Medieval and Renaissance Furniture

by Daniel Diehl

  Alternatively, recycling old lumber can evoke the period look. In the demolition of old barns and houses, planks and beams often surface in dimensions larger than you could obtain in new material at any price. Many architectural salvage companies across the United States, Canada, and Great Britain sell recycled building materials. For local firms, look up “salvage,” “architectural salvage,” or “demolition” in the Yellow Pages or search these terms online.

  Joined Lumber

  Another solution for getting modern mill-dimension lumber to approximate ancient timber is to glue together standard- cut boards to produce thicker or wider stock without the expense of ordering custom millwork. Many lumber mills and most cabinet shops will glue up standard-dimension lumber to provide boards of any width and thickness, executing joints that will be as strong as the wood itself and inconspicuous when they are incorporated into the furniture. If you are a practiced woodworker or adventurous beginner, the most cost-effective solution may be to glue your own boards. Spread a thin, even coat of cabinetmaker’s glue on the faces that are to be joined, let it set for three or four minutes, and then press the glued surfaces together, clamping them tightly. Take care when you tighten the clamps; excess glue may ooze out around the edges as the boards are being pulled together. An extra pair of hands is a help; keep a damp rag handy to wipe glue off the edges of the boards. The next day, remove the clamps to find a board as strong as if it were a single piece.

  Gluing boards together for greater width is more challenging. Of the several ways, the simplest is to glue the edges and clamp them as just described. Take care not only to clamp the boards tightly together, but also to hold them flat while the glue dries. The resultant seam will never be as strong as the wood itself, however, and may fracture with age or if subjected to undue stress.

  Dowels or splines can unite the boards to strengthen this seam. Doweling and splining, though not particularly difficult, do require the proper tools and a few trial runs. Determine which edges of the boards are to be joined together by finding the straightest and squarest edges on the boards with which you are working. Stand the boards in a vise, one at a time, and locate and mark the center of the board. Set an adjustable square just slightly less than half the width of the board, then place a pencil on the front edge of the square and slowly move the square and pencil simultaneously along the length of the board.

  When the edges have been marked, place the boards side by side in the vise so that the edges to be joined together are both facing up. Using the adjustable square, mark a line across both boards at intervals of 4 to 6 inches. Allow for the fact that your boards are probably longer than they will be when they are cut to their final length. Do not dowel closer than 2 inches from the final end of the board. Designate the location of each dowel with an X.

  To ensure that the holes for the dowels are drilled exactly in the center and perfectly straight, it is best to use a doweling jig. Jigs are available from any good hardware store, lumberyard, or tool store and are not terribly expensive. Certainly, if you plan to do much flat doweling, they are a worthwhile investment. Position the doweling jig directly above the center of the X that marks the position of the dowel, and drill the pilot hole to the proper depth. Under normal circumstances, a 3⁄8-inch dowel, sunk 1 inch to 1½ inches into each board, is adequate. If you are doweling a chest lid or some other structure that will apply a lot of stress on the joint, sink the dowel 2 to 2½ inches into each board. For heavy stress joints, use a dowel ½ inch in diameter. If you do not have access to a doweling jig, use a nail or center punch to mark the center of the X so that the drill does not slip off-center. Holding the drill plumb and level, drill the hole to the proper depth as described above. Cut the dowels 1⁄8 to 3⁄16 inch shorter than the combined depth of the holes and slightly round the ends.

  When all the pilot holes have been drilled, place a few drops of white glue in each hole in one board, and tap the dowels into place. Now place a few more drops of glue into the corresponding holes on the opposite board and a small bead along the edge of the board, and set the points of the dowels into the mouths of the corresponding pilot holes. Gently tap the boards together with a wooden mallet or pull them together with cabinet clamps. In either case, be certain that the dowels are pulled together evenly along the length of the board; if they are forced out of line, they may crack or break. When the boards touch, pull them snugly together with cabinet clamps if possible.

  Nails

  There is a persistent belief that nails either did not exist during the Middle Ages or were never used by skilled cabinetmakers. Neither of these is true. It is true, however, that during that era, nails were used in securing fewer types of joints than today, where nails and screws are used for most commercial fastening applications. Although pegs were the most common medieval fastener for complex mortise and tenon joints, nails were used on many simple pieces of furniture; to apply wooden trim molding to even the finest pieces of furniture; and to attach metal hardware, locks, and trim molding to case furniture of all types.

  Reproduction hand-forged nails should be used in building reproduction medieval furniture in any instance where the nail head is visible, such as in attaching locks and hardware, and also where the nail head, even if it is to be recessed below the surface of the wood and the hole filled with putty, is going to leave a visible scar on the surface. This will ensure that your reproduction looks as authentic as possible.

  Modern hand-cut nails are available in a limited number of sizes. Medium and large hand-forged nails are easily obtainable (see the Sources section on page 321), but very small nails of the type used to apply wooden trim molding are impossible to find. For these applications, you will need to use small modern finishing nails or wire brads. For instructions on giving nails an appropriately medieval look and using them to attach hinges and hardware, see page 11.

  Woodcarving

  A basic building material for thousands of years, wood was once used to make everything from kitchen utensils to church decorations, and the traditional skills of the woodcarver were vital to the community. Much woodcarving was probably done by ordinary people, who fashioned everything from bowls and spoons to furniture to ox yokes for their own use. There are clear signs, nevertheless, of the artistry of woodcarvers in the beautiful wooden boats of the Nordic Vikings and in early churches.

  It was in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, however, that ornamental carving really flourished, for the thousands of churches that were built in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries provided a wealth of opportunities for carvers to show their skill in decoration. Although they continued to fashion all the items demanded for everyday life, the medieval woodcarvers began to create the beautiful rood screens, bench ends, and other ecclesiastic furnishings that made the Middle Ages a veritable golden age of carving.

  Like stonemasons, medieval woodcarvers often worked in teams or schools under a master carver. It appears from the historical record that many woodcarvers were stonemasons as well. Some of the carvings they made are simple scrollwork. Some are religious icons. The medieval church also housed the unconscious fantasies of the age. With chisel and gouge, master carvers created weirdly wonderful creatures—dragons, warriors, severed heads, hermaphrodites, and onelegged sciapods who used their limbs as sunshades—as well as the common scenes of daily life that they saw all around them. Sadly, church patronage, which had brought the woodcarvers so much work, halted abruptly during the widespread reformations in the sixteenth century.

  The Carver’s Craft

  There are three basic styles of woodcarving: incised or chip carving, relief carving, and sculptural or in-the-round carving. In incised carving, the design, usually a very simple one, is cut into the wood. Relief carving is technically the opposite of incised carving; here the area around the design is cut away to leave the design standing in high relief. Several projects in this book involve relief carvings; five of these are linenfold panel carving, which is covered in a separate section b
elow. Carving in the round is actually the sculpting of wood, an advanced form of traditional whittling. One of our projects, the Settle from sixteenth-century Spain, involves fully formed, carved figures.

  As with all the techniques described in this book, it is wise to practice your carving techniques on scrap wood before attempting them on the finished piece. Creating a prototype certainly takes time, but carving is about patience and persistence. Whether you are an experienced or inexperienced carver, it will prove to be time well spent. Nothing is more frustrating than ruining a carving or even an entire piece of furniture.

  Incised Carving

  Incised or chip carving involves cutting away portions of the face of a board so that the carved design lies slightly below the surrounding wood. In its simplest form, this may be nothing more than cutting away small channels of wood to produce a simple recessed design. A more sophisticated type of incised carving is known as gouge carving, where carving gouges are used to remove excess wood from the surface of the board. Carving gouges come in a variety of shapes. A flat gouge is no more than a very small chisel; other gouges may be V-shaped or U-shaped, like a small spoon. No matter what their shape, all carving gouges are used in the same manner.

  To transfer the carving designs onto the wood, first enlarge them on a photocopier to the size indicated on the drawings. Then tape the paper into place and slide a second piece of paper, rubbed liberally with a soft pencil to create a graphite-covered surface, beneath this one. Trace over the design with a pencil or pen, applying sufficient pressure to transfer the design to the wood.

  Now outline the areas to be carved with an X-Acto knife or utility knife. When establishing your outline, always hold the knife at a 45-degree angle and pull it toward you, working in the same direction as the grain or across the grain; do not work against the grain or the knife might slip. Proceed slowly, incising the surface only a tiny fraction of an inch on the first pass and repeating the process until the outline is about 1⁄32 inch deep. Using the same knife, remove a small, V-shaped sliver of wood from the area that will be carved away. Next, use a gouge to begin removing the excess wood inside the lines.

  When working with a gouge, push it away from you, rather than pulling it toward you like a knife. Only use a light amount of pressure on the gouge and do not try to remove more than a very small layer of wood at a time, or the gouge will dig too deeply into the wood and ruin the carving. If the area to be gouge cut abuts a vertical edge in the carved design, use a straight knife to remove the curl of wood from the wall of the carving. Once you have established your pattern with small, shallow gouges, you may then move on to a slightly larger gouge.

  Relief Carving

  1. Transferring the Design. Enlarge the carving plans in this book on a photocopier to make an accurate template that can be transferred directly onto the wooden panel. The exact degree of enlargement varies from piece to piece; the scale is given in the individual chapter. The hatched part of the drawing, in all cases, is the area to be cut away. After transferring the design onto the wood, as described above for incised carving, accurately indicate the hatched areas to prevent confusion while carving.

  2. Establishing an Outline. Begin by cutting around the edges of the design with a sharp carving knife held at a 90-degree angle to the wood. A first cut of 1⁄32 inch is sufficient; too deep a cut will cause the knife to slip in the tough oak grain. Penetrate several times; in each instance sink the blade slightly deeper into the wood, until after three or four passes you have reached a depth of nearly 1⁄8 inch.

  Introduce the knife into the area to be cut away by placing the blade at a 45-degree angle to the wood, about 1⁄8 inch from the original cut. With several passes of the knife, remove a V-shaped sliver of wood from the hatched area around the entire design. Enlarge this initial cut to a depth of 3⁄16 inch. The width of the cut is irrelevant because the entire hatched area will be eliminated.

  3. Removing the Waste Wood. Now that the edges of the carving are established, remove the entire hatched area of the design to a depth of 3⁄16 inch. Although using a Dremel tool with a router attachment is easier, the proper historical approach is to use small chisels or spoon-shaped gouges to remove the superfluous wood. Chisels require care; do not cut too deep or too fast. The chisel’s sharp edge can easily pierce the walls of the design, possibly ruining the sharp edges of the design itself. After removing the excess wood, clean up the edges and corners of the design with a fine chisel or carving knife. A small chisel will also remove marks left by a Dremel tool.

  4. Texturing the Background. In medieval and later incised carving, the background area of the design where the wood has been cut away is often textured with a waffled pattern. Composed of a series of tiny inverted pyramids arranged in a 1⁄8-inch center grid pattern, this overall field simulates depth and prevents loose fibers in the carved wood from chipping away. Such texture appears on the background of the Writing Slope, behind the small carvings at the top of the Cathedral Cabon, and around the leg designs on the Barrel Chair.

  Impress the waffled texture into the wood by tapping a nail lightly into the surface at close intervals. Several points can be impressed at one time with a small punchlike tool with a textured face. A leatherworker’s tool designed for exactly this purpose can be adapted for use on soft wood. Working with oak, however, calls for a small nail, a tack hammer, and infinite patience. After this last step is completed, lightly sand the entire carved area to eliminate splinters, loose wood fibers, and sharp edges.

  Sculptural Carving

  The only project in this book to use fully rendered sculptural carvings is the Settle. The process is somewhat complex and is detailed here rather than in the later chapter.

  1. Transferring the Designs. Cut the blocks of wood to the dimensions shown on the plans. Transfer the drawings of the sculptures—two dogs and two lions—onto all four faces of the blocks. All four faces of both designs are shown in the plans, so this should be a relatively easy operation. Note that there are left- and right-facing versions of each animal, so the drawings have to be turned over to produce one of each pair.

  2. Roughing Out a Figure. Cut away the sharp corners of each block so that it begins to take the shape of the animal. Cut away only enough wood so that the carved area meets the outline of the figure. Next, carve away excess wood around the main elements of the figure, such as between the legs, around the muzzle, and in front of the lion’s shield. Now begin to shape the animal’s limbs, rounding the legs and haunches and defining the recesses between the hips and body. Start to form the lion’s tail and mane.

  3. Finishing the Figures. These figures are not terribly lifelike, nor is the carving fully developed. The lions’ haunches remain rather flat where they touch the outside of the blocks. Much of the detail on the dogs’ faces has been worn away by the constant wear of human hands. You can leave the dogs’ faces with a soft, worn look or give them the detail that they undoubtedly once had. Execute the finishing details such as the dogs’ collars and lions’ shields with carving knives or a Dremel tool. Cut between the animals’ toes, around their eyes, and through the waves in the lions’ manes with a small V-gouge. Also use a V-gouge for the edges around the dogs’ collars and the wavy incised lines on the collars, but detail the rounded edges of the collars with a fine file or sandpaper. Finally, sand the entire surface of each figure to eliminate any knife marks. Smoothly finished figures will look more like the originals, particularly the worn dogs.

  Carving Linenfold Panels

  No one knows how the tradition of the linenfold, a common medieval decorative device intended to look like folded cloth, began. The voluminous folds of heavy medieval clothing figure prominently in almost all medieval art, from painting to sculpture to stained glass. The first carved linenfold panels seem to have appeared sometime before the mid-fifteenth century and remained popular for another two hundred years. The linenfold design from the front of the Paneled Coffer serves as a working model for this project. It is
a relatively simple pattern and not terribly different from the linenfold panels used in the Settle. You can enlarge the drawings to the appropriate sizes and transfer them directly onto the wood panel. These are not particularly complicated linenfold designs, but if you are a novice woodcarver, make several practice pieces in a soft wood, such as pine or fir, before you test your skills on a finished piece of oak.

  1. Transferring the Design. Enlarge the front and end views of the design on a photocopier. Transfer them onto the face and both ends of the panel so you can see through the peaks and valleys of the design as you carve away excess wood. Center the design on the board’s face, allowing for the edges and rabbets that project beyond the design.

  2. Roughing Out the Design. With a table saw or radial arm saw, cut the rabbets around the edges of the panel to firmly establish the area of the board that will be worked into a linenfold pattern. This eliminates the need to rework the edges of the board once the delicate carvings have been executed. Work the undulating shape of the linenfold to the top and bottom edges of the design area; cutting out the shaped ends comes later.