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| Fig. 33 Nearly completed dovetail pins. |
SAPFM I have often seen period pieces that have tool marks on the unseen areas. The inside of the drawers for example will often have saw marks which occur in the normal process of creating the drawer. Do you leave these types of marks on your pieces? When you deliver a piece like this, do your customers ever question it?
HEADLEY These saws marks and other machine marks are all removed by hand tools. I do this not to try to fake anything but because that’s what most of our customers want. We have often said that is we left our pieces as rough inside as many of the original pieces we would get run out of town. I think this comes from factory furniture. People have gotten used to their furniture looking uniform inside also. This could also lead to the thinking about machines good or bad. I could get into a long discussion on using machines and then removing the marks they produce to make the piece look more pleasing to the eye and to give less of a modern feel. I use machines in the manner I do because I am in the business and want to earn a living. I could do it without the assistance of machines but 99% of my customers couldn’t afford what I would have to charge them. I try to keep a happy medium between machines and hand tools. What is considered a machine anyway? There are records of machines to cut lumber in the mid to late 1700’s powered by water. Where you draw the line? When does a piece become hand made verses machine made? I wrestle with that question quite often.