We will open registration for the Crucible Tool launch event at 9 a.m. (EST) Monday (Aug. 22). We can accommodate only 100 attendees at the event because of fire codes, so don’t dally if you want to attend.
We’ll have both of our new tools there for you to examine, use (and buy, if you like). Plus T-shirts and maybe a beer or two. The event will be held at the Lost Art Press storefront, 837 Willard St., Covington, KY 41011. The event will be from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 15.
If you can’t make it to the event, we’ll have a booth at the Marketplace at Woodworking in America during the following two days.
Raney Nelson, the denizen of the Crucible Lab, wrote an article on his blog about the manufacturing side of Crucible Tool and why it took a Haas CNC mill to get us started.
While I call this bench a Roman model, perhaps I should call it a Holy Roman Empire workbench. It comes from a 1505 drawing in a Nuremberg codex, which discusses tools, weapons, clever doorways, instruments of torture and a love potion.
The workbench, as drawn in in 1505, is the same Roman form you’ll find in frescoes and stone carvings from the early part of the Roman Empire. The only difference is that this 1505 bench has been equipped with a lot of advanced workholding thanks to Martin Loffelholz, the author of the codex.
I’m trying to replicate the bench as close as I can to the codex’s drawings. The top is a single slab of oak from Will Myers and Lesley Caudle in North Carolina. The legs are massive tapered things that are staked into the underside of the top. The twin-screw vise will be made from wooden components (that I am making). The metal components for the wagon vise are being made by blacksmith Peter Ross. The wooden screw for the wagon vise is from Lake Erie Toolworks.
This week I got a good start on prepping the benchtop and the legs. This red oak is pretty green – I haven’t put a moisture meter on it, but my guess is that the components are somewhere about 30 percent moisture content (MC). Despite this, the top and legs are fairly stable. The slab for the benchtop (4-1/2” x 17” x 84”) was pretty flat so I dressed it on both faces in an hour. The long edges – also rough – took about 45 minutes to dress and true with a jack plane.
The legs are massive 6” x 6” posts, and I got those squared up and cut to rough size this morning before breakfast. I still need to taper them, which I’m going to do with a band saw and a jointer plane.
I hope by the weekend to be boring mortises for the legs and still be hernia-free.
While Raney Nelson and I could gin up some pretty good tools and get them made, we’d quickly become overwhelmed by all the other parts of the tool-making business – warehousing, fulfillment, returns, customer service, accounting, taxes, permits, fees and any computer file that ends with a .xls.
If you’ve ever run your own full-time business, then you know that you needs someone who is willing to do the supremely un-sexy parts of running a real business. At Lost Art Press, that has always been John Hoffman, who is my 50-percent partner in the company and – honest – like an older brother to me.
What he does is thankless. When someone receives a poster with a bent corner (curse you, posters), it’s John and his sidekick Meghan, who fix things. When we get an erroneous letter from some taxing authority, John cleans it up. When our warehouse pickers forget how to read, John is the one who knocks heads and keeps their error rate in check.
So when we started Crucible Tool, a huge concern was this: Would John want to do this all again and be the Crucible Tool Donkey? Lucky for me and Raney, John was just as enthusiastic. John rightly pointed out that he had already built a fulfillment, customer service and accounting system that could be copied (almost) verbatim for Crucible. We could use our same warehouse, same shipping backend software, same web interface.
John was in. And that was when Raney and I had simultaneous involuntary colon relaxation episodes.
So when we start shipping holdfasts (and a second tool to be announced soon), you can expect the same high level of shipping fulfillment and service when something goes sideways.
You might get a chance to meet John in the coming year. John has volunteered to hit the road on behalf of Crucible Tool and travel to a fair number of Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Events to demonstrate the tools (and sell them).
That will allow Raney and me to focus on designing and making the tools, plus educating customers on our website.
I could just end this entry here, but I’d like to add something personal that will explain why John has always been one of my closest friends during the last 13 or 14 years.
John and I met in person at an Indianapolis woodworking show years ago. And after a series of phone calls, we ended up taking a chair class together in Cobden, Ontario. Before heading out to Cobden we spent a day or two in Ottawa to check out some museums.
Somehow we ended up in some French cafe, drinking coffee, eating croissants and talking about woodworking. I’m sure I was yammering about something when John stood up and helped an elderly woman who was struggling to pull her coat on. Then he pivoted and sat down again like nothing had happened. No big deal.
That was the first indicator (for me) that John was someone who always did the right thing and didn’t make a big fuss about it.
Since that first trip, John and I have traveled all over the United States and Europe together. We’ve built a good publishing company during the last nine years. And we’re now ready to build another company with Crucible.
I couldn’t think of anyone else I’d rather do this with. And though the backend of any business doesn’t make for interesting blogs on a daily basis, I think it’s important to let you know that that if I’m the mouth of Crucible, Raney is the brain and John is all the bones and guts that ensure we stay in business for many years to come.
This week I’m the guest on a podcast that is less about woodworking and more about life in general. “A Life Well Designed” is a website, blog and podcast that are aimed at simply making your life better, saner and perhaps more successful.
I was interviewed by the founder of the site, Jonathan Pritchard, who is also a woodworker and a mentalist. While we touched on the topics of craft throughout the hour-long chat, it’s more about the “why” behind what I do, both in the shop and for Lost Art Press.
I’m not used to talking about these things, so I sound like a bit of an dolt. But I do say a cussword by accident, so it’s definitely worth listening to for that. Jonathan teased out a lot of personal information (my father was a Yeti; my mother was an elite duckpin bowler) and I can honestly say that I had a great time chatting about oddball things.
If you’d like to listen in, the direct link to the podcast is here.
