fit of insanity, we kept a three foot long stuffed lion that we found in a bedroom.  It sits, as I write this, molding in the barn.  We opened windows and tried to air out the cigarette stench and cat urine.  We stepped back and looked.  Beneath the grime, the faded and chipped paint, the broken balusters and clawed trim, was a beautiful old farm house. Or at least it was beautiful to me.

....to be continued

A Ride in a Pitts - Part II

“Let’s go flying”

Airplanes and cars are a lot alike with one major exception.  When the engine quits on a car, the driver pulls over to the side of the road and calls AAA.  When the motor quits in an airplane, the situation goes from “hey ain’t the views beautiful” to a full blown emergency.  Contrary to popular misconception, airplanes don’t fall out of the sky when the motor quits running.  All airplanes, from a small general aviation plane like a J-3 Cub to a B777 airliner will do the airplane equivalent of coasting to a stop.  We call it gliding.   When I learned to fly, I found it surprising to learn that big airliners, like a 777 glide really well.  From a normal cruising altitude, a big airliner can typically glide 75 or so miles.  In most parts of the continental US, that means there is likely a safe place to land within gliding distance.  Practically speaking, most commercial airplanes have at least two engines, and can fly on only one, so the likelihood of ever experiencing a “dead stick” or no engine landing in an airliner, even for a professional pilot, is almost nil.

With general aviation airplanes, most glide well enough, but because general aviation airplanes generally tool around at low altitudes, the pilot doesn’t have the same flexibility to pick an airport 75 miles away and then go land there.  From 5,000 feet when the motor quits, you might have eight minutes and ten miles on a good day to pick a spot and land.  First choice is an airport, but if none is available nearby, the pilot has to start making hard choices.  In urban areas, sports fields, cemeteries and roads can all be decent choices.  People, cars, power lines and other obstructions have to be taken into account.  In more rural areas, there are usually open fields, but fences, soft plowed fields, tall crops like corn, irrigation equipment, tractors and power lines can make these “off – field” landings very challenging.  The primary mission becomes for the pilot (and any passengers) to walk away from the “landing”.  Not hurting the airplane is a secondary goal.

The good news is that airplane engines don’t quit very often in 2011.  Advances in technology and human understanding mean that well-maintained airplane engines are very reliable.  Jet engines found in passenger airliners, with their professional maintenance programs, are 99% + reliable.  Piston engines typically found in general aviation (GA) machines are very safe as well, but require consistent maintenance and good pilot treatment to get the best reliability.

So why all the talk about engines quitting and off field landings?  When you study GA accident statistics, you find that the overwhelming majority of aviation accidents come as the result of pilot error.  We humans have an unbelievable aptitude for making really stupid and avoidable errors and killing ourselves. Organizations that fly for a living like the military and commercial airlines spend big dollars studying the interaction between pilots and airplanes.  The findings are pretty clear:  pilots don’t do very well “ad libbing” flights or emergencies.  For the overwhelming majority of pilots, something breaks down in their risk analysis once wheels leave the ground.  “I think we’ll make it” normally works fine in a car, but is a really bad place to find yourself in an airplane. In real emergencies, pilots do best by relying on checklists and practiced emergency procedures.

Remember our protagonist “Big Jim”?  He started flying in the late 30’s after high school and enrolled in the Navy out of college.  After earning his wings, he was assigned to a squadron flying the Boeing PB4Y – the Navy variant of the B-24 bomber.  He was a few years late to see action in WWII, but saw the South Pacific and gained valuable experience in a wide variety of airplanes, including the PT-17 Stearman, SNJ, BT-13, DC-3 and more.  He left the Navy at the end of the war and during the ensuing postwar boom in aviation, worked for a host of small startup airlines, a character named Larry Rausch selling used airplanes out of Teterboro Airport in NJ, as a contract pilot shuttling David Ben-Gurion between Rome and the middle east in the formative days of Israel and finally as an American Airlines pilot.  There is an old saying among pilots that there are “old pilots and bold pilots, but no old bold pilots”.  Jim’s flying career spanned over 60 years, a few very close calls and 40,000 hours at best guess (FAA rules put limits on how much time a commercial pilot could fly so Jim didn’t log general aviation activities for much of his career), so he was doing something right.

Standing in the “Pitts Hangar” in June of 1991, I didn’t know Jim and his history and most of what I knew about flying I had read in a book.  I did know that I was standing beside a tiny little airplane inside an equally small hangar about to go do “real aerobatics” for the first time in my life and I was excited.

Jim started his routine.  Have you ever watched a little dog who wants to occupy the same space as his owner yet avoid getting stepped on at the same time?  The dog darts from side to side, wagging his tail and watching his owner’s face for any sign of connection or approval.  So imagine Jim at 6’ 7” and me at 6’ 2” in a small hangar, moving around a small airplane with Jim focused primarily on ensuring a safe flight and secondarily trying to ascertain where on the idiot scale I would measure.  In the meantime, I was trying to digest or ask a question about every single event that was happening.  As we say in Texas, “ya can’t dance unless ya know the steps”.  It wasn’t pretty, but we got thru it.

Remember the discussion about planning each flight?  A successful flight starts with a thorough inspection of the airplane or “preflight” for short.  Jim started at the cockpit and checked for parachutes and headsets.  The FAA requires that pilots and their passengers wear parachutes for aerobatic flight and the headsets are a must for communication in a Pitts.  Jim then turned his attention to the airplane.

The Preflight

For those interested, the next section is a fairly in depth review of the preflight of a Pitts.  With apologies to both the experienced and the neophyte, I have tried to write this in a way that a person with no aviation experience could understand and yet not bore a seasoned pilot to death.  If you don’t want to get intimate with a Pitts, I suggest you skip to the section entitled “The Flight” below.

The Pitts S-2A operating manual has a fairly perfunctory preflight checklist.  What follows here is the process Big Jim taught me to get a Pitts ready to go aviating.

Start on the right side of the airplane, in front of the right wing.  Begin by inspecting the right tire for wear and inflation and the brakes.  Open the cowling.  This is a complicated affair involving springs and Dzus fasteners, flat head screwdrivers and the guarantee of a scratch on the cowling if you don’t know what you are doing.  There isn’t much inside the cowling of a Pitts – just an engine with very few things to check.   Engine mounts tight, spark plugs tight, fuel injection lines and stays tight and no tell-tale blue residue evidence of a fuel leak, exhaust pipe linkages secure but free and a holistic look that everything is where it should be and no fluids where they shouldn’t.  Close the cowl – carefully.

Moving to the front of the machine, step back.  Are the wings level?  Check the two little doors where the center of the landing gear meet the fuselage.  Are they sagging, indicating that the “bungee cords” – strong rubber bands that act as shock absorbers – are in need of replacement?  Step up to the front of the cowling and reach in through the left side of the cowling and find the alternator belt.  Does it feel tight and smooth?  Feel the entire propeller for nicks on the leading edge or any other abnormalities and visually inspect.  Grab the spinner on the propeller and make sure it is secure.  Finally, grab the propeller on both sides near the center and shake to prove that the engine is really securely mounted to the airframe.

Proceed to the left side of the cowling and open to inspect the engine.  Perform the same checks as the right side plus check the constant speed prop governor and related linkages for security.  Carefully close the cowling.  Check the left tire for wear and inflation and feel the brake rotors for thickness and residue.  Crouch down and take a fuel sample in the fuel sampler you have been carrying around in your back pocket.  Inspect for water floating on the top and discard.

Proceed along the front of the left wings.  Inspect the cabane struts and their associated attach points between the wings and fuselage. Inspect upper and lower leading edge for any evidence of damage.  Check the pitot tube (measuring side of an airspeed indicator/speedometer) for security and to ensure that it is not the new home for a family of wasps.  Pull the flying wires connecting the upper and lower wings to check for appropriate tension.  Check the “bayonet” that stabilizes the flying wires and keeps them from vibrating in flight.

Proceed to the left wingtip.  Grab the top wing tip bow and shake firmly, but gently.  The wing should not move.  Repeat for the lower wing.  Standing along the trailing edges of the left wing, inspect upper and lower ailerons.  Pay special attention to the hinges and lock nuts on the control rods.  Check the spades on the lower ailerons for security and for cracking.  Visually inspect upper and lower wing and any inspection covers for security or damage.

Proceed down the left side of the fuselage with a visual inspection.  Remove the rubber gas cap.  Grab the graduated stick that hangs on the hangar wall and check the fuel level.  Make a mental note of how much gas to put into the tank based on planned activities.

Facing the rear of the airplane, visually inspect the horizontal stabilizer, rudder and elevator.  Grab the lower elevator brace and pull for security.  Proceed around the horizontal stabilizer and inspect the left side elevator hinges.  Check the elevator trim tab for security.  Inspect the rudder, rudder hinges and rudder cables.  Inspect the tailwheel, paying particular attention to the control springs and their connectors for security.  Move along the right side horizontal stabilizer and repeat.

Proceed up the right side of the airplane, then around the right wings, repeating the inspections done on the left side.  Step back, take a deep breath and visually take in the entire airplane.   The airplane is almost ready to fly, are you?

The Flight

Once the preflight was completed, Jim began the preflight briefing.   He started by handing me a parachute and telling me to put it on.  Like most of rest of the world, I had never donned a parachute, so the thought inspired a mixture of giddiness and fear.   There are three common types of parachutes – “seat packs, back packs and chair packs”.   The parachute Jim gave me was a seat pack.  In essence, the entire body of the parachute was folded neatly and inserted in a container hanging at fanny level.  Once seated, the parachute would become my “seat cushion”.  In the meantime, putting on the parachute was about like wearing a backpack with two added straps that run between the thighs and strap along the front of the wearer’s hips.  One check strap keeps the two upper arm straps from coming off.  With the lower straps tightened, I learn that it is almost impossible to walk.

The parachute, as Jim explained, would be used in two events.  One was a structural failure, which he assured me would not happen.  The other was a fire.  He showed me the “D” ring, the appropriately named handle that opens a parachute.  Grab the D ring with your right hand, hook your left thumb through, look and pull all the way out. The process for getting out of the Pitts was to grab onto the upper wing handle, step out on the wing and dive off of the side. P.S. "Don't pull the chute until you get out of the airplane."

Being twenty something and mostly fearless, this sounded pretty good to me.  I did wonder, though, in the event of a structural failure, how hard it would be to get out of an out of control airplane.  I asked the question and Jim smiled.  “You would be amazed at what you can do if you really need to.”

Once the parachute and exit briefing was completed, Jim instructed me on how to get into a Pitts.  First, the two sets of seat belts have to be properly positioned so the occupant does not sit on them when entering the airplane.  The shoulder straps get draped gently over the sides of the cockpit and the lap belts pulled taught and forward along the seat.  In order to get in, grab the handhold in the center of the upper wing .  Place your left foot on the 6 inch wide abrasive strip on the left wing and pull yourself up.  Do not put any weight on any part of the wing other than the abrasive strip because there is only fabric and ribs everywhere else and you will put your foot through the fabric and ruin Big Jim’s day and deplete your bank account.  Finally, don’t lean on the canopy because it has “breakaway” mounts and a new one costs $1500. Swing your right leg over and step on the aluminum seat.  Swing your left leg into the cockpit and stand on the seat.  Place one hand on either side of the cockpit and ease yourself down.  Keep your feet on the metal rails because there is nothing in front of the seat but fabric, a couple of tubes and the feet rails.

As Jim described the flight, “we will take off, fly to the aerobatic box, clear it and then do some light acro.  I am thinking a few rolls  and loops and we will see how it goes from there.  If you feel good, I will show you a hammerhead and a ½ Cuban and we will come back in and land.  Given our combined weight, we will have about an hour’s worth of gas on board.  The flight should last about 25 minutes.  If you feel sick, let me know and I will get us back pronto.  If you throw up in the airplane you get to clean it.”  With that, Jim was off to take a “nervous pee”.  I would come to find out that this was a classic piece of Jim's humor, but I just thought it odd at the time.

When Jim returned, he told me to grab the “i-strut” on the left wing and help him get the airplane out of the hangar.  The i-strut is the steel strut that connects the upper and lower wing of a biplane.  I grabbed the strut on my side as instructed and we carefully pulled the airplane out of the Pitts hangar.  Once we cleared the door, Jim told me to push while he pulled and the airplane pirouetted toward the gas pumps.  At 1200 lbs, it doesn’t take much effort to push a Pitts S-2A .

Once we reached the gas pumps, Jim unlocked the “baggage” compartment, a space behind the pilot’s head that would hold a football and two t-shirts.  Inside was piece of clear vinyl tubing about 24 inches long by 1½ inches in diameter.  Jim took the nozzle from the gas pump, stuck the tubing on the end, opened the gas cap and proceeded to “fill” the Pitts.  Eight gallons and about 45 seconds later, we were done.  Jim grabbed a clipboard on the top of the gas pump, filled out his name and the amount of his purchase, replaced the tubing and locked the baggage compartment and said "let’s go."

Jim opened and held the canopy as I began the process of mounting up.  I took the parachute from the front passenger seat and put it on as instructed.  I grabbed the handhold on the top center wing, placed my left foot on the abrasive strip that marked the “wing walk” and tentatively lifted myself up on the wing.   I then swung my right foot over into the cockpit and onto the seat.  I leaned to the right to swing my left leg in and Jim strongly admonished me to watch the canopy.  Yes, that $1500 canopy.  I eased myself down until I was seated in the front seat.

I am mildly claustrophobic and found myself wondering exactly what I had gotten myself into as I took in the cramped front cockpit of this tiny little airplane.  Jim put the two shoulder straps over my shoulders and watched as I strung together the 5-points of the harness (2 shoulders, 2 laps and a crotch strap) and clicked the latch shut.  Jim reached down and pulled the lap belts tight enough that I could not move from the waist down.  I then put on the second safety lap belt, tightened it and snugged the shoulder straps.  Other than putting on the headsets, I was ready to go.

Jim asked me to hold the canopy while he got into the airplane and effortlessly shoehorned his 6’ 7” frame and parachute into the airplane.  Down came the canopy with a small thud and then the earphones came to life as Jim turned the master switch on the airplane.  “Hey ole buddy, do you read me?”  I answered in the affirmative and took stock of the situation as Jim readied the airplane for start.  The front instrument panel was Spartan – an airspeed indicator, altimeter, huge “g” meter, tachometer and inclinometer (think carpenter’s level).  I had little to no visibility forward – partially obscured by the upper wing, cabane struts and the fact that the we were sitting in a tail low position.  I had decent visibility out the sides.  I wondered how Jim could see to land and innocently asked the question. 

“Visibility is better from the back, but you still have to kind of feel your way down.”   

The whir of a motor snapped me present – a fuel pump I surmised and then Jim yelled “clear” out a tiny vent hole on the side of the cockpit.  The engine turned through five or six revolutions and then caught life.  Once running, Jim reduced the throttle to about 1000 rpms.  Even with headsets, it was loud.  The airplane rocked like a funny car straining against its front brakes during a burnout or a thoroughbred that just can’t wait to go.

I heard the engine increase a bit and then felt the airplane ease forward.  We started a series of “s” turns, back and forth and began to meander our way towards the runway.  Jim came on the intercom and explained that the “s” turns were necessary for him to be able to see forward.

As I explained before, Sussex is a small little airport with one runway and one taxiway.  Within a minute or two we were situated at the end of the taxiway on the departure end of runway 21. Jim began a pretakeoff checklist by asking me if my two seatbelts where on and locked.  I replied affirmative.  The engine then surged to 2100 rpms as Jim cycled the constant speed prop and checked the magnetos for function.  I heard the radio crackle as Jim announced on the radio “Sussex traffic, Pitts 419AP departing running 21 towards the north east.”

Jim advanced the throttle and the Pitts began to roll onto the runway.  Once the airplane was lined up down the centerline of the runway, Jim moved the throttle to full power.  The noise was deafening.  A Porsche 911 will do 0-60 in about 4 seconds.  A Pitts goes from 0 – 100 in about the same.  The acceleration is exhilarating.  I felt the tail come up, noted how bumpy the Sussex runway was and then we were flying.  The ride instantly became smooth.   My view forward was all blue sky as the Pitts carried us skyward at an incredible rate.  I looked to the left and saw that we were passing the end of the runway and had already climbed past 1000 feet.

Jim reduced the power and reduced the propeller rpm’s and the noise subsided slightly.  We did a climbing turn to the left until we were heading parallel to the runway we had just departed in the opposite direction.  At that point, Jim said “your airplane” and asked me to climb to 3000 feet on more or less the same heading.  He also instructed me to continue with “s” turns in order that we be able to clear the airspace in front of us. 

I grabbed the stick and immediately over controlled the airplane.  “Light touch” the Captain instructed.  So with two fingers, I began to get acquainted with a Pitts.  A little pressure to the left and the airplane was almost instantaneously in a 30 or 40 degree turn to the left.  A little back pressure and up we would zoom.  A little forward pressure and I could feel the harness restraining me as we hit 0 G’s or even slightly negative.  Turns required active use of the rudder or the airplane would skid or slip across the sky.

If you have ever heard the expression “seat of your pants”, it is a flying term.  Without going into too much detail, the act of generating lift also creates drag.  Simplistically, airplanes turn when ailerons (control surface on wings) create more lift on one wing than the other and the airplane begins to bank.  Because the lifting wing has more drag than the falling wing, the nose of the airplane moves opposite the direction of roll.  The technical term is adverse yaw. As an example, if you begin a turn to the left by moving the control stick to the left, the nose of the airplane will move to the right.  If the pilot adds a correct amount of left rudder (back at the tail end of the airplane actuated by pedals at the pilot's feet), the nose of the airplane will move back to the left.  We would call this a coordinated turn and the forces experienced by the pilot thru the turn would feel centered.  If the pilot doesn’t add rudder or adds too much, the airplane will skid or slip thru the sky and the pilot will experience the turn as wanting to either throw him to the outside of the seat or let him fall to the inside. 

Novice pilots typically have a hard time understanding what they are feeling, but with experience, one develops a very good sense of the degree of coordination of your flying.  There is an instrument in many airplanes called an inclinometer which is a level of sorts with a ball in a tube full of liquid that lets a pilot know how he is doing with coordination.  Instructors tell us to “step on the ball”, which means apply rudder on the side of the ball to force it back into the center.   There are times in flying when slipping and skidding are desirable, but as a general rule coordinated flying is good practice and keeps a whole host of demons at bay.  In aerobatic flying, this practice is imperative and becomes second nature with experience.

I leveled off at 3000 feet on our way to the practice area.  I did a series of turns back and forth, playing with the rudder and trying to get a feel for the airplane.  Some airplanes feel plodding, others are solid like a Cadillac that are deliberate in their activity but in no hurry to do anything.   A Pitts is like a martial artist – balanced and coiled, ready to spring the moment it is called to action.

Jim announced that we were entering the aerobatic area, also known as the “box” and took control over the airplane.  His clearing turn started with a 70 degree pitch up and about 75 degrees of bank.  The airplane described a sweeping arc across the sky.  The turn cleansed the view of wings and cabanes and we could clearly scan the practice area for other airplanes.  The turn also got my blood flowing.  As previously mentioned, I had very little aerobatic training.  If you think for a second about what a 70 degree climb looks like, realize that the big hill on most roller coasters is about 45 degrees.  70 degrees feels more like straight up than not.

Once we cleared the box, Jim leveled the airplane and said we would start with a roll.  He talked me thru the first one.  “Pitch up 10 degrees, center the stick, stick to the left, a little left rudder, a little forward pressure as the airplane gets inverted, more rudder at the 270 degree point and your done. Let me show you one.”   And he did.  And I smiled – BIG.  And then I did my first roll.  And I smiled bigger.  The second, third and fourth rolls weren’t much prettier than the first, but I started getting a little feel for what was happening.

Jim took the airplane back and said he would demonstrate a loop.   “Dive to 160 mph, gently pull back on the stick, look out to the left to watch the horizon as you pass through vertical, relax back pressure as the airplane begins to get inverted and let it float across the top, throw your head back and catch the ground and pull back to level smoothly.  Don’t pull too hard and pinch the bottom of the loop.  Let me show you”.  And he did.  He gave me the same speech as we traded 160 mph worth of forward energy for a zoom toward the sky, floated weightlessly upside down across the top of the loop and then got jammed into the seat as the airspeed raced back up and we pulled 4 g’s rounding the back side of the loop.   “How ya feeling there good buddy”.  I felt fantastic.  Alive and high on nothing but pure Pitts Special.  I was hooked. 

Jim talked me thru a bad loop, but my first loop nonetheless.  One more loop and we were “bingo” fuel as they say in the Navy and we needed to get back to the airport.  How could 20 minutes go so quickly?  Jim let me do a couple of rolls on the way home and then it was time to get serious about spotting other airplanes and getting back safely on the ground.  Jim took control of the airplane and I kept my eyes peeled for traffic.

Landing any airplane is fun.  It isn’t rocket science, but it does take relentless discipline.  I always tell people that 95% of the landing is the approach.  Good landings happen when the pilot flies the airplane using the right airspeeds and right approaches and a little bit of seat of the pants to accommodate the countless variables that happen when you fly around in an unstable and constantly change sea of air.

At uncontrolled airports like Sussex, there is no control tower to give an airplane clearance.  There are procedures and a “traffic pattern” that help ensure that many airplanes can operate out of the same airport at the same time with a high degrees of safety.  In a nutshell, imagine that the goal is arrive at path heading opposite the runway direction at or about 1000 feet above the ground.  This is called the “downwind leg”.  Fly a little past the end of the runway, reduce your power and take a left onto your “base leg” as you begin your descent.  Take another left turn to line up with the runway and touchdown on the first third of the runway.

So Jim and I are barreling back towards Sussex International Airport at 150 mph in the Pitts.  We take a little right to enter the downwind leg and Jim makes his first radio call. “Sussex traffic, Pitts 419AP on a 45 to enter left downwind for Runway 21 at Sussex”.  The runway appears quickly and Jim turns and makes another call. “Sussex traffic, Pitts 419AP left downwind for 21 at Sussex”.  The power comes back, its gets noticeable quieter and we start a turn towards base. “Sussex traffic, 419AP base to final for 21 at Sussex”.  We roll out slightly to check for traffic on long final and then keep on turning to the left.  

At this point we were getting close enough to the ground, to hills and trees and other inanimate objects for me to perceive that we were falling out of the sky.  Not literally, of course, but we had one hell of a descent rate.  Normal airplanes descend around 500 feet per minute in the approach to landing.  Power off approach descent rates in a Pitts are about 1500 feet a minute give or take.  I remember seeing the edge of the runway coming up along the side of the cockpit, feeling the descent rate slow as the runway rushed up to greet us. Then I couldn't see forward anymore. I was no longer a pilot.  I was a passenger. I felt a slight bump.  I felt a little something left, then right in the seat of my pants and it was over.  Jim taxied off the runway. 

“How ya doing ole buddy?”  Jim asked.

How the hell did you just do that Jim?  I asked.

“A little practice”, he replied.

Yes sir, a little practice indeed.

Peters Valley Chair

I have been spending all of my free time trying to finish a chair for the Peters Valley Auction Dinner on November 5th.  If you are interested, there is more information on the Peters Valley website and they should be posting a link to online bidding for auction items in the next few days.

This chair was a total pleasure to build.  I will let the pictures tell the story.

 

The chair has to be finished this weekend, so I will post a picture of the final product soon.

This was my greeting Tuesday morning - better than a good cup of coffee!

Regards, Patrick

A Ride in a Pitts - Part I

I spent much of my free time in the 90's, hanging out at a little airport in New Jersey.  I had earned my pilot's license in 1984 following my freshman year in college.  By the time I finished law school in 1990 and took a job in NYC,  I had logged almost two hundred hours in a handful of different types of airplanes, received very basic aerobatic instruction and obtained what is known as a "tail wheel" endorsement.  For any non-pilot readers, we will get to tail wheels later so in pilot speak - "standby".  Getting a tail wheel endorsement was challenging and rewarding, the rest of my flying experience pretty undistinguished.

I started working as an associate at a locally notorious sweat shop law firm in New York in September 1990 after graduation and taking the bar.  The people and work were interesting, but the hours were insane.  I worked six days a week (and sometimes seven), twelve to fifteen hour days with regular all night soirees at the "printers" thrown in for good measure.  What price experience, grasshopper?  I needed a diversion and a girlfriend required time and energy that I didn't have.

So one weekday afternoon in the early summer of 1991, before attorneys in my firm were permitted to have computers in their office ("YOU are being paid for your brain, not your typing skills", but that is another story), while waiting for the word processing department to "turn" a draft of a contract, I started working the phones to try and find a place to rent a taildragger.  Three or four phone calls in, someone gave me the name of Sussex Airport with the information that someone in Sussex would rent you a Pitts Special.  My spine tingled.

What, you ask, is a Pitts Special?  I am in love, so I am likely the wrong guy to ask.  Think female uber-athlete - gorgeous, sleek, strong, agile and capable of taking you out if you make the wrong request. One huge smile.

A 1980 Pitts S-2S - makes the blood flow, doesn't it!

Back in the early 1940s, an amateur pilot and designer by the name of Curtis Pitts (December 9, 1916 – June 10, 2005) of Stillmore, GA, designed and built a little biplane that became known as the "Pitts Special".  I won't spend much time here on the history, but Bud Davisson wrote a wonderful book entitled "Pitts Specials - Curtis Pitts and his legendary biplanes" which covers the topic well.  The book is available here but must be out of print because it is expensive for a paperback.  I highly recommend it if you are interested, even at those prices.

The short history is that Curtis' design set the airshow and aerobatic world on fire in the late 40's thru the '70's and became the most popular and most recognized aerobatic airplane of all time.  There are several models of the airplane still in production and it is a favorite design for homebuilders - those crazy neighbors who build airplanes in their basements and then have to jack up their houses to get them out.

"Honey, it looks amazing and no, I can't believe you built it, but how do you plan to get it out of the basement?"

The body of the airplane or "fuselage" is made of chrome-moly steel tubing and covered with fabric, an incredibly strong, light and durable design.  Factory wings are all wood and gorgeously manufactured of tiny wooden pieces - industrial art for those so inclined - and very strong.  The airplane is renown for its agility and the light touch required to fly it well.  Given its intended use, Pitts Specials have a wonderful safety record and have protected many a pilot with honest flying qualities and excess built-in strength. The airplane has an undeserved reputation for being impossible to land.

We return now to our regularly scheduled story, back in an office on the 41st floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza searching for the telephone number for Sussex Airport.  This was pre-Internet, so I had to call directory assistance - 411 if I recall correctly - to get the number.  A friendly voice answered the phone: "Sussex Airport".  I would come to find out later that this voice was Paul Styger and that he was the owner and operator of Sussex Airport.  Paul quickly told me that I had been misinformed - no one rented Pitts Specials on the field, but he did offer that there was an aerobatic school on the field that had a Pitts.  The school was run by a retired American Airline Captain named Jim Chaudoin.  Did I want Jim's number?  My best Texas buddy M.L. would have answered with a grin "is the Pope Catholic?", but I just said "please".  Paul gave me Jim's number and we hung up.  I excitedly called Jim.  After a few rings, the answering machine picked up and the unmistakably commanding voice of an airline pilot delivered a greeting.  I left a message and went back to my drafting.

A week or so later, I received a phone call from Jim.  He was very friendly and gave me a quick rundown on the school's airplanes and pricing.  The school's primary training airplane was a Super Decathalon, 8KCAB, a 180 hp taildragger.  I had a decent amount of experience in the Decathalon's little brother, the Citabria, as it was the airplane in which I received my tailwheel endorsement and a little bit of aerobatic training.  We talked schedule for the upcoming weekend and Jim promised to have me in an airplane Saturday afternoon.

8KCAB - Super Decathalon

When Saturday morning finally came around, I began the dance that New Yorker's without cars get to do on weekends where their trip plan requires wheels. I rented one.  Renting a car in NYC is an unpleasant experience and even more so in the summer.  A subcompact costs at least $100 a day and the logistics of pickup and drop off and lines and surly customer service make you want to either move or just throw in the towel and go to Central Park and hang out with the other thirty or so thousand people who couldn't deal with renting a car in NYC.  I don't remember this particular experience as being too bad but I do remember that I arrived at Sussex Airport later than I had planned and Jim and crew had gone off to a diner on the edge of the field to have lunch.

My first impression of the airport was run down charm.  Situated on the outskirts of Sussex Borough, the airport looked like a stage from a movie set in the 1940’s.  Surrounded by dairy farms and the spectacular scenery of NW New Jersey, Sussex Airport was full of bustle and activity.  100 acres of land, one runway oriented north and south, a very large hangar with the letters “Sussex Airport” displayed in such large letters that you could read them from the air, and a field full of airplanes of every imaginable shape and size - garden variety Cessna’s and Pipers, WWII training airplanes, homebuilts, gliders, helicopters and more.  Around the airport, people were busy.  In the maintenance hangar, a 100 ft by 40 ft structure located next to the control tower, there were three or four mechanics and a couple of pilots working on their machines.  In the air, the landing “pattern” was full of airplanes of all types flown by an equally diverse group of pilots – veterans and students and almost everything in between.   For a lifelong aviation buff, Sussex Airport was nirvana.

I wandered around for a little while, trying to digest all of the scenery.  Eventually, Jim and the aerobatic crew came back from the diner.   Jim looked like he was in his sixties, about six foot seven, in good shape, with a firm handshake and a booming voice.  He introduced himself and a few members of his entourage and then proceeded to give me the bad news:  the Decathalon was broken and the part would not arrive for a few days.  Ugh.  I was disappointed - all those logistics to get out to Sussex and nothing.  I asked Jim if there was anything else we could use and he said no - just the Pitts and because I was a beginner, a lesson in the Pitts would be more of a ride than a learning experience.

We began to chat more generally and all wandered over to Jim's hangar.  Crammed, wing to wing in a 36 foot by 36 foot space were 4 Pitts Specials, two single seaters and two with two seats.  The front two machines were polished and glowing. The third, a single seater dubbed the "Green Machine", was covered in oil. The fourth and final Pitts, which will be the protagonist of a future post, was tucked into the back corner of the hangar under cover.  In person, the machines were tiny and spectacular.  I spent a few more moments admiring the flock and finally told Jim that a ride/lesson in the Pitts sounded fine.  He didn't think it was such a great idea - "too much airplane for a beginner", but after coming to understand the logistics involved in my travel to Sussex, he reluctantly agreed.

 ......to be continued

When Good Chairs Go Bad, or the Trials and Tribulations of Fatherhood

I have been building chairs for my family by birth order.  #1 was for my wife, but since it was my first, she "willed" it back to me.  #2 went to my first born.  Birthright can be both a benefit and a burden and my daughter received the privilege of my first solo chair with its distinction as the most character-filled chair creation to date.  Each morning at breakfast, I feel a strong urge to take a drawknife to the arm bow and clean it up.  Pete Galbert cautioned against the instinct and assured me that I would ultimately love the chair for its "charm".  It has been two years and I am softening, but still having to work at it.  #3 came out of the workshop significantly more refined and my wife adopted it immediately.  I am constructing #4 for my eight year old son who currently sits on a windsor stool that I made with Pete at Peters Valley.

The building of #4 has been mostly seamless.  The maple came from a local sawyer in the form of a fresh, thirty inch long, twenty four inch diameter cutoff from a veneer log heading to Canada.  It split beautifully and turned like butter.  The legs, stretchers and arm posts emerged from the splittings with minimal coaxing.  The arm bow came from a beautiful white oak I got for #3.  The spindles were born from a different section of white oak that a local tree doctor dropped off for my use.  Both oaks split nicely with a minimum of wasted wood.

When I went to shave the arm bow blank, I noticed a little "kink" in the wood, slightly to the left of the center of what was to become #4's most visible feature.  Remembering well the lesson that "perfect is the enemy of good enough" (thanks Pete), I decided that this little "kink" would come out in the steaming process or at least be a charming addition to the chair.  I fancied myself an experienced chairmaker, who, having mastered the fine art of following the fibers, would quickly tame this little flaw on the otherwise flawless piece of white oak.  So I shaved and shaped and very quickly had a mostly pleasing arm bow, ready for the steam box.  Mostly pleasing, except for the "kink" that looked like the tree had grown around a one inch section of steel pipe.  Of course, there was no pipe, but there was a pretty severe bump.  My best childhood buddy and motocrosser, M.L. Walker (a.k.a. "Mr. Motocross") would have called it a "woop ti do".  A little voice inside my head warned me of problems to come, but I dismissed that little voice as being overly picky and fired up the steam box.

I shaved spindles while the steambox was doing its magic.  After about 45 minutes, the arm bow felt ready so I put it back in as I went thru my pre-bend checklist.  Form clamped to workbench - check, dowel pins - check, wedges - check, dead blow hammer - check, plastic tie wraps (to hold the bent arms to the form) - check, gloves - check, extra boiling water on the portable stove - check.

I opened the steam box and deliberately moved to the form and began the dance.  The internal dialog went something like this: "Place the arm bow with center mark up into the form, center and wedge.  Smoothly bend the right side along the form, insert dowel pin and wedge.  Smoothly bend the left, kinky side, along the form, pin and wedge.  The kink didn't crack, but it is still there.  Hmmm.  No time to think about this. Grab boiling water and pour on right arm at the point of main arm bend.  Support with both hands and gently bend along the form.  Tie with the tie wrap and a piece of scrap wood to prevent the tie wrap from cutting into the wood.  Success.  Move to the left arm, pour boiling water and smoothly bend, tie with tie wrap.  Breathe."

Bending wood is great fun, but to quote Forrest Gump's mommy, "ya never know what you are going to get."  I'm four for five in my amateur arm bow bending career.  My one loss I attribute completely to a lack of sleep and a hastily and poorly constructed steambox.  The three inch piece of Schedule 30 PVC couldn't take the heat.  I suffered from the loss, regrouped and built a wallpaper steamer powered version.  It is all screws and chemically-laced plywood and is not a thing of beauty, but man does it steam wood.

But I digress.  I stood relaxing, admiring the arm bow of #4, feeling accomplished because the critical ninety degree "arms" bent smoothly and without any tearing or cracking.  But instead of a nice arc across the top, my bow was an arc, then a kink, and more arc.  Worse yet, it would not snug up flat against the form.  For those not familiar with bending forms, imagine a square piece of plywood with a smaller, half circle screwed down board edge to diameter edge.  The are six to ten holes drilled approximately 1 1/2 inches from the edge of the circle.  The goal is to pull the steamed arm bow along the circle and insert dowels in the holes as you proceed around.  Once the main bend is accomplished, small wooden wedges are used to force the arm bow up tight against the circle form.

#4's bow had bent wonderfully, except at the point of the kink, where it was about 1/4 of an inch from the form.  The kink was close to a dowel and it looked that I could reverse the wedge and force the bow against the form.  So I did and fearfully began to tap the wedge snug.  At this point, with no drumroll needed, my arm bow voiced a faint cracking complaint.  The kink, it seemed, was very attached to its form and the fibers along the top were going to commit separation hari kari if I insisted on them taking the form of my choosing.  So there I stood, with a little kink in an otherwise beautiful arm bow or, as the Buddha in me would recognize if I could find him, a beautiful arm bow. Leave the kink or risk the crack - that was the question.  So I pondered, thought of Pete, looked, waited and then shut down my shop and walked back to my house.

In the light of the following day, the little kink didn't look so bad.  Maybe it would straighten out in the kiln? Maybe it was charming?  Maybe this chair needed a kinked arm bow?  The thought crossed my mind to make another arm bow, but I placed the form and bow into the kiln to begin the drying process and turned my attention to other parts.

After the round with the kinky arm bow, #4 progressed uneventfully.  The leg glue up went well and the undercarriage came out nice and straight.  I scraped the seat, reamed the tapers and fit the arm posts.  I fussed and fiddled and fussed some more with the spindles until they looked "just right".  And then came time to drill the arm bow.  For the uninitiated, arm bow drilling is a bit like Zen archery.  The goal is to drill 3/8 inch holes in the arm bow on angles that match those of the spindles emerging from the chair.  P.S. - don't put any pressure on the drill because the drill bit leaves a big tear out on the back side of the hole if you aren't gentle.  Breathe, aim, fire, breathe, open your eyes and see if ya did any damage.  In fairness, the process looks much more unforgiving than it actually is.  Most of us survived learning to ride a bike - learning to drill an arm bow is pretty similar.

At one point in my life, I spent a lot of time on a bicycle.  I could even do bunny hops and endo's and pull off the occasional tabletop.  I can still do a wheelie.  But I can't drill arm bows without a lot of agita. So I procrastinate. I ponder. I measure. I dilly dally, change the music, turn off the music and finally drill the first hole.  Sometimes the first angle is good, sometimes it isn't, but some of the stress dissipates after the first drilling.  From the first hole to the last is a series of highs and lows, all while trying to keep in mind the goal of managing the overall level of error to an acceptable level.  I have drilled some doozies at this point in my chairmaking career.  The good news is that wood will move a lot and oak is strong, but these errors do make the final glue up process a lot more exciting so we strive to be as accurate as possible.

I drilled the arm bow of #4 with no major hiccups.  I reamed, adjusted angles and fit spindles.  The chair took shape until it was time to assemble.  I scraped the inside of the arm bow and did final shaping of the underside of "hands" with a drawknife. I mixed hide glue and waited for it to cook.  I made maple wedges for the spindles and cut kerfs in the arm posts for wedging.  I mentally signed off on the quality of all the parts and got ready for the ballet that is final glue up.

The glue up went great too.  The arm bow slipped into its marked position without a great deal of effort.  I fixed a slight highness on the left side with a little tap from the deadblow and a piece of pine.  Perfect.  A tap or two here and there and a mindless final tap on the right side arm post and I was done.  Or so I thought.

I started wedging the arm bow from the left side of the chair.  One by one, I split the spindles with a small chisel and then tapped a glue covered maple wedge into position.  With two more spindles and the right arm post to go, a small detail caught my eye.  The front of the arm bow was cracked from its front edge to near the arm post joint.  As Jerry Seinfeld would say: "Newman!"  And then I remembered that last mindless tap.  Tapered tenons and thin strips of oak can be a volatile combination.  So I had goofed and now faced another decision - scrap the arm bow and start anew or try to fix it.

The chair looked great.  Even the kink.  But I was concerned about the break because people put a lot of weight on the front arms when then rise from the chair.  After wracking my brain for a few minutes, I remembered that instrument makers use butterfly splines to fix guitar and violin tops, which are subject to very heavy string forces.  I figured it was worth a try.

Time will tell whether the fix will hold.  I used epoxy, which is very strong, and the butterfly is about 1/8 inch thick.  I think it should hold, but fortunately, I will be the only one to complain if it doesn't.  In the meantime, every member of my family has a chair.  My son saw the butterfly and interpreted it as a special feature built into "his" chair.

I am a big admirer of #4.  I smile when I see the kink in the arm bow.  I appreciate the repaired but imperfect hand.  #4 schooled me in humility and loudly protested my sometimes lack of grace.  I hope the lesson sticks and that I can bring a lighter hand and clearer vision to my roles as father, husband and employee.










This morning at 6:30 am, I looked at #4, occupied by my beautiful eight year old son sleepily waiting for a breakfast taco, and was happy.


Regards, Patrick