Currently Reading: The Belligerent Finisher

I’m currently reading ‘The Belligerent Finisher’ by John Porritt from Lost Art Press. I’ve only just started the book but it’s all ready quite enthralling. Honestly, I’ve been excited to get my hands on it for about the last 6-8 months (or longer) since LAP announced it as one of the upcoming projects. Porritt writes about his ethos on chair finishing to capture the esprit de oldness of the all ready very old and chatismattically worn chairs that he remembers from seeing in his youth. The book launches right into some very different finishing techniques than what I’ve ever undertaken starting with blow torches to remove raised grain and proceeding right into wire wheels and exceptionally caustic acids to age the wood.

One of the really intriguing things about this book, and really all of the LAP titles, is it doesn’t seem to hold back any of the realness with how Porritt actually goes about his finishing. Chris Schwarz has stated many times in many forums that, too often, master craftsmen (even the ones teaching) keep their actually practices a secret to themselves. Which, historically is probably not that uncommon, where artisans only passed their trade secrets to their apprentices. The difference now, though, is that there is no longer a strong apprenticeship culture in the US. So, instead of trade secrets living on and growing/refining in the hands and minds of young apprentices what you get instead are trade secrets that were taught to or (re)discovered by a master that then die with that person… I applaud LAP in their fight against this and am excited to continue reading about finishing belligerently.

MRG