Is Douglas fir the most beautiful of all the softwoods? I love it most because of its clear, straight grain. It’s mostly used for building, and not that often for furniture, but it is very recognizable. It is a beautiful pinkish-red colour when new, interspersed with darker stripes, and ages to a reddish-brown. It may be most beautiful when quarter-sawn, so the growth rings are relatively perpendicular to board faces. Douglas fir, or Pseudotsugamenziesii if you want to go all botanical, comes from the Pacific Northwest, and BC, where trees can be 200ft tall and up to 6ft in diameter. The last of the towering behemoths that once blanketed the region.
Tight surface grain, lightly sanded.
Problem is, that it’s not exactly a “fine” wood. The stripes that make it beautiful to look at also are hard on hand-tools – largely because of the difference in hardness between the earlywood and latewood. It also has a tendency to splinter, which isn’t great when trying to build furniture. It does machine well, but also dulls cutters, a bit of a double edged sword.
That being said, it has fewer resins than other softwoods, so doesn’t seem to have a problem with paint or even clear finishes. Staining works too, but the light-to-dark variation in growth rings may lead to some discolouration. To my liking the most beautiful grain is the quarter sawn.
The end grain showing the tightness of the growth rings.
Traditional buildings in most parts of the world reflect an intimate knowledge of a climate, a building material, and activities typical of a culture. The Norwegian landscape is rugged and mountainous, comprised of deep crags, vast fjords, and thick forests. Some would say it is harsh, even in contrast to Sweden with its more gentle valleys, and archipelago. Dwellings for both humans, animals, and storage had to be built to deal with the cold, snowy long winters.
The wood building cultures of Europe can be loosely tied to the kinds of forests found in the differing regions. Some places, like the Germanic regions, France, and England were ideally suited for growing open, deciduous forests such as oak. This lead to a dominance of post-and-beam construction. In the more northern regions including Scandinavia, and Russia, coniferous forests dominated, and log buildings became the most dominate form of construction. Eventually these building techniques intermixed forming a vast repository of building styles. This occurred in Scandinavia during the most significant period of its early history, the age of the Vikings (790-1100AD). The ship faring culture which evolved lead to social, economic, and architectural changes in the Scandinavian way of life. Ships provided a means of experiencing other cultures, and provided access to wood technology evolving elsewhere in Europe.
Storehouse from Søndre Tveito (ca.1300) constructed using logs.
While many other cultures in Europe used wood in some way in their crafts and buildings, in Norway wood was used for the majority of buildings up until the 19th century. Norway’s agrarian economy had two effects on the wood culture. On one side, it limited opportunities for importing building materials. On the other hand, although wood was plentiful, labour was not. Despite these shortcomings, Norwegians built a large repertoire of knowledge related to woodworking. The core woodworking tool for hundreds of years was the axe. It was used to fell trees, hew logs, and shape notches. This is likely the reason why the axe became such a symbol of Scandinavian woodcraft. Drawknives were used to smooth the surface of the logs. Apart from those, chisels, planes, and auger were used. Saws were known, but not very common, most likely because an axe could be used with more precision.
Storehouse (loft) from Søre Rauland, Nore and Uvdal. The ground floor, or bur, was built around 1209, and constructed of logs. The upper loft (1509) is stave built. The building originally stood on a low foundation, and was lifted in the 1700s.
Wood is in many respects the ideal building material. It is easily carved and moulded to particular shapes, but also has incredible structural qualities. Wood has great strength with respect to its weight, with the bonus of elasticity. The principal structural member is the tree trunk itself, which can be used as either a horizontal or vertical supporting, load-bearing member. The trees used by the Norwegians were likely well seasoned before being used. Seasoning was often a long process which occurred well before the trees were felled. This was achieved using two techniques: ringbarking and “Blæking”. In ringbarking, the two outmost layers of the tree near its base are removed around the entire circumference. This kills the tree in a very slow fashion, removing the sugars, and drying the tree before it is felled. In Blæking, or tree injuring (spot barking), bark is chopped off at random over the entire trunk. As the tree heals, the sugars are pushed out and replaced with resins (this makes them more rot resistant). Structural components were often hewn from Scotch pine, curved pieces from birch, and connectors from Juniper.
A log constructed farmhouse set atop a stone base with a traditional sod roof (from Bjørnebergstølen in Hemseda, ca. 1790)
There are two main types of historic wood construction in Norway: stave and log. These have been used effectively for constructing many different forms of buildings thoughout the ages. From the Middle Ages to the 1900s, many wood buildings were made using notched log construction, or lafting, a method that came to Norway during the Viking age from the east, e.g. Finland. Lafting made use of timbers that were notched at the corners and horizontally stacked upon one another. The Scandinavians perfected lafting, both from a technical and aesthetic perspective. An older form, stave construction is a method of building with posts, staves, as the load-bearing elements, with the use of vertical planks to form walls. It was often used for constructing outbuildings like barns, and sheds. Forerunners of Norwegian stave buildings likely had posts which were dug into the ground, which made them susceptible to rotting. From about 1100, posts were set on beams laid on stone foundations. The lower rectangular frame is constructed of sill beams, set atop stone foundations. The beams are joined into the corner staves in some manner, e.g., dovetailed into grooves and secured with wooden pegs. Vertical plank walls were inserted into a groove in the sill beam. In some cases the narrow spaces between planks were closed with a tongue-and-groove joint. Although the corner posts are staves, the vertical wall planking is reminiscent of the staves of a barrel. The most prominent buildings of this form which still exist are the pre-reformation Stave churches.
Roubo’s “L’Art du Menuisier” (The Art of the Carpenter), was published between 1769-1775, and shows a somewhat different bench to that of Diderot’s. The differences lie in the M&T joint used to attach the legs to the bench top, the fact that the edge of the top is now flush with the legs, and there is a drawer under the right end of the bench-top overhang. Roubo’s bench was a monster in terms of the size of its structural components. The bench top was 5-6 inches thick, is 20-22 inches in width and varies in length from 6-12 feet (“but 9 feet is normal”), and constructed of elm or beech. Plate 11 (Volume 1) shows the bench, together with a depiction of the various components of the bench, and what Roubo terms a “press“, effectively a leg-vice, 4-5 inches wide, and 2 inches thick. It had a large wooden screw through the middle, used to apply pressure, and secure a workpiece.
Fig.1: Roubo’s workbench from Vol.1, Plate 11, showing details of leg construction, and bench devices, including the “press”, quasi leg-vice.
The bench-top is supported by four legs, made of oak, which are joined 4-5” from the bottom with stretchers, 4”+ in depth, and 2” in thickness. The height of the bench is 2.5 feet. The front legs have three holes for hold-fasts. Now consider the upper portion of Plate 11, depicting the “Interior view of a carpenter’s shop“.
Fig.2: Interior view of a carpenter’s shop
Look closely and it is evident that the exact bench as depicted in Fig.1 does not actually appear in the carpenter’s shop. The benches in the picture are obviously larger (roughly 8 feet in length), which is not unusual based on the size of the doors etc. being constructed. While the front edges of the bench do appear to be flush with the legs of the bench, the legs are not attached using a through mortise (some may argue this has been left out because it is too detailed, but the picture itself is very detailed). There is also no drawer on the right end. Scan the room, and there is also no evidence of the leg vise in use, or even in view. Most work is still being done using a holdfast, or planing stop.
Roubo also discusses a cabinetmakers bench, in Volume 3. It is shown on Plate 279, with a description on pages 803-806. Roubo suggests it is of German origin, possibly derived from the numerous German cabinetmakers in Paris. This bench has both a tail-vice, and two leg vices, one fixed, and one sliding. The leg vices are slightly different to that of the one shown in Plate 11, as they seem slightly more curved at the ends, and incorporate a parallel guide at the base.
Fig.3: The German workbench from Vol.3, Plate 279.
On Plate 14 (Volume 1), there is a figure of a joiner planing a board on a bench (Fig.19), again without the legs mortised through the bench top, and no sign of the leg vice. Was the drawing of the leg vice on Plate 11, a mere afterthought, something added after viewing the leg vice of the German workbench?
Fig.4: Plate 14.
Note, when looking at the dimensions described by Roubo, one has to take into account that the measurements were based on medieval royal units. An inch was therefore equivalent to 1.066 imperial inches (27.07mm), and a foot was 12.792 imperial inches (32.48cm).
working by hand 