How long does that take?

I used to know, so now I'll start over to find out if I've really slowed down or not

How long does that take? They used to ask that question more than any other when I worked in a living history museum making furniture. Second most-asked was “where is the rest room?”

Many of my co-workers tried as hard as they could to avoid answering the one about time. I decided early on to try to learn the answer, or a ballpark figure anyway. So I used to know how long different operations took - I could chop an average mortise (5/16” by 3 1/2” x 1 1/2” deep) in joined oak furniture in 4 minutes. These days I joke that I’ve slowed down and now it’s 5 minutes. That might be true. 

A “typical” joined chest used to take me about 75 hours. I don’t make them regularly enough now to be able to time one. But today I began making a joined stool, haven’t made one in ages, so I decided to see how long it takes. I haven’t timed myself at any of this work in years and years. High time to check in & see.

3 1/2 hours of work, sort of

Recently I shifted a bunch of stuff around the shop and found a bunch of stiles I split and planed up in the early spring. Took four of them & sorted them for a stool. These were planed dead-green back then so today I re-planed the two outer faces, made sure they were square, then marked out 2” and planed the other two faces to bring them to that finished dimension. Altogether the first hour of work was the following:

Scribe & plane those 2 stiles, trim the feet square. Layout the square blocks top and bottom and the mortises - square, adjustable bevel & awl work. Then to chopping mortises - the first two were 6 minutes each, then 2nd two were 3 1/2 and 4 minutes. Boring 8 peg holes through the 2” stock took another 4 minutes - that includes digging out the brace and bit, setting the stile up in a vice and boring it, shifting it & boring the other end, etc. Then onto the next stile and 4 more mortises. Touched up the chisel with a stone and still took 5 minutes, 4 minutes, then 5, then 4. Then bore 8 more peg holes - took me to the 1 hour, 2 minute mark.

finished turning