When I teach woodworking classes, I am sometimes asked the following question: Do you consider yourself first a writer or a woodworker?
I don’t have an answer to that question. I have to do both things just about every day to feel human. And so I usually answer the question by saying: I don’t know. But right now I’m… (pick one) thirsty, tired, bloated, crampy, malodorous or oblong.
But today I was tired. Only tired (and a little oblong).
This evening we wrapped up five days of building “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” at the Melbourne Guild of Fine Woodworking in Australia. This is, hands down, the furthest that all the 12 students have come to completing the project. Almost all of the students had their lids glued up and were adding the dust seals when we called it quits. A couple students still had to glue up their lids, but that was more by choice than because it was 5 p.m.
There are two reasons we made it so far. First, I changed a couple simple things about the course with the dovetail layout and the cutting that saved us almost an entire day. Read my blog entry here for more details on that.
Second, the students were relentless. It was honestly unlike anything I had seen before in any class. They worked like dogs during the day (barely stopping for lunch) and we had to shoo them out in the evening. Also notable: They saw, hammer and plane much faster than Americans, Canadians or Europeans. Faster is not always better, but their swifter pace was noticeable.
So now I am about 90 percent prone in my hotel room with a beer from Coopers Brewery at my side. Tomorrow I’m off to a meeting of the Hand Tool Preservation Association of Australia and then to visit the shop of toolmaker Chris Vesper.
It’s all enough to make you “dry as a dead dingo’s donger” (my new favorite idiom) and need a second beer.
— Christopher Schwarz
Good to hear you have sampled God’s own beer, Coopers Ale. I’ve not had one in many a year.
Reblogged this on Stu's Shed and commented:
I was definitely keen to go on that course- sure it was a blast.
Off to Chris’ place next- shame you are not dropping into Stu’s Shed, which is nearby and on the way. Must have heard I’m in the middle of a house and shed move, and the shed is in a serious state of disarray. Yeah- that must be it!
Well done my friend. You represent us nicely.
I can only hope that I can keep up the pace in the school box class, ‘flat out like a lizard drinking” by the sounds of it. Looking forward to it.
Someday, say 300 years from now, historians will be trying to determine how it came to be that seemingly identical hand-made chests ended up scattered about the globe. Two schools of thought emerge:
(1) A black-book-thumping intinerant evangelist would set up tent, and impress individuals into joining his strange relic-worshipping religion, moving onto the next village after overstaying his welcome.
(2) An attempt by aliens to introduce their advanced technology into a backwards species, which found limited success.
Chris,
Hope you can take a moment to enjoy the trees down under, a complex bunch. They and their cousins from neighboring islands are unlike any others in our world, except for the expatriots gone Californian and elsewhere here and there…
What-itz!? The wood & riveted handle tool near the corner of the bench. A stubby mortise chisel? Quarter-round scratch stock? Bottle opener?
That would be a leather holster for a saw.
Chris,
I think the larger dovetails you decided on look quite handsome on the chest. I don’t know that I would have considered that size and spacing until I saw these photos. I think you got it right.
Enjoy the beer and the rest of your trip.
Regards,
Brent
Chris
I took your advice a few months back and nominated for the course in hope that a spot would be available, which it did but due to work commitments I could not attend. I even put aside a home brew of Coopers Pale in hope that I would take it over to Melbourne for the course.
Glad that you are having a good time and also met the fine beers from Coopers, keep and eye out for their Vintage Ale.
Keep up the great work and enjoy the rest of your trip.
Hopefully you’ll be back next year.
Cheers