My stickers arrived from my daughter last night. They look great! If you would like a set you can order them from her etsy store – she ships worldwide.
— Christopher Schwarz
Author: Lost Art Press
Publisher of woodworking books and videos specializing in hand tool techniques.
Lump Hammers Back in Stock
We’ve just delivered a large batch of Crucible lump hammers to our Indiana warehouse and they are available for sale and immediate shipment. The price is $85 plus shipping.
These hammer heads are milled out on a CNC, but everything else is done by hand – the surface finishing, the assembly, the detailing. As such, they will exhibit infinitesimal imperfections that are the result of a handmade product. If you are looking for perfectly extruded and plastic perfection, this is not the hammer you are looking for. Try the home center instead.
Each tool is a little different, thanks to the hickory, which has great variations in color, and the hand finishing of the heads, the hand-cut wedge and the hand assembly. I have personally inspected every one of these hammers with my eyes about 1” from the surfaces. They are gorgeous.
— Christopher Schwarz
Coming Soon: Peter Follansbee’s ‘Joiner’s Work’
This week I’m performing the final edit on Peter Follansbee’s forthcoming book, “Joiner’s Work.” If all goes to plan, it should be released in April.
Peter started work on this book eight years ago as a way to expand on the work from his book with Jennie Alexander, “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree.” The new book covers the construction of carved boxes, numerous chests, a bookstand and the fantastic geometric carving that blankets almost all of his woodwork – including his kitchen cabinets.
Because “Joiner’s Work” is firmly rooted in 17th-century American technique, it contains an outstanding guide to processing green wood from the log to the finished part. I don’t know anyone living who has done more of this sort of work, and so Follansbee offers no theories, ideas or concepts about green woodwork. Just hard-won experience: what works, what doesn’t and what to do when things go wrong.
The projects are similarly no-nonsense, and Peter declines to offer 21st-century precision – such as CAD-perfect construction drawings – as a way to build 17th-century work. Why? If you’ve seen 17th-century chests where the builder used a router to help carve the panels, then you probably already know the answer in your heart. It looks wrong and silly. Instead, Peter offers a flexible way of approaching the projects that allows you to use what you have on hand to create boxes, chests and other work.
My favorite section in the book is on the carving. Peter unlocks the simple geometry behind the patterns he uses and shows – step-by-step – how he lays out and executes each cut. He insists that the tools and techniques are simple. After reading it, I believe him. It is simple. It’s just amazing to me how the end result is greater than the sum of its parts.
Finally, I have to say something about Peter’s voice throughout the book. If you’ve ever taken a class from him or attended one of his lectures, you know he has a sharp wit. And he uses it to cut things apart. This book has the Full Follansbee. Reading it is like listening to the guy. It’s a delight to read.
We’ll post more details about the book, and when it will be available, shortly. “Joiner’s Work” was a long time in the making, but I promise it will be worth it.
— Christopher Schwarz
Updates to our PDFs are Not Nefarious
When we make small corrections to our books with each printing, we also update the pdfs in our store so that everything matches. We also send out a link to the new pdf to all the customers who have purchased the pdf, even if the purchase was five years ago.
We do this so that everyone who bought the pdf has the most current version. The changes to these pdfs are minor – typos, small production issues, fixed photo credits etc. If there is a substantive error, we issue an errata on the blog.
This week we sent out pdf updates to both “Shaker Inspiration” and “The Intelligent Hand.” And we have received a ton of emails asking if these are spam, a virus, a spoof or something else evil and false.
They’re not. Clicking on the link will simply download the newest version of the pdf to your device. If you don’t want the newest version, don’t click the link.
Apologies if this is causing distress.
— Christopher Schwarz
The $175 Workbench Comes Home
I wasn’t the first person to use Southern yellow pine to build a workbench in 2000. But it sure felt like it when I built the above workbench for Popular Woodworking Magazine.
At that time, almost all of the workbenches I’d read about and saw in workshops were made from European beech or white maple. And most were what we call a European bench, German bench or Ulmia-style bench.
I was making $23,000 a year at the time, and we had a 3-year-old girl, so I couldn’t afford a commercial bench or even the wood and vises (about $800 to $1,000) to build one in beech or maple.
I was desperate to make a bench. I was working on a pair of sawhorses topped with a door I had scavenged from the Coca-Cola plant where our shop was located.
One day I went to the home center to price out some plywood and spotted a gleaming pile of clear 12’ 2x8s – the same stuff we used for joists and rafters to build our houses in Hackett, Ark. My normal Pavlovian response to yellow pine was my arms turning rubber – yellow pine can be incredibly heavy, especially when it’s packed with resin.
But instead of that rubber feeling, something clicked in my head. I could make workbench out of yellow pine. Then I did some quick math: Eight 2×8 x 12’ boards would cost only $76.56. Add the hardware, a face vise (later replaced) and the Veritas Wonder Dog, and I could make the bench for $175.
The bench ended up on the cover of the February 2001 issue, and we showed it off to readers during an open house one evening. Their reaction was split down the middle. Someone called it a redneck bench. Someone else said that at least it was better than my sawhorses. But a few people asked a lot about the mechanical properties of yellow pine.
It’s amazing stuff. It’s stiff, hard (after the resin sets up) and stable. In fact it’s way more stable than beech or oak.
As a result, I’ve continued to build benches from yellow pine since 2000 with no complaint. My first Roubo (2005) and Nicholson (2006) workbenches were made from yellow pine. And I’ve built at least 25 or 30 benches from the stuff during classes or at woodworking shows. (That actually was our gimmick for a few years – we built a bench during the show and gave it away at the end of the show.)
Today, the $175 Workbench came back home to me. John has had it for the last 10 years in Indianapolis. He’s moving house and won’t have room for it. So Megan Fitzpatrick and I rented a truck and brought it to the storefront.
It’s now a bench for students when they take classes here. We scooted my father’s workbench under a window, and it fits perfectly – like it was made for the spot. We now have eight workbenches in the front room of the shop, but we’re not going to expand the number of students we serve above our normal six.
Instead, the extra bench is going to be used by Brendan, Megan or me while classes are going on. We all have commissions that have to get out the door, and delaying projects by two, three or five days while a class goes on can be stressful.
So once again, the $175 Workbench saves the day.
— Christopher Schwarz