Peter Follansbee, joiner's notes

[If you read my substack blog, skip this one. Just notifying readers of the new book about the Essex County cupboard.]

PF version of 1680s Essex County Massachusetts cupboard

I was the luckiest woodworker around when I got the chance to make TWO versions of one of the most elaborate cupboards I know…and even more so when Lost Art Press (who else?) agreed to turn my notes and photos into a book.

The link for ordering is here – https://lostartpress.com/products/17th-century-essex-county-cupboard

I first saw the cupboard this is based on in 1998 – it’s in the collections at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston. At that point, I was embarking on a study with my friend Bob Trent of this cupboard and its relatives. That study took a couple of years to research, digest and write.

PF photo of the Paine/Sawyer family cupboard at MHS

Along the way I had a chance to collaborate with my joiner-friends Ted Curtin and Rob Tarule – they were building a copy of a related example to be exhibited at the Saugus Iron Works – and they included me in some of that work. Then in 2001 the article I worked on with Trent and Alan Miller was published in the 2001 edition of American Furniture. At that point, I figured that my Essex Co Cupboards notebook would go on the shelf and stay there. And so it did, for 20 years – when out of the blue I got asked would like me to make one! I jumped at the chance and was twice-blessed. I wrote enough about the project that another person chimed in & said “I want one too.”

Along the way I shot a bunch of video of the process in addition to the photos for the book. I’ve edited a bunch of those – about 5 hours’ worth and made a vimeo-on-demand page for them. Think of them as a companion to the book. All the details are in the book. Many of the processes are presented in the video series. Link is here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/504407

I posted a sample video of about 10 minutes of setting the pintle hinges on the cupboard door over on my substack blog. That video is above the paywall – so you should be able to see it. Maybe you need a free subscription – those that get the truncated posts. Often those are about half the length of the full post…

https://peterfollansbeejoinerswork.substack.com/p/the-cupboard-book-is-done

detail upper case of the 2nd version

A follow-up to the previous post about that 19th-century door. One reader, Dennis Santella, was able to create very clear images from some of my photos. How he did it is hocus-pocus to me – all that matters is he did it. I’ll post a few of them here with some partial transcriptions. Thank you to Dennis – and if anyone can fill in my blanks, I’d love to hear from you. The transcription I put in italics, to distinguish from my comments.

Across part of this batten I can make out the following:

First real snow of the season Dec 4, 1886

First white frost season  Sept 21, 1886

Heavy freeze Oct 4, 1886

—————————————————————-                           

1891 Robins and blue birds Mar 15

Frogs Mar 20

Crickets [evening of?] Oct 2? [7?]

      “              “              “  14

      “             “             “  18

                  “               “            “   20

Crickets heard first time on Aug 9

First frost of the season Oct 2, 

Total eclipse of the moon Nov 15, 1891   [illegible beyond date]

Dennis showed me the part about the eclipse. I looked it up & there was an eclipse then visible in Massachusetts – over night on Nov 15/16. The next photo of that batten shows a small area blocked off in 2 squares:

June 15, 1887

White frost this AM. No damage to Garden

First frost of the Season Sept 16, 1887

No damage to Garden

I’m pretty sure that first date is 1887. One pass through I recorded it as 1889, but that doesn’t make sense. The last photo of that batten has a few entries on it –

Crickets distinctly [heard?] for first time Aug 5 [?] 1887

Crickets on Oct, 8, 1887

          “    “      17     “

          “     “    18      “

The last part of that batten has records from two different years, much of it I can’t make out. 

The worst and longest ____ ____

Of the year with ____ _____ ___ in the 

Night of Nov 7, 188_

Thunder Storm & very heavy rain Nov 18, 1886

First Snow of the season  Nov 13, 1886

Heavy [thunder?] & ____
Feb 18, 1887 ____ ____

[bottom bevel on right-hand end of batten:]

Bad NE Snow Storms _____

April] 13, 1887 4 or 5 inches _____ 

____  to 9 PM _________

Some of that beveled section shows up better in a later photo – I cropped it & insert it here:

A non-woodworking post – but it has a hand-made 19th century door in it. Some friends & I often chat about the birds we see around the neighborhood and in one of those conversations recently they re-told me a story of a door in their house. It came out of an old house here in town about 50 years ago. Though I had heard the story, I hadn’t seen the door until this spring – of didn’t remember it anyway.

19th century interior door

As far as that sort of thing goes it’s a nice, but pretty common, white pine door. Shiplapped boards, clinch-nailed battens. I like how some of the boards taper in width – that’s a nice feature. Its original configuration was from a house-to-a-shed. I don’t know what went on in that shed, but someone kept notes written on the door about the weather and comings and goings of nature – 

Here’s what I can read from the middle of that section:

1890

Bluebirds Robins + Blackbirds 

10th of March ______ _____ ___

First Crickets Aug 7, 1890

First frost of the Season Sept 25

Crickets on Oct 10 [Rainy? ???]

   “           “     “    16

First Snow flurry Nov 11 1890

These notes are scattered all across the top half of the door. Some legible, most less-than legible. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the format – one year is here, the next is elsewhere.

On the top cleat are some notes from 1886 – then right under them 1891

I can’t quite make out the top line but just below that is:

“First white frost of [the season?] – with the date just past the nail head – “Sept [21?] 1886
Heavy freeze Oct 4 1886″

Then right below that a line setting off the next entries for 1891

“1891 Robins and blue birds Mar 15
Crickets heard first time on Aug 9″

It goes on – but that photo cuts it off right there…it spills onto the next photo. “Frogs Mar 20 Crickets….” [illegible]

So – if you’d like to help decipher what’s written on this door, I’m all ears. I shot large photo files – and if I’ve done it right you can view and/or download them – but you gotta have a dropbox account…

I wasn’t sure of a way to create downloadable files here on this blog – and I gave up trying.

Any of you with graphics wizardry might be able to improve the photos to bring out the writing. The earliest date I’ve seen is 1872, latest maybe 1894 or 5. I think this link will bring you to a folder of 30 or so photos. If you can transcribe stuff, key it to the photo’s number

I tinkered with the brightness & contrast on this section from the 1870s

the bottom third I get:

“Crickets Aug 1st 1877
” heard distinctly on
Oct 15 1877 after a very Warm day”

Anything you have to add, leave a comment or send an email – PeterFollansbee7@gmail.com

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