One of the tools we use about 50 times a day is the “Super Woobie.” It’s basically a microfiber towel that has been absolutely saturated with oil. With it, I wipe down all my tools before putting them away, plus I use it as I work to keep pitch and dust from accumulating on tools.
We’ve experimented with a lot of different rags through the years. And yes, they all work fine. But our favorite – hands-down – are the Norton dry-tack cloths. They hold a lot of oil and dispense just enough when you wipe. You can buy these from a variety of woodworking suppliers.
We decided to ask our Super Woobies to do two jobs: prevent rust and remind us of the value of our work. So we have contracted with a local embroidery firm to stitch “Don’t Despair: Nothing Without Labour” onto one corner, plus the image of a friendly bee – the long-time symbol of woodworkers and other trades.
And we are packaging the woobie in a quality 3mil plastic bag with a zipper. The bag is ideal for the initial oil soaking of your woobie and for storing or transporting it. We don’t like to use plastic packaging, but this is one case where it is ideal.
The Super Woobie will ship dry and ready for the oil of your choice. You can use almost any oil. We like jojoba and camellia oil. Other people like 3-in-1 light machine oil or mineral oil. They all work fine, and yes you can mix them.
We hope to have these up for sale in a month. Right now, Megan and I are prepping the Norton towels for the embroidery shop. I don’t have a retail price yet.
I know this product will cause some eye-rolling in some corners of the internet. And if you’re the kind of person who uses your socks from your 6th-grade gym class to wipe your tools (using only oil harvested from your own body – to save money), then this isn’t for you. I wish you happy wiping.
But for those who like nice things – and nice things imbued with meaning – you might want one.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. The term “woobie” is from the 1983 movie “Mr. Mom” – as is “220, 221, whatever it takes.”
Caution: Do not use Lindeed oil on cloths or rags as they are a fire hazard if in enclosed spaces like bags or tightly compacted, from spontaneous combustion.
Linseed oil, kerosene, whatever it takes.
A properly charged woobie — not too much, not too little; in fact just lagom — is in all its simplicity a great thing, and whenever mine has gotten too grotty and have had to go in the wash, getting it back to that Goldilocks zone, where it is charged enough to dispense a nice film without leaving the tool dripping with oil, takes me maybe a week or so of gradual charging.
A very nice complement to the woobie rag is a woobie brush, in particular for getting the right amount of oil onto a rasp (which will tend to cut a rag into, well, rags). I found a really nice one at Manufactum in Germany — they call it an Ärtztebürste/Clinician’s Choice brush, and it is a natural bristle brush that is neither too stiff nor too soft for the job. They also sell a similar but stiffer Handwerkerbürste/Handicraft Brush that is perfect for cleaning a rasp from wood dust before oiling it.
Oh, and I keep my woobie and woobie brush in a Woobie Box, i.e. a small plastic container (7″ x 5″ x 4″) with a snap-on lid — this keeps them safe from dust and dirt, and gives me a likewise clean and thus safe place that’s easy chuck the woobie back into between tools when cleaning a set after a work session.
So yes: I will definitely order a Super Woobie or two from LAP and add an aspirational motto to my tool cleaning!
Cheers,
Mattias
Hi Chris,
I’ve been using this microfiber with oil like you describe for the past 4 years, based on one of your old posts. It works really well. The bee and logo versions look cool and I want one or two of these.
On a different topic, any timeline on when Don Williams book on traditional finishing will be published? I’m anxiously awaiting it’s release.
Thanks,
Joe
We are still waiting on Don’s manuscript. So I don’t have a date yet. He posts updates about it occasionally on his blog:
http://donsbarn.com/musings/
Jojoba oil seems sticky and a sawdust magnet. Hard to find real camellia oil. 3-in-1 oil for the win!
I like this a lot:
KUROBARA 100% Pure Tsubaki Japanese Cutlery Knife Maintenance Camellia Oil (8.3 oz) Dispenser.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001TPFVHC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_B5Y2T6XAAY19HP3077ZV?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
I really like Paul Sellers approach to the woobie, roll it up tightly and wedge it into a can. I have one of those small chipotle pepper cans with a 3-1 soaked rag. You can grab it and swipe your plane without making a mess of yourself. Looks like I now need a fancy lad woobie for a second one. Curse you Schwarz!
“Woobie” is a term used commonly in the military for a quite awesome field blanket that we were issued. “You woobie cold without it.”
I’m looking forward to buying one of these for my tools!
This was the first thing I thought of as well. I actually thought I mis-read the email.
Second to last paragraph, I am the first kind pf person but would like to work on becoming the second kind of person. Never despair. I am liable to buy a couple of these because I love using the pencils.
You should consider offering it in different colours and giving them names like: Megan’s Blue. Chris’s Red. Bean’s Black. And offer a three pack with the three colours. I’m not kidding, I think that would sell.
We tried out some blue ones…and they weren’t as good. It makes me sad. (But I’m going to keep looking!)
I hope you find something, I’m sure Megan’s blue would be the best seller (no offence Chris and Bean).
They all end up as some kind of gruesome tie-die.
This looks like an environmental double whammy – Microfibre ClothS in plastic bags:
Think about all your clothing made of acrylic, nylon, and polyester. Yes, that means fleece, trousers, blouses, socks, and even your beloved yoga pants. Did you know? Every time you wash these synthetic fabrics, millions of microfibers are released into the water. Microfibers are too small to be filtered out by waste treatment plants, so they end up in our waterways and oceans, where they wreak havoc on marine animals and the environment.
Plastic fibers are now showing up in fish and shellfish sold in in California and Indonesia for human consumption. And one paper showed that microfibers are responsible for 85 percent of shoreline pollution across the globe.
Microfibre cloths when they first appeared seemed like the magic bullet for cleaning, polishing and applying oil, wax or many other liquids to virtually anything. Now we know better and speaking for myself I have gone back to using either paper towels (which can be recycled) or plain cotton cloths.
I guarantee you that these woobies never, ever get washed.
Yup. I have had mine for 14 years and have never washed it.
We’re still talking about the woobie, right?
Please inform and educate me how you recycle paper towels that have oil or other debris on them. You could be responsible or a whole pile of rubble rejected.
I’ve used 3-in-1 oil for a while based on Sellers’s recommendation, and it works well. Why do you prefer jojoba? Anything to do with its petroleum origins? Just curious.
Jojoba and camellia are plant-based and renewable – and will only moisturize your skin when you get them on you.
We do use machine oil in our shop – some of our machinery requires it. But I just try to limit the toxins in my life as best I can. But honestly, my concerns about machine oil are really low compared to some of the finishing solvents out there.
Thanks for the reply! Yeah, agreed on all accounts. I’ve recently switched from the hardware store denatured alcohol (methylated spirits) to using 190 proof Everclear. Seems like it works just as well without the methanol (and whatever else) exposure. Only problem is I need to go out of state for it, since PA only sells it to those with a license. Silly…
Thanks again, VOCs are something that isn’t talked about enough in our craft.
Huck vs Woobie. Big difference other than material?
The microfiber towels can hold eight times their weight in liquid. Huck towels are fine — they just need to be renewed more often.
I dig the design, but I hope you’ll reconsider the choice of fiber. The world does not need more polyester. It’s like the plastic laminated fiberboard of the textile world. And as the earlier poster noted it’s a big environmental problem whether you wash it weekly or just throw it away in 10 years – that plastic will end up in the waste stream for like 100 years.
It also seems a bit out of keeping with the material qualities of your other products. I can’t imagine say, your hammer with a plastic handle.
Waste stream?? A well-loved item like this will certainly be retained and sewed into a big woobie quilt, like all my nostalgic t-shirts from high school.
Yeah, like, you could made a tea cozy for your anvil or lathe chuck! Ha!
oil on a rag… say it out loud to yourself… It’s just oil on a rag. I’m far from a tree hugger but NOT shipping thousands of rags to people all over the country that already have rags in the home is a no brainer. There are ,in fact, little things we can do to be better stewards.
Multiplicity is a great film. Pizza.