Author: fitz

We’re bringing tool chest history full circle this fall with Kieran’s Binnie’s Sept. 23-27 class on building the Anarchist’s Tool Chest at our Covington storefront. You see, Kieran (of overthewireless.com) took Chris’ tool chest class in England several years ago (it is, after all, a traditional English tool chest). Now Kieran is traveling from England to teach it back to the Americans at the Lost Art Press storefront.

As a bonus, Kieran’s assistants for the class will be Christopher Schwarz and Megan Fitzpatrick. So the week will be quite the hootenanny.

Registration for Build the Anarchist’s Tool Chest with Kieran Binnie will go live on Friday, March 8 at 10 a.m. Eastern.

If you have questions, please email Fitzpatrick at [email protected].

The new Covington Mechanicals classes posted last Monday are now open for registration (and linked just below). We also still have openings in some of our other 2019 classes, and those are linked below the four new ones.

Intro to Spoon Carving with JoJo Wood, June 17
Eating Spoon Master Class with JoJo Wood, June 18-19
Build the “Anarchist’s Tool Chest” with Megan Fitzpatrick, August 19-23
Build the Cabinetmaker’s Sector with Brendan Gaffney, November 23-24
Greenwood Post-and-rung Stool with Andy Glenn, March 23-24
Hoj Footstool with Brendan Gaffney, March 30-31
French Polishing with Derek Jones, July 11-12
Make a Carved Oak Box with Peter Follansbee, July 29-August 2
Build a Packing Box & School Box with Kieran Binnie, September 23-27
Build a Wall Cabinet with Anne Briggs (Anne of All Trades), October 7-11
Chip Carving with Daniel Clay, October 19-20
Build a Jennie Alexander Chair with Ray Schwanenberger, November 4-8
Make a Carved Oak Box with Peter Follansbee, December 9-13

As always, if you have questions about the classes in the Lost Art Press storefront, please send an email to me at [email protected].

— Fitz

p.s. You can also take a class with me on either coast. On the West Coast, June 24-28, build a fancy Dutch tool chest build at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking in Washington State (it’s a gorgeous place!). On the East Coast, July 20-21, learn to cut four key corner joints with hand tools at Lie-Nielsen Toolworks in Warren, Maine (OK…it’s a 1/2-hour inland, but you can stay on the coast!).

We’ve added a few more classes for 2019, including a two-class visit from internationally known spoon carver JoJo Wood!

Click through the titles below to read more about each class. Registration will go live next Monday (Feb. 18, 2019) at 10 a.m.

Intro to Spoon Carving with JoJo Wood – June 17
In this one-day class that’s suitable for beginning carvers, you’ll learn knife and axe skills, make a lot of woodchips and finish the day with a spoon that’s ready to use at home!

Eating Spoon Master Class with JoJo Wood – June 18-19
The perfect eating spoon should be a balance of smooth aesthetic, and function. It should feel great in both hand and mouth, carrying food comfortably without any spills. JoJo’s spoons are at the top of their game, performing exceptionally and looking beautiful. In this course she will teach her technique for bringing out the best spoon from each piece of wood, with all her tips and tricks from years of carving.

Build the “Anarchist’s Tool Chest” with Megan Fitzpatrick – Aug. 19-23
If you don’t like dovetails, this is not the class for you. If you’d like to learn dovetails (while you build a sturdy chest that holds about 50 hand tools…which is to say almost all the hand tools you need to build furniture), this is absolutely the class for you – you’ll get plenty of instruction and practice.

Build the Cabinetmaker’s Sector with Brendan Gaffney – Nov. 23-24
In this two-day class, students will build their own Cabinetmaker’s Sector, Brendan Gaffney’s modernized design for the ancient geometer’s tool, used for drawing, drafting and (in his shop) the layout of dimensions and joinery on woodwork. The class will revolve around the skills of modern hand-tool makers, including careful marking and measuring, mixing metal and wood, hand shaping, finishing and (of course) how to use the tool.

We also have some slots remaining in already announced classes – so check those out, too!

And as always, if you have questions about the classes, send me an email at [email protected] (not the Lost Art Press help email).

— Fitz

My favorite instructor, Mr. Williams, always said Anyone can do something right. The real skill is knowing how to fix things that go wrong.

Maddeningly, there will always be things that go wrong. Overlooked abrasive marks beneath your flawless finish? Check. (Scrape the whole tabletop down and refinish.) A brand-new oven front dented by a dropped cabinet door? Check. (Pay to have oven part replaced by manufacturer’s service person.) Etc. The moment of discovery is always a punch in the gut.

My most recent experience with this sickening phenomenon came earlier this week. I was making great progress on a job I’d started that morning—months later than anticipated, thanks to a stack of other work commitments (and also thanks to my clients’ patience). The job involves a set of panels custom veneered with dyed eucalyptus. As I made the first cut, my client’s reaction to the price was still ringing in my ears. “X-thousand dollars? Just tell me–is this like buying a gold-plated toilet?” No, I reassured him; the purchase didn’t necessarily qualify as extravagant. The price reflected the exotic species of veneer, which was dyed in Europe, then exported to the United States.

Around midday I was lifting another panel onto the tablesaw to miter an edge when my eye was caught by a note in my handwriting on the order form: Grain to run horizontally, i.e. parallel with dimensions under “width.” The grain on the panels was vertical.

I got the job folder from my bench and sifted through the records. Sure, the evidence was right in front of me on the order form, but I honestly couldn’t remember which way the clients had wanted the grain to run. It had been so long since we’d discussed it–and the magnitude of the cock-up (to use a charming British term) would be so daunting that I just wasn’t ready to believe it.* I called the clients to check. No answer. I left a message. Next I wrote by email.

By bedtime there was still no response. I hardly slept that night; each time I lapsed into slumber, I found myself in a different subconscious-generated torture scenario involving horizontal versus vertical grain.

The following morning I contacted Max Jeffrey, the salesperson at Heitink Veneers, and let him know there might have been a mistake.  He said he would look into it and assured me they would make things right.

And that’s exactly what they did. No prevaricating, no drama; just a sincere apology for having laid up the veneer in the wrong orientation, while noting that this kind of error is exceedingly rare because they take grain orientation seriously. (As a customer of theirs for nearly a decade, I know this to be true.) Tell us what we need to do to make things right for your clients, Max said.

When my client called back, I explained the situation and asked whether he would like Heitink to order new veneer and remake the panels, or would he and his wife like to keep the grain vertical. My personal preference, I added honestly, was the existing vertical orientation, because the island’s stone counter has a bold lengthwise grain and I thought the added linearity of horizontal-grain panels might make the island seem as though it was ready to shoot through their back door. They asked for a break on the price, and Heitink agreed to refund that amount. (The clients had purchased the veneered panels directly and had already paid in full.)

To paraphrase Mr. Williams, Anyone can do something right. What’s truly impressive is making things right for your customer—graciously—when you have made a mistake on their order. When I asked Jan Heitink (he’s Dutch; his name is pronounced “Yon”) whether he would permit me to identify his company in this post, he said yes, adding, “We strive for perfection in our products but in real life there is no such thing and when a situation does not go as planned, how we react to the situation is what will leave a lasting impression.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself.–Nancy Hiller, author of Making Things Work

*This is why I put everything in writing. But even so, in this case, I wanted to consult the clients to make sure I had ordered what they wanted.