Source discipline · the open items

The Verification Ledger

Every open verification item from the chapters, outlines, memos, and notes, consolidated in one place. An item leaves this ledger only by being checked against a primary source on a stated date, or by being cut from the text that needed it. Items already verified in their home documents are not repeated here; each home document states its own verified set.

Last consolidated: 17 Aug 2026, from the documents named below. TN-8 and TN-9 items added the same day. Oak and metal items 36 to 38 added 18 Aug, with two of them closed the same day. The Mark items 39 to 44, the Finishing items 45 to 48, and the Fastener items 49 to 51 added 19 Aug.

From TN-1, The Panel Problem

  1. Egyptian cross banded coffin lamination (the "oldest plywood" claim). Primary source needed: Lucas and Harris or a museum record. UNVERIFIED.
  2. Cradled panel paintings splitting under rigid battens: locate one careful conservation citation. TO LOCATE.
  3. FPL Wood Handbook shrinkage table number for white oak 10.5/5.6. TO PIN.
  4. CLT rolling shear as governing mode: handbook citation. TO PIN.
  5. Ise shrine twenty year rebuilding cycle: pin one scholarly citation.

From TN-7, Why Joints Go Slack

5a. FPL Wood Handbook shrinkage coefficients: longitudinal against radial and tangential, and the ratio between them. 5b. FPL compression perpendicular to grain at the proportional limit for oak. 5c. A citation for mechano-sorptive creep in timber under cycling humidity. 5d. Room temperature creep data for Zamak 3 and 5 die casting alloys. 5e. Disc spring load and travel figures from DIN 2093.

From the joints chapter outline

  1. Mattheck tree fork mechanics and tension triangles (shared with the grew-on-trees chapter).
  2. Stam and Breuer cantilever chronology and attribution.
  3. Thonet steam bending dates.
  4. Screw withdrawal strength in end grain: cite FPL Wood Handbook chapter and values.
  5. Clinker rivet and rove practice: primary source still open.
  6. Full Grown (chairs grown to shape): already flagged in grew-on-trees.
  7. Maloof joint construction: check against his book.

From the thousand year chair draft

  1. Stave church roof timber age (roughly 970 years): exact dendrochronology study before print.
  2. Bells to gun foundries in both world wars: verify scope.
  3. Langdon Warner detail and the von Le Coq plaster account: verify against the sources named in the draft.

From the hundred years draft and the longevity survey

  1. Pre-Ming excavated chairs from Liao tombs: verify via Handler, Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture, and the Wenwu literature. Marked UNVERIFIED in the survey; excluded from the timeline until checked.
  2. Iron in damp wood, scope of the rot claim: verify before print.

From the grew-on-trees chapter and the spaghetti sidebar

  1. Euler 1744 Methodus inveniendi appendix dating: confirm.
  2. Pasta modulus author names against the arXiv PDF (1810.07069).
  3. Dry pasta strength order (50 MPa): flagged as assumption.
  4. Windsor bobtail terminology: confirm against a chairmaking reference.
  5. Moulton dates and speed record.
  6. Dining chair leg dimension claim (28 to 30 typical): soften or survey.
  7. Olive trees credibly older than a millennium: verify before use.
  8. Moulton photograph license.

From the bronze memo

  1. Sn-Bi eutectic composition and temperature before publishing numbers.
  2. The colonial era brass export causal story: verify or soften.
  3. Campaign furniture redundancy claim: verify.

From the gray rocker record

  1. CPI figure if used in print.

From TN-8, CAD by Conversation

  1. "Only possible in the last twelve months": KU's assessment, marked as an assessment rather than a claim. If it is to be printed as a claim it needs a dated capability comparison, not a recollection.
  2. The hours-per-part figure for direct manipulation CAD is KU's estimate for parts of this class, not a measurement. Either time one part in OnShape and cite the measurement, or keep it labelled as an estimate.

From TN-9, The Keel

  1. Duty loads for the chair. The keel width sizing assumes 1500 N on the seat and a 300 N lateral shove at the foot. Pin both against a furniture test standard (EN 1728 and its domestic seating companion look right) before any sizing number is published as a result rather than an argument.
  2. Plywood design values in the direction that matters. FPL GTR-282 Table 12-1 (MOE 6.96 to 8.55 GPa, MOR 33.7 to 42.6 MPa) is for the panel's strong direction. The reduction for a member nested off the face grain is unpinned.
  3. Allowable bearing on the kiss face, flatwise on a plywood panel. Currently an assumed 1.5 MPa.
  4. The birdsmouth one third rule is stated as general practice rather than as a code clause; if the standard adopts it, cite a code or an engineering source rather than the trade rule of thumb.

Oak and metal, for the thousand year thread (added 18 Aug 2026)

  1. Iron stain and tannic woods. VERIFIED 18 Aug 2026 against the FPL finish line note "Iron Stain on Wood" (Knaebe, 2013): oak, redwood, cypress and cedar are particularly prone to iron stain because of tannin-like extractives; the stain is a reaction between the extractives and iron, and it requires moisture, so wood kept dry indoors does not discolor. The chapter's "oak and iron" sentence stands, with the indoor caveat now attached.
  2. Oak's corrosivity to metals generally. VERIFIED 18 Aug 2026 against the NPL guide "Corrosion of Metals by Wood": oak and sweet chestnut are the most corrosive common timbers (pH 3.35 to 3.9), the dominant agent is acetic acid released by hydrolysis for decades after felling, and the vapor attacks metal NEAR the wood, not only touching it. Two honest complications for the chapter: copper and its alloys are listed under MODERATE attack by acetic acid vapor, not immune; and the tannin inhibitor story is contested in that source. Bronze remains the right choice against iron in oak, but "shrugs" should soften to "resists" in the next chapter pass.
  3. Silicon bronze as the wooden boat fastening standard: supported by trade sources (Fair Wind Fasteners, WoodenBoat forum practice), including the point that stainless suffers crevice corrosion in wet wood where bronze does not. PARTIAL: trade practice is well attested, but a printed marine reference (Gerr, The Elements of Boat Strength, or similar) should be cited before the claim appears in the book.

The Mark, TN-11 (added 19 Aug 2026)

  1. English hallmark dates (leopard's head 1300, maker's mark 1363, date letter 1478). VERIFIED 19 Aug 2026 against the Assay Office London history of hallmarking.
  2. Mason's marks: purposes uncertain and multiple; 1598 Scottish rule to register name and mark on admission. VERIFIED 19 Aug 2026 against the Mason's mark article. A period primary source would upgrade it.
  3. Kao origins (China, Southern Qi 479 to 502; Japan, mid-tenth century). VERIFIED 19 Aug 2026 against the Ueda Soko tradition source; a scholarly reference would strengthen it before print.
  4. Roman mast-step coins. VERIFIED 19 Aug 2026 against Carlson, "Mast-Step Coins among the Romans," International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 2007.
  5. Ships' bells preserved or transferred on scrapping, struck with names. VERIFIED 19 Aug 2026 against the US Naval History and Heritage Command and the Heritage journal study of scrapped ships' bells.
  6. Terra sigillata OF-for-officina stamp convention: asserted as STANDARD; pin against a Roman-pottery reference before print.

Finishes and Moisture, TN-5 (added 19 Aug 2026)

  1. Wood weathering mechanisms, interior-dry minimal risk, the quarter-inch-per-century erosion figure, EMC unchanged by finish (rate only), and film finishes trapping moisture. VERIFIED 19 Aug 2026 against FPL GTR-113 chapter 15.
  2. Drying-oil autoxidation and free-radical crosslinking into a thermoset network. VERIFIED 19 Aug 2026 against the Chemical Reviews polymerization literature and the linseed-oil autoxidation reviews.
  3. Chaco Canyon great-house timbers surviving as datable original wood (felled c. 850 to 1150 CE) in the dry climate. VERIFIED in general terms against Smithsonian and SAPIENS; a dendrochronology primary source should replace the general accounts before print.
  4. Conservators' preference for reversible finishes (wax, shellac): STANDARD from conservation practice; pin to a conservation reference before print.

Fastening Systems Survey, TN-4 (added 19 Aug 2026)

  1. Wood-screw history (handmade pre-1760, Wyatt machine screw 1760, gimlet point c. 1846) and characteristics. VERIFIED 19 Aug 2026 against the WAG/AIC "Observations on the Development of Wood Screws in North America."
  2. Drawbored pegged mortise-and-tenon as the traditional durable, largely fastener-free joint of great antiquity. VERIFIED in general terms against joinery-history and drawbore accounts; a furniture-history primary source would strengthen the millennia claim before print.
  3. The preloaded bolt-sleeve-spring has no centuries-scale empirical record: an honest absence, not a citation. The point is that it is unproven.

Standing print gates (not single citations)

The NDS and EC5 end distance clauses, before the standard publishes its 30 mm floor. The Vilbert attribution against the Vitra Design Museum catalog and IKEA archival material, and the Vilbert photograph rights (Pamono listing) or a replacement photograph of our own.

Technical Notes of the Hundred-Year Chair: public from first draft, refined iteratively, forever. A claim is VERIFIED, STANDARD, DERIVED, or UNVERIFIED, and says which. The register · the verification ledger · hundredyearchair.com