Peter Follansbee, joiner's notes

a new version of an oak carving

The past two days this blog got an average of 164 views -then today it got 1,585 views. Must be Chris – yup Chris Schwarz included a link in his post today – to something I wrote almost 14 years ago! About using hand tools, why I do it, etc. I’ll add some up-to-date thoughts on that subject in a minute. But first, thanks for the nod, Chris. If you are one of the 1,500 people who came here today, welcome. These days this blog mostly serves as an archive of my work. I started it in 2008 – and still post something here once in a while, but mostly I’ve been writing on my “new” blog at Substack – https://peterfollansbeejoinerswork.substack.com/ – I started there in 2023 – after seeing Schwarz’s substack blog. That blog has changed my life – the support I get there is a great benefit for which I am very grateful. When I first left museum work, I spent a lot of time on the road, teaching classes in Maine, Connecticut, North Carolina, Minnesota and some further-flung places too. All that travel got pretty draining and made shop work very choppy. Now I’ve reduced my teaching to just a few times each year and instead I put a lot of effort into the blog – trying to make sure that the readers there get their money’s worth. I try to post at least twice a week and aim to make the posts worth the time & money that the readers spend on them…

One thing I talked about in that 14-year old post is how the work I did for 20 years at the living history museum was a perfect situation for me – my living was derived from working with/for the museum visitors – not selling the handmade things I created. I got so much practice there that wouldn’t have been possible in the “real” world – it was quite an education. A quote from that post is “I often maintain that if I had to sell my furniture to make my living, it would not work the way I do it.”

Well – less than 2 years after I wrote that post, I quit that job and struck out on my own. And I’m still plugging away 12 years after that. And it’s partially true – if my whole income was dependent on selling my handmade items, I’d be hard-pressed. But now my income is split among a few branches of this woodworking I do – teaching a few classes each year at Pete Galbert’s in Berwick, Maine https://www.petergalbert.com/schedule , making stuff to sell – that’s mostly furniture, but also includes some instructional videos I’ve created here in my shop and some plans/drawings I developed with Jeff Lefkowitz – there’s links to those things on my little-used website – https://www.peterfollansbee-joiner.com/ The furniture I usually post on the substack blog – sometimes I put it on the website, then write a blog post pointing to it. And the books through Lost Art Press https://lostartpress.com/search?type=product%2Carticle%2Cpage&options%5Bprefix%5D=last&q=Follansbee&filter.p.product_type= with more to come there.

So – do I still work exclusively with hand tools, now that I’m out on my own and getting older (68 going on 69) every day? Almost 100% yes. I work with green hardwoods – splitting the boards from logs. Mostly oak. Big logs. I split them at the yard where I buy them, then move the large sections here to my yard. So I gladly accept help of friends with a chainsaw to cut those large logs.

Not my saw

For decades now I’ve had the benefit of Rick McKee’s help when I’m log-shopping. He’s deft enough with that saw – and I’m nowhere near competent with them, so lucky to have his help. Plus it’s better to split those big ones with company too – even if it’s just to provide the rest-breaks that come with conversation. Here at my yard, when I need to saw some of the split bolts to length, I use a corded electric chainsaw. Always starts, no gas, etc. From there, all the woodwork is my usual assortment of hand tools. The lathe is still a pole lathe, powered by foot & caloric intake.

pole lathe

I did have some help recently from another long-time collaborator – Pret Woodburn, who helped me build the shop – did some tablesaw work for me. I made this large box from some quartersawn white oak boards – but the boards had wide sections of sapwood that needed to be gone.

white oak strapwork box, March 2026

If it had been riven stock, I could have split & hewn the sapwood off – but it didn’t look or feel reliable enough to split. And hewing dry stock is not all that pleasant. I can use a ripsaw, but when I marked out all the cuts, it just made more sense to get them machined. From there, I did all the planing and cutting – more than enough of it. And it was a pleasure. (same gig for a walnut box that I started about the same time.) But now it’s back to green wood that responds well to the froe, axe and plane.

The only other concession that I have is a grinder – I’ve just replaced my old Tormek with a CBN wheel on a slow-speed-that-seems-fast-to-me grinder. It’s so new I have little to report, other than good so far.

I feel like I’ve been to confession. My plan is to keep using the tools and methods I’ve used all these years til my body gives out. I’ve planed thousands of feet of riven oak boards and I never tire OF it – I get tired from it, but then after a night’s rest, I’m ready to go again. So until you hear otherwise, I’ll keep slashing away; froe, hatchet, planes, saws, chisels & gouges and more. I’m sure I’ll slow down, but I hope to get quite a few more years in. I have stuff I still want to make. And we still gotta eat.

green shavings, red oak

If you didn’t see Chris’s post – here it is, with the link to my old post at the bottom https://christopherschwarz.substack.com/p/earlywood-if-theyd-had-a-biscuit

I’ve been carving stuff in the shop, some panels and the beginnings of two more strapwork boxes, one white oak, one walnut. All sawn stock, my riven oak is just beginning to poke out from under the snow. Today’s post on the substack blog is free-to-all subscribers (paid & free) – there I talk about some period carvings and post a couple of carved panels for sale…
https://peterfollansbeejoinerswork.substack.com/p/more-about-carved-panels-plus-video

black walnut box front underway

But I’ve been wanting to work some recent bird photos into my everyday blog, just haven’t had much room. I have too much to say about the woodwork. The winter weather has brought some of the raptors in closer, some of them have a hard time finding food in the snow, so the bird feeders bring possible prey into view for them. That’s how I read it anyway. I know it’s true of the cooper’s hawk (Astur cooperii) – this one snatched somebody from around the bird feeders, then fed up in the top of the apple tree.

cooper’s hawk

While I photographed this bird from the open back door, I saw a larger raptor swing by – just turned the camera quickly, thinking “I’ll get this red-tail…” – turned out to be a bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) –

bald eagle

we don’t often see them here, but the river was open water – most of the ponds around here are frozen over. He was gone in an instant.

Another day another raptor. Thought I saw two more red-tail hawks flying over the house…they too were gone in an instant. Then half-hour later, saw two hawks perched in the sycamore tree next door – but they were red-shouldered hawks, not red-tailed hawks. (Buteo lineatus) – I couldn’t get them both in the same shot – this one posed more cooperatively than the other.

red-shouldered hawk

Down in the river one day saw these buffleheads – the smallest duck. (Bucephala albeola) –

buffleheads

these are females and for a little while I worked myself into a state of confusion by mis-reading Sibley’s book about the bufflehead. What I thought I read was that the male doesn’t show his breeding plumage in the winter…which is not the case. Doubly-so. Not what the book said, not what the duck does. I know I’ve seen many breeding-plumage male buffleheads over the years – but they breed far north & west of here. Far. Below is a shot from the same river, same backyard, almost exactly a year ago – one male, two females. These birds are pretty skittish, I can never get close to them.

male & female buffleheads

My birding mentor Marie helped sort me out. Momentary collapse of reading comprehension. It happens.

The red-tail hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) are around regularly – this one, a juvenile – tried to snatch someone from the feeder-crowd. Missed, then perched in the catalpa tree right outside the shop. Often you can get near juvys for good shots –

red-tail hawk, juvein

Every snowy winter we try to get a good photo of the northern cardinal male in the holly tree. I didn’t get it just right this year, but got a consolation nice shot of the female – (Cardinalis cardinalis)

female Northern cardinal

In the winter, there’s often 10-12 cardinals here at once, but I can’t seem to get a group shot that’s worth a damn…so here’s a male portrait from quite a few years ago – next to the holly tree…

male cardinal