Pressing the red activate button on the Power Source initiates an 8-hour charge cycle, at which point the unit powers off automatically to conserve battery life. Press the button again to reactivate for 8 more hours of charging. A belt clip on top makes the Portable Power Source easier to carry.

RIDGID backs the product with a lifetime service agreement upon registration, which covers free parts and service for life. See the new RIDGID 18 volt Portable Power Source (item AC86072) at Home Depot stores or at homedepot.com. It sells for $19.99.

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The question that I am sure you’re asking is why is Rhode Island furniture relevant today? The modern state of Rhode Island is the amalgamation of two British colonies founded in the 1600s. In honor of this, the state’s official name is Rhode Island and Providence Plantations; the smallest state boasts the longest name. The founders gravitated there to find religious and ideological freedom. Theologian Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636 for spreading “new and dangerous ideas” and settled on Narragansett Bay, founding the city of Providence. Other religious dissenters settled on the north end of Aquidneck Island in1638, founding Portsmouth; mavericks from this group traveled 20 miles south to found Newport shortly after.

What was called “the point” in the northern part of Newport became the equivalent of an eighteenth century flash mob of ship carpenters, joiners and, most importantly to this narrative, cabinetmakers. Newport had a fine deepwater harbor so attracted a newly emerging merchant class. They needed ships, homes and furniture for these homes, which required a prodigious number of woodworkers. As you can see from the map illustration, there was no lack of woodworkers in Newport by the beginning of the eighteenth century.

All of the towns in Rhode Island were destroyed between 1675-76 in King Phillip’s War, a war with the local Native Americans. Newport, however, was spared for it was remote on the south end of Aquidneck Island. Because of this war, Rhode Island furniture from before 1676 is extremely rare. Newport’s woodworkers prospered replacing all the houses and furniture destroyed in King Philip’s War.

Woodworkers on the point were predominately Quakers, giving a heavy English influence to their style, but there was also influence from Dutch and French craftsman. Starting in 1624, the Dutch had settled the Hudson River Valley and trade with Rhode Island was only a short sail up Block Island Sound. A group of 48 French Huguenot Families immigrated in 1686, attracted by religious tolerance as a founding principle of the Rhode Island colonies.

Two Quaker families important to Rhode Island cabinetmaking purchased lots on the point in 1724-25. Brothers Job and Christopher Townsend from Oyster Bay, New York, were cabinetmakers and set up separate shops. Daniel Goddard was a house carpenter. Daniel’s sons John and James Goddard apprenticed under Job Townsend and each married one of his daughters. Christopher’s son John Townsend also set up shop in Newport. For over a century, 20 descendants of these two families plied the woodworking trade from Newport, selling their furniture in the coastal trade as far as the West Indies.

John Goddard and the three Townsends worked in the Queen Anne and Chippendale styles and made furniture with a design developed in Rhode Island, the block front with the blocking capped with carved shells. The shells were alternately carved convex and concave to eye-catching effect. Further stylizing the claw and ball foot of cabriole legs by undercutting the talons was known in England and Ireland, but Rhode Island was the only place in the Colonies that incorporated this innovation. John Townsend did this to dramatic effect on a high chest in the photos. All but Job Townsend, who died in 1765, worked through the golden age of Rhode Island furniture, 1740 to 1790. Newport and Rhode Island in general developed an iconic furniture style, the vestiges of which can still be seen in high-end commercial furniture. That is why studying this furniture is well worth our time.

A big problem for museums and collectors of Colonial era furniture is attribution: where, and by whom was a piece made? This is called provenance, which literally means “place of origin or earliest known history.” A further problem is that cabinetmakers of that era often did not sign their work. Style and methods of work plays an important part in establishing provenance. Craftsman have subtle differences in their style and work methods. If you belong to a woodworking club, you can often look at a piece on the show-and-tell table and correctly say, “Joe made that,” without looking at the card next to it.

The problem is that today’s historians and dealers never saw any Colonial work fresh out of the shop. Any piece of furniture that is 200 to 300 years old is going to have had some repair and refinishing. In the twentieth century, style was a prime factor in attributing pieces. John Goddard is an excellent example of this method’s shortcomings. Many pieces attributed to him have now been unattributed.

The type of wood used, especially the secondary woods used for backs, bottoms and drawer sides and backs, can help historians to say a piece was made in, say, Boston, Massachusetts, rather than Newport, Rhode Island. The problem with this method is that it can be very hard to identify one piece of newly cut, let alone centuries old, wood from another. Eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides) and yellow poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) are poster children for this phenomenon. Both are tight grained with great working properties. Both are chameleon woods that can be stained to look like much more expensive species. Left unfinished for 50-plus years (finishing the insides of cabinets and drawers is a post WWII happening), these two woods are difficult to tell apart with naked eye inspection.

A much more accurate method is to look at end grain under 10x magnification and compare it to macrophotographs. There are books and Internet sites with such photos. Understanding Wood by R. Bruce Hoadley is an excellent text to learn how to do this correctly and has a comprehensive folio of macrophotographs. Use of microscopic examination, as well, has become a valuable aid in furthering provenance. Historians are also now using dendrochronology, which microscopically analyzes individual growth rings down to the year they were laid down. Each growth ring has a fingerprint. It was used recently to rescue a piece of furniture at the Getty Museum from being labeled a fake to a 1580 original.

Finish is also an indicator. Owners often had pieces modified. An example in Philip Zimmerman’s opening keynote address was an a Rhode Island piece that the auction house described as an eighteenth century fall front desk with a bookcase that was added in the twentieth century. Analysis’s of the finish, however, indicated that the finish on both halves of the piece were identical and original, greatly increasing the piece’s provenance.

A long-established method in establishing provenance is ownership. If we know from an account book who purchased a piece of furniture from a given maker and we can trace this ownership through generations of the buyer’s family, attribution is much more assured. In the past, a historian had to travel to the maker and the owner’s towns to research probate and church records, but these records are increasingly on line. Genealogical sites are also much more sophisticated today. This makes research in general easier and finding the authenticity of less valuable works possible. All of these tools are changing thoughts about who build given pieces of furniture, as is the case with John Goddard.

A really exciting outgrowth of the 15 years of research that Pat Kane and her colleagues put into the exhibit is the Rhode Island Furniture Archive, RIFA for short. This online database lists all of the known information, and in most cases has a photograph, on a huge body of Rhode Island Furniture. I have given the RIFA number in all of the photos in this article and encourage the reader to go to the database and see the goldmine of information that has been compiled. Type in rif plus the number. There is also a book, available from Yale University Art Gallery, which accompanies the exhibit that contains photos and gallery entries for all the furniture int eh exhibit.

A parallel research tool is the Yale Furniture Study. This is a warehouse filled with more than 1100 pieces of American furniture. It is a working library where furniture can be studied in three dimensions. I spent two days there in 2008 photographing dovetail joints for the history section for my book: Woodworker’s Guide to Dovetails. The photo below of the dovetails in John Townsend’s high chest was taken there. Furniture study is open to anyone by prior arrangement and there is a public tour every Friday at 12:30 pm.

Philip Zimmerman’s Keynote Address, plus some interesting videos by contemporary woodworkers reproducing Colonial furniture, can be viewed at the Yale YouTube channel.

On a final note of why Rhode Island Furniture is important. The Kindel Furniture Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan makes a line of furniture that are reproductions of pieces in Winterthur Museum’s collection. They make a reproduction of a Desk and Bookcase similar to the one pictured at the top of this article. This one resides at Winterthur and is RIF1229 in the Yale Archive. The retail price of the Kindel reproduction is $87,290. After the astounding $12.1 million hammer price for RIF1232 at Christie’s Auction House in 1989, Kindel received 87 orders for their reproduction, thus employing a great many woodworkers.

People rave every time Christoph Von Dohnányi leads the Cleveland Orchestra in another performance/interpretation of Beethoven, and building reproductions is just as relevant. Furniture is performance art!

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– Richard Turnzo
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

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The 12-volt ROVER Compact Flood Light is a replacement for 250-watt halogen lights but in a more compact and durable package that doesn’t emit the same heat during use. It’s designed with several integrated hanging features: there’s a magnetic base that enables it to be stuck to metal surfaces such as steel studs, electrical boxes, ductwork, and job boxes. Or, a spring-loaded reinforced clamp adapts the light to other common surfaces like wood studs, scissor lifts, job carts, ladders and more. With the ability to rest in five different positions, it can also direct light in multiple directions and angles.

When set to its brightest output of 1,000 lumens, the Flood Light can illuminate large workspaces for up to 3.5 hours on a single battery charge. It will provide 400 lumens of light on medium power and run for 7.5 hours, and when set to low power (200 lumens), ROVER will operate for 15 hours on one battery charge. The Flood Light features Milwaukee’s TRUEVIEW LED Technology to deliver a consistent, bright beam and a true representation of colors and detail that can help lead to a safer, more productive work area.

A durable high impact polycarbonate lens design and rubber overmold helps the light survive harsh jobsite conditions and up to 9-ft. drops. Additionally, with an IP54 rating, the Flood Light is protected from dust and water.

Powered by a single Milwaukee M12 RED LITHIUM battery (sold separately), the new M12 ROVER LED Compact Flood Light (Model 2364-20) is compatible with the M12 cordless tool system. It sells for $79.

Also new from Milwaukee is the M18 LED Search Light. In “Spot” mode, it delivers a beam distance of more than 700 yards at 600 lumens of light (7-hour run time on one battery charge), enabling users to illuminate or spot an area at long distance or overhead. Three other modes address a variety of lighting situations. In Spot Flood Mode (1,250 lumens; 4-hour run time), the Search Light can assist in viewing up to 700 yards but also provides a wider view of the surrounding area. Its Flood Mode (1,200 lumens; 4-hour runtime) provides a broad beam for area and task lighting; and there’s also a Strobe Mode (1,200 lumens; 5-hour runtime) to help with communication and safety needs. The head rotates 198 degrees to give users the flexibility to tilt the direction of the lens to where they need light most.

Like the ROVER Compact Flood Light, Milwaukee’s Search Light features TRUEVIEW LED Technology, and it has a durable, high-impact polycarbonate lens designed to provide superior impact durability. An IP54 rating makes it suitable for all weather use. It also shares ROVER’s limited lifetime LED warranty and a 5-year warranty on the product.

The new M18 LED Search Light is compatible with Milwaukee’s the M18 battery platform and tools. It can be purchased bare (Model 2354-20) through Milwaukee retailers for $99, or in kit form (Model 2354-21) with a battery and charger for $229.

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Chris Marshall: A tail vise is usually mounted on the right-hand end of a workbench with a jaw that notches into the corner of the benchtop. It has one large control screw, and its moveable wooden jaw has a series of bench dog holes along the top that line up with the front row of dog holes on the bench. The alignment of these bench dog holes enables a tail vise to secure workpieces or panels that would be too long to clamp across the benchtop using a front vise and dogs. The inner end of the jaw also allows shorter workpieces to be clamped vertically between it and notch in the benchtop. Is a tail vise absolutely necessary? That will depend on who you ask and the kind of work you do, but in my opinion, the more options you have for clamping workpieces securely and easily to your bench, the better.

My workbench doesn’t have a traditional tail vise. I have a twin-screw vise on the end instead. It stretches across the full end of my bench and doesn’t notch into the benchtop. But I use it the same way as I would a tail vise – to clamp long workpieces or large panels to the benchtop or to secure pieces like rails and stiles vertically. I prefer it over a traditional tail vise, because the added jaw length makes it more versatile for me. But I’m sure other readers have great uses for their tail vises and wouldn’t trade them.

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– Bill Mechanick
Plano, Texas

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-Rick Domenico
Meadow Vista, CA

See the Gallery Below:

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