The MDF of the 19th Century?

In college I had a girlfriend who was half Japanese, half German and entirely unpredictable. And for a kid raised in Arkansas, she was quite the exotic Axis-power antidote to my small-town upbringing.

My grandmother flipped her wig when I brought the girlfriend to the Natural State for a visit (mission accomplished). I was exposed to food and culture that opened my eyes to the larger world. Her dad was a Zen Buddhism professor, their home was filled with Asian ink paintings and they ate all manner of foods that were new to me: sashimi, Ethiopian, Northern Indian, Middle Eastern, and stuffed Chicago pizza.

But all this education came at a price. The relationship was tumultuous. She was still in love with her high-school boyfriend, a poet. (Handy hint: In the writing world, “poet” always trumps “newspaper hack.”) She needed to talk about “feelings,” which is difficult for a male who has only one of those things.

In the end, she dumped me for some guy she met in Japan one summer.

And this explains why I prefer quartersawn wood.

On Friday, I spent the last couple hours of my week prepping some walnut for the reproduction of a White Water Shaker table I’m building for the June 2010 issue. The original’s base was built using quartersawn walnut, so I spent a couple weeks trying to hunt some down.

As I was marking out the tenons on the apron pieces, Publisher Steve Shanesy came into the shop to ask a couple questions and looked over the stock stacked on my bench.

“Quartersawn?” he asked. “Really? What a waste. I guess flatsawn walnut was just too racy for the these Shakers.”

I made a joke that quartersawn walnut could have been the MDF of the 19th century , predictable but boring.

It’s true that quartersawn stock won’t show off walnut’s beguiling cathedrals. But I can tell you that the wood has other joys, which are more subtle. It is a joy to work by hand. Dead stable. Planes and saws beautifully. And it doesn’t cup. When I inspected and measured the original table, the fact that the maker chose quartersawn walnut became a critical point.

The joinery on the table’s base is proper, neat and seamless. So it would follow that the selection of the wood would also be as deliberate. And this seemed a message that was sent to me from across the last 150 years ago by the maker.

And I also know something that Steve doesn’t. This walnut hasn’t had the bejeesus steamed out of it like other commercial walnut we get. So when I put a little oil and shellac on it I know that it’s going to have a gorgeous warm tone. It won’t scream “look at me,” but then, I really don’t like screaming.

Speaking of which, after getting dumped by the Dragon lady, I swore off women for a while, and stumbled into a relationship with Lucy, whom I would later marry. She is , and I know I’m going to catch hell for this at home , a lot like the quartersawn oak, walnut and maple I enjoy building with. She’s from Kentucky. Stable (even more so than I am). And she has been a joy to work with these last 20 years, building our careers and a family.

And, of course, I know something about her that you don’t. But that’s a topic for another kind of blog.

– Christopher Schwarz