To mark the fifth anniversary of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” we have published a single run of 4,000 of these books with a red cloth cover instead of the usual black. We have been shipping the red cover to our retailers as well.
The interior of the book is identical to all the other printings. Only the cover cloth has changed. After we sell out of the red edition, we’ll return to black cloth.
Why red? The last five years have been remarkable. I get up every morning when I feel like it. I work all day (and night) at things I love. No one tells me to do stupid stuff I disagree with.
Check out the right leg of the workbench in this 1826 plate that Jeff Burks dug up from “Les Amusemens de la Campagne” (Vol. 3) by M.A. Paulin Desormeaux. Take a look at Fig. B there. It’s a small cleat used for edge-jointing.
Here’s Jeff’s translated text:
Fig 1. of the plate represents the workbench. A is the head of a screw clamping a strong board against the front leg forming a vise; when you want to work on a board, you take it from one end in this vise, and the other end is placed on the small cleat B same figure. And if need be is maintained with the help of a holdfast placed in hole C.
I’ve not seen a cleat exactly like this one before. But I have seen cleats that retract below the workbench’s top or are removable. Woodworker Yoav Liberman has a metal removable one on his bench that is made from some bed hardware I believe.
During our next open day for our storefront, Aug. 13, we’re throwing a special “reading party” for the forthcoming “Roubo on Furniture.” You’ll get an advance look at the book and get to read some of the great stuff the authors have dug up from “l’Art du menuisier.”
At the party, we’re going to have the translated text for all 97 plates of “Roubo on Furniture” printed out plus a big jar of red pens. To help, we’ll also have a bunch of copies of “The Book of Plates,” the original 18th century French volumes and my library of woodworking books, which includes a French woodworking dictionary.
Oh, and we’ll have free beer and snacks.
The storefront is located at 837 Willard St., Covington, Ky., 41017. Our hours for that day will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
If you can attend, we’ll set you up to look for typos or other errors in the text (we have found multiple cases where Roubo refers to the wrong figures in the plates and we are trying to clean that up). The text for each plate takes about 30 to 40 minutes to read carefully.
For every plate that you edit, we’ll give you a nicely printed commemorative postcard. And a free beer.
The text for this book has already been edited many times by the authors, Megan Fitzpatrick, Wesley Tanner and me. But we haven’t performed a final copy edit on the text where we root out all the nasty language gremlins. So your help with this will be greatly appreciated.
If you can attend, leave a note in the comments section so we know how much beer to bring.
I’m afraid we cannot do this over the Internet. We are not ready to send out this text into the unknown, where people can post it before it’s ready for the public. Apologies, but we’re immovable on that point.
Five years after the 1770 publication of “L’ Art Des Expériences” by Jean-Antoine Nollet, came M. Hulot’s “L’art du tourneur mécanicien,” an influential book among turners especially.
In it, Hulot describes a “twin press” for a workbench in some detail. Jeff Burks offers this translation on what Hulot wrote about the press.
XI. Description of a press that is attached to the side of the joiner’s workbench; & which serves to hold the wood while we prepare it for turning.
AB, fig. 11, same Plate, represents a twin Press that attaches to the side of the Joiner’s workbench: it is about 3 or 4 feet long, two inches thick, and 4 to 5 inches wide; make 2 holes entirely through [the bar], through which pass all united, without threading, the wood screws C or D c d, fig 12; the ends of the screws D, enter into a threaded hole in the side, and in the middle of the thickness of the workbench Pl. 31, fig. 5. (Editor’s note: the twin press is not visible in this plate.) The nut E G F is tapped, and rotates freely on the screw; the middle of the nut G is left thicker than the ears E F, e f, fig. 11 & 12, so that these ears do not rub on the bar A B. G E F, c D, fig. 11, represents the screw and nut seen in perspective; Figure 12 shows the same screw and nut in profile: I, represents the end of the bar A B. It is an accepted usage in drawing and engraving that wood seen by their end are marked with two diagonal lines, as we see them here.
This Press is very convenient for holding workpieces that we can not put in a vice (étau); the large gap that exists between the two holes through which pass the screws, gives the freedom to place parts of large diameter: it is easily seen that the side of the workbench forms one side of the Press, & the bar A B makes the second. We will have the opportunity to speak often about it in the subsequent portion of this work.
This press is remarkably similar to Nollet’s vise (check it out here), with the exception of the length of the screws. Nollet’s screws look at least 2’ long. If I made one of these twin presses (and I probably will), I’m likely to make the screws similar to Hulot’s, which are shown about 8 pounces (French inches) long.
My favorite T-shirt. I used to wear this to the first day of class when I taught at woodworking schools.
The best thing I can say about graduate school is that it taught me to think.
When someone presents an idea to you that is the opposite of everything you’ve read before and everything you believe is true, how do you react? Most people reject the new information like a kidney grafted to the place where the liver should be.
I used to be like that until I started reading Noam Chomsky’s criticisms of how mass media works.
Here’s the dime-store paperback version: Look for information that doesn’t match the conventional wisdom. This new information may not be correct either, but you should examine it closely because it will teach you something.
Here’s how this plays out in the workshop.
In 2007, we re-published Joseph Moxon’s “The Art of Joinery” – the first English language book on woodworking – with some commentary from me. In the book, Moxon discusses “traversing” a board with a fore plane to clean it up and remove twist. I demonstrated this operation in the book and readers on the discussion forums howled.
Sadly, posts on the forums expire, so digging up the discussion is difficult. But here’s the gist:
“Traversing” doesn’t really mean working across the grain.
You never work across the grain with a plane. You work “with the grain,” that’s why we have this expression in our language.
Moxon wasn’t a woodworker so he’s wrong.
You interpreted Moxon wrong.
You are wrong.
Please die.
Ten years later, it seems funny that this conversation ever happened. That’s because enough people (the Fox Mulders of the world) tried Moxon’s techniques and were able to discredit the Cotton Mathers.
After 20 years in this business, I’ve seen this happen time and again.
A.J. Roubo’s workbench from Plate 11 is for carpentry. Not furniture making.
The bark side of a board cups and the heart side bows? Ridiculous.
You have to finish both faces of a board or it will warp.
You have to alternate growth rings in a panel glue-up or the panel will warp.
Hide glue is outdated.
Paint is for covering poor workmanship only.
Nails are for carpentry, not fine furniture.
Workbenches need a tail vise.
I could go on and on. And it would soon sound like I’m giving you a list of things to believe, or not to believe. All I really want to say is my favorite Russian paradox: “Disobey me.” And I’d like add one more bit of information to that: There is a way out of the paradox, but you have to find it for yourself.
