I have a few important restock notices today. We’ve just posted a big batch of Crucible 4” Sliding Bevels. The machine shop is cranking them out as fast as they can, and we hope to catch up with demand before February.
Also – we have Crucible Card Scrapers back in stock. I wish I could blame the supply chain crisis for these being out of stock, but that would be a lie. I plum forgot to order the steel when we ran low on the tools and then – bam – we ran out.
The other news is that we have chore coats in stock in the new cavalry twill. Tom Bonamici, our clothing designer, wrote this up about the new fabric.
“We’ve tried a few different fabrics for our chore coat. The first was a hauntingly nice heavy sateen from Japan, custom-woven for the project. It was amazing, but outrageously expensive. Like, sell-a-kidney expensive. So we switched to a nice sturdy brushed twill from a U.S. vendor for the next two production runs.
“For our latest run, which is now available, we’ve switched to a mid-weight cotton cavalry twill from Brisbane Moss, a long-running mill in West Yorkshire, England. Cavalry twill is a tightly woven hard-wearing double twill, originally developed for military riding breeches. It’s very similar in construction to wool whipcord, with a harder face that’s easy to brush clean of sawdust and plane shavings. And it’s slightly lighter weight than our last two fabrics, making a chore coat that’s really the perfect weight for a year-round layer in the shop.
“The coat’s construction is the same as ever – reinforced lower pockets, custom debossed buttons, and a fit on the trim side of regular. And we’re proud to keep working with Sew Valley here in Cincinnati for the cut and sew.”
One more note about the coats. We had them listed at $135, which was a price we were selling out some small sizes in the old material. I forgot to restore the price back to $165. So some of y’all got the bargain of the year (I know, it’s early in the year).
— Christopher Schwarz
Chris (and those who’ve purchased): this Chore Coat, how does it fit on someone not built like Chris, but more like a retired offensive lineman (but shorter and slower)? ALSO, do the sleeves roll up, how is that, are they safely out of the way (I can still hear my 7th grade shop teacher, Mr. Nickley, talking about sleeves getting caught in machinery). Any advice welcomed!
Somewhere Chris wrote you should consider ordering one size up from what you normally would. Having worked my way down from XXL to XL during the pandemic, it will kill me but I will be ordering mine in XXL.
just received my XL size. I am 5″11″ and 190lbs and it fits great over a mid-weight sweatshirt. The cuffs are tight while the sleeves are roomy-the chore coat is perfect. doing lathe work and the wood threads and scraper strands brush off easily. I have been searching for the perfect shop jacket for some time and this is the one.
Bill, I’m also not Chris tall (someday?) but maybe this helps…I have the first run coat, sounds like it’s still the current pattern. Regarding the sleeves, I really like how it tapers to the wrist, just fold the cuff and pull it past your elbow to keep it/you safely out of machinery. While it lives in the shop its also made it way to more formal occasions like PTA meetings when I can’t take a comfort animal…it’s that nice.