A few of Chris’s favorite books
Hi Everyone,
This is Ilana, Chris’s widow. Hope you are healthy and faring OK as this year draws to a close (and if you are in the U.S., as the election draws near as well)!
I have a fun and practical post that some of you will hopefully find useful. I still get questions about Chris’s recommendations for all sorts of things, from tools to machines to where to purchase chisels. Although I am not into encouraging consumerism, if you are going to buy things (I can see into your mind and know you want more tools!), why not buy ones that are recommended by Chris?
I do not get any money from anything listed in this post. This is purely in response to the occasional questions that I receive. Seems good to have it all in one place. (If you do want to support the blog or our family, you can buy carpentry-drawing-materials/” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>Chris’s carpentry drawing and joinery PDFs using the button above. The proceeds cover the cost of keeping the blog active and anything left goes directly to our family.)
Feel free to chime in using the comments if you think I have forgotten something, you agree, disagree, etc. It’s subjective, so there’s no official right or wrong here!
Chris’s Faves:
Books
Including a few links to reviews on this blog that you may have missed! A reader of the blog recently asked me to help him find the book recommendations, so that is what got this whole thing started!
For inspiration on motifs: Chinese Lattice Designs and Japanese Design Motifs from Dover. He would often consult these when thinking about lattice designs and other decorative details in his pieces. Often, he ended up with something that was inspired by a motif in one of these books even though he rarely copied them exactly.
Book in English on Japanese Gardens: Japanese Garden Design by Marc Keane
He liked Get Your House Right and provided a detailed review in a 2011 post.
Shoji and Kumiko Design Basics – 2-part, detailed review here from 2012
Understanding wood: A Craftsman’s Guide to wood Technology by Bruce Hoadley
tools/books-and-dvds/114812-japanese-woodworking–tools-their-tradition-spirit-and-use-special-edition?item=71L3007″ target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>Japanese woodworking tools: Their Tradition, Spirit, and Use by Toshio Odate
French carpentry: He loved (and at times found very frustrating) the incredible and huge book by Louis Mazerolle, Traité Théorique et Pratique de Charpente. It is very expensive, only available in 19th century French, and has some errors in the drawings that may have been printing errors or may have been intentional, to throw off readers from competing woodworking guilds! All that said, the book is amazing and has huge, fold out carpentry drawings of a variety of complex structures, using French joinery and layout techniques of that time period. If you don’t want to buy your own copy and you happen to be in the Northeast of the US, feel free to contact me about dropping by to see the book and some of Chris’s furniture.
The Nature and Art of Workmanship by David Pye (Chris also had The Nature and Aesthetics of Design by the same author.)
Chinese Furniture:
- He owned and liked several books by Wang Shixiang, an amazing scholar of classical Chinese furniture. Chris referred to these for technical and artistic design inspiration and also enjoyed just paging through them. The author’s most influential book, which Chris also had, is Classic Chinese Furniture: Ming and Early Qing Dynasties.
- Chris liked the book Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture by Sarah Handler, and the title cracked us up! But Chris definitely respected Sarah Handler’s scholarship and study on Chinese furniture.
- There are also several incredible books on classical Chinese furniture from museum collections.
He owned and liked several books on Art Nouveau, Greene & Greene, Ruhlmann, Horta, and others – I will work on adding specific examples!
He also had a lot of books in Japanese on carpentry, layout, furniture, joinery, and architecture. I am not listing them here because (unlike Chris) I do not read Japanese and don’t know which ones were his favorites. If you do read Japanese and are interested in Chris’s books in Japanese that I still have, feel free to email me and I can send you photos.
Building the Japanese House Today by Len Brackett and Peggy Landers Rao is a book that Chris got in the last few years of his life, when it was published. Chris worked for Len Bracket at East Wind in the early 2000s and respected Len’s knowledge and care for the work. The book is aimed at clients outside of Japan who may be interested in having a Japanese style home built for them, so it doesn’t have the degree of technical detail needed as a builder. However, it does make it clear that it’s not possible to build a Japanese house simply by building a house that uses Japanese design elements – to do it in a way that captures the beauty of Japanese carpentry requires understanding of Japanese design, layout, use of wood, joinery, carpentry, and interior design details. There are few books in English that provide a respectful snapshot of what a Japanese style house can look like in North America, and this is one of them.
Brands of tools (and some places to find them)
Screwdrivers – Wera. He would usually get them from KC tool in the U.S.
Japanese tool sellers – he had some personal relationships with Japanese tool dealers, but I think he would probably send you to Hida tool (based in California) if you don’t speak Japanese and are in the US.
Pliers and related tools – Knipex
Clamps – tools-North-America/Products/Clamping-tools” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>Bessey
Digital Calipers – Mitutoyo
Other precision tools and granite surface plates – Starrett (which is within driving distance of where we live -the factory is in Athol, Massachusetts – and you can go on a factory tour! Chris did that and thought it was very cool.)
Drills and Impact Drivers – tools/cordless” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>Makita and also Bosch for the big ones (including hammer drills).
Shop Vacs and small dust collection systems – Festool, and he probably would have been happy with some others too. He also got a Harvey dust collector toward the end of his life that he didn’t have a chance to use much, but he thought it seemed great. It was a smaller one – not one of the big ones on the site linked above.
Machines
I will mostly forgo a list here, because most of you probably have your own machine opinions and know he was a fan of Martin machines. He had a shaper and a jointer, both of which he loved. Before Chris was ill, he hoped to eventually get a table saw and planer as well – either Martin or Hoffmann. In the last few years, he became equally, if not more, enamored with Hoffmann, partially because they are a smaller company and have an excellent reputation for customer care.
For band saws, he was very happy with both of his Hitachi saws.
He loved the Shinx super surfacer, and I don’t know what other brands are good for those!
He also really liked his Festool chop saw.
wood
All around fave
Honduran mahogany, because of its stability, rot resistance, suitability for both outdoor use and furniture, medium hardness, workability, ease planing (most of the time!), and ease finishing.
Furniture
Probably wood-database.com/bubinga/” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>bubinga, because of its stability, strength, beauty, potential for figure, potential to get quarter sawn if you look hard enough, and visual similarity to huanghuali, which was used extensively in Ming period Chinese furniture. Those of you who have used bubinga know it can be nearly impossible to plane without tear out and it’s very hard and heavy, but if you are OK with those qualities, it is fabulous. Chris made some gorgeous pieces out of bubinga.
Chris also found that wood-database.com/avodire/” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>avodire was a good alternative to softer woods traditionally used in Japan when creating indoor spaces with traditional Japanese style elements that would have higher wear-and-tear and therefore benefit from a more durable material. I am almost positive that he used avodire for his project at Colgate University, where he redesigned rooms in the East Asian Languages & Literature Department, one with traditional Japanese elements and one with Chinese elements.
North American woods
Cherry and walnut. He didn’t use either too much in the last few years, but he liked both and I don’t think I have to tell you why if you are a reader of this blog!
Other harder to find faves:
(Some of these are on the CITES Appendices or IUCN Red List, so Chris would try to find them from retiring woodworkers who had been storing them for years.)
- wood-database.com/wenge/” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>wenge – for dark accents. He also liked Gabon ebony for dark pegs and wedges, but that is endangered and extremely hard to find, as you probably know!
- wood-database.com/jatoba/” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>jatoba – harder to work than bubinga and even a little harder but extremely strong and polishes well
- wood-database.com/ovangkol/” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>shedua (AKA ovangkol) Chris also liked that it is related to bubinga and found it paired well visually and for joinery, as he found it moves similarly and not much)
- wood-database.com/lignum-vitae/” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>lignum vitae – super duper hard and heavy, but so strong and rot resistant. And it is waxy/oily in a way which makes it perpetually slippery, ideal for applications like the bottoms of sliding doors or even drawer runners . Also, you can bury it in the ground and have your grandchildren dig it up when they are ready to retire and want to build something.
- wood-database.com/cocobolo/” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>cocobolo and the other rosewoods. Even though they are now very mostly listed, hard to find, and brittle!
- If you are an avid reader of the blog, you know he also loved working with Cuban mahogany, but that isn’t exactly kicking around much these days. It was actually prone to breaking because it’s short-grained, which of course he didn’t know when he started his last cabinet, because he had never met anyone who had used it!
Japanese blacksmiths
Funahiro and Kiyohisa – um, hard to find, as you probably know!
Place to see roofs and roof treatments in North America
Quebec City, noted in his 2011 post, Road Trip.
I will work on adding a section on historic houses that he liked too!
Right now, I will start by adding a shout out for the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina in the US, which was recently hit hard by Hurricane Helene and is still recovering. Chris was very impressed by it.
Oh, and his favorite temples and shrines in Japan would be a fun addition, though if you go to Japan, you may already have your own list!
