If you haven’t bought a Tooley Park scriber, this is the week to do it. This little tool is handy for marking chair and table legs for final trimming, plus scribing cabinets and countertops to irregular walls. And it’s on sale for 20 percent off until Feb. 8.
The sale applies only to the scribers (not the accessories). The scriber I use is the original Fat Boy (FB) scriber in black. It’s available in five other colors.
It’s a well-made tool that works elegantly and is built in the UK by a furniture maker. Highly recommended.
We are hosting a free Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event at our Willard Street workshop on March 7-8, 2025. In addition to all the Lie-Nielsen tools and our books, the show will feature planemaker Matt Bickford, author of “Mouldings in Practice.”
If you have never been to a Hand Tool Event, here’s what it’s like. You get to try every tool that Lie-Nielsen makes in a completely low-pressure environment. The staff is there to help educate you about woodworking techniques, including sharpening, planing and sawing.
We will be there with all our books, tools and apparel, and we are happy to answer questions, sign books or give you a tour of the shop. And Matt will have his moulding planes and will be there to show you how to put them to use at the bench.
Covington is an ideal place for these events (in my opinion). There is lots of good food within walking distance from our front door. Plus the city of Cincinnati (eight blocks away) is awash in museums, cultural events, good food and family entertainment (a world-class zoo and aquarium). So bring the family.
Plus, on the day after the show (March 9), we’re holding the grand opening event for our Anthe Building, which is our new retail store, fulfillment center and editorial offices in downtown Covington. If you donated to the restoration of the building, you’ll hear from us in the coming month about a special event for donors. If you just want to see the place, we’ll have it open to the public from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on March 9, 2025, at 407 Madison Ave., Covington, KY 41011.
Soon our storefront will be open at 407 Madison Ave.
Our new storefront was supposed to be open by Jan. 1, but it’s still not done because we are waiting on the cabinetry that was supposed to arrive before Christmas.
We are not gritching. Delays happen. But until we can get the new storefront at 407 Madison Ave. up and running, we have to suspend in-person retail sales. Here’s why.
Megan broke her ankle and is laid up at home for a bit. And right now we are moving operations to 407 Madison Ave. (the “Anthe” building, pronounced ANN-thee). So Kale and I are running back and forth between the workshop at Willard Street and Anthe. And we are not reliably in any one place right now.
Today our cabinetry vendor promised that our order would be loaded on a truck on Monday or Tuesday. If that happens, we will get the new storefront up and running by the end of the month. But until then, our in-person retail operation is on hold.
Apologies for this. And I hope we will have some good news soon.
We spent the last couple months of 2024 working hard on our building at 407 Madison Ave., an old woodworking tool factory that we are restoring as our fulfillment center, retail store and editorial offices.
In addition to the staff and sub-contractors, we brought in Zach Haynes of Haynes Carpentry to help do some of the difficult and detailed work. Zach finished up the drywall, helped get the offices separated from tool assembly and did a lot of work getting the storefront ready. Thanks Zach!
On Tuesday, I did this quick video tour of the building. Lots more work ahead this month. Our cabinets should arrive for the storefront (there’s no way I could build these in time or for the price we’re being charged). And work has already begun on fixing up the old factory bathroom on the second floor.
Right now, I can’t even show you a photo of the bathroom because I think it would break some laws it’s so scary.
“The Woodworker” is filled with solid gold, such as this description of mortising. The best way (in my book).
This week I’ve signed off on a new press run of our four-volume set of “The Woodworker: The Charles H. Hayward Years.” We ran out of stock last year, and reprinting the books became prohibitively expensive (thanks, inflation!). I didn’t want to charge people more than $200 for these foundational texts on handwork.
So we worked with our printer to come out with a new four-volume set at an affordable price. What did we change? Only the cover. These books will be softcover instead of hardcover. The text will be printed on the same #60 paper. The pages will still be gathered into signatures and sewn for durability. The book will still be printed on offset printing presses in Michigan – not some digital perfect-bound piece of impermanence.
The four books will be wrapped in #100 Mohawk Carnival, a gorgeous American-made paper, for the covers. And we’re going to have a special introductory offer. Here’s how the pricing will work:
The set of four should retail for $139. But for the first 30 days, you can buy the full set for $100 with free shipping.
These books make me hyperbole. We spent eight years culling these articles from hundreds of issues of the now-defunct magazine The Woodworker. These books cover all aspects of handwork, from getting started to making complex mouldings and curved barred-light doors. By hand.
The 1,500 pages of proofs I reviewed to get these books back in print.
These books are densely packed with thousands of hand drawings by Hayward. The four books comprise more than 1,500 pages of information. All organized so you can find it (here’s a list of the entries). I consider these books to be the backbone of my handwork library. When I have a question about a technique or a tool, these books are the first place I look.
We hope to have all four volumes in stock by the end of February. Save your pennies. These books are worth it.
