The audiobook is read by author Nancy R. Hiller and is unabridged. It clocks in at 11 hours and 50 minutes. The audiobook also includes a bonus chapter not found in the print edition titled “Coda: Not in Kansas Anymore.” The audiobook is $24 and will play on almost any digital device (the files are in mp3 format).
The audiobook represents weeks of sometimes-grueling work by Nancy (and her supporters) plus Jacob Belser at Primary Sound Studios.
Nancy insisted that she do the recording, even though the process was made difficult by her fight with pancreatic cancer. After listening to the audiobook, I’m so pleased that Nancy made that call. She is one of those authors where I can hear her voice as I’m reading her words. So “Shop Tails” really comes to life with her at the microphone.
You can hear this for yourself by downloading and listening to the chapter: Shadow the Turkey Vulture.
Shadow the Turkey Vulture read by Nancy Hiller
If you love Nancy’s “Making Things Work,” we’re sure you’ll enjoy this David Sedaris-like audiobook version of “Shop Tails.”
At last I was able to visit the new “Made in Cincinnati” exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum Center and see the display on Henry Boyd, a black 19th century furniture maker who bought his way out of slavery in Kentucky and built an impressive furniture company in downtown Cincinnati.
We are working on a children’s book about Boyd that is in the final stages of illustration and – we hope – will be out before Christmas.
The new permanent exhibit on Boyd makes me happy. While his story is well-known in the black community and among furniture-makers, his achievements are the sort of thing that should get a public school named after you.
The display has one of his famous beds, which is cool to see without any mattress or bedding. Plus there is an interactive exhibit that shows you how his threaded bedstead rails worked (the display has metal screws whereas Boyd’s were wood).
There are also displays that document Boyd’s life and career, a selection of tools from the period and the workbench that we built with the help of readers for the exhibit.
All in all, it’s a great start to opening the eyes of the general community about Boyd. I hope our book will also help. And then maybe we should talk some more about naming a school after him.
The Greenville Woodworkers Guild. An amazing place.
If you have ever visited the Greenville Woodworkers Guild in Upstate South Carolina, you probably marveled at… everything. The machines. The space. The lumber storage. The multimedia room and furniture display areas.
Me? I loved the sign over the slop sink.
Above that sink was a sign that explicitly stated what was and what was not allowed in the sink. After you read that sign, you would be a fool to pour acetone down its drain.
The slop sink is by the guild’s welcome desk. I excitedly told the woodworkers sitting there: “Wow! That is a perfect sign. Plus all the instructions on the machines are explicit and clear. It must make this place easier to run.”
“No one obeys the signs,” one of them replied. “The only way to get them to listen is to be ruthless.”
The shop floor at the Greenville guild.
Ruthless? I thought it was an odd word. But within a few months, I realized the guy was right.
When I returned to my shop, I decided to put a sign above our bathroom sink: “This sink is for soap and water only. Please use the slop sink for solvents.”
About a week later, someone poured some really caustic agents down the bathroom sink. The chemicals dissolved the plumbing seals and suddenly the bathroom floor was covered in acid and water.
That day, I became ruthless.
I have worked in group shops (or shops with fellow employees) for most of my adult life. Every one of them was a disorganized mess. Sometimes the boss was the worst offender. No matter what the shop rules were, every few months all of the router wrenches would disappear. Many of the machines would be clogged with dust or seriously out of alignment. And so we’d all take a grumpy couple days to get things back to where we could work.
And then the entropy would begin again.
I was part of the problem. When I became “the boss,” I decided to live by example. Keep my area clean. Clear off the machines after I used them. Empty the trash at the end of the day.
I figured that everyone would become embarrassed that they weren’t doing their part. And then they would pick up after themselves. Rainbows and kittens.
They didn’t notice or care. So the shop became messier and less functional than ever. And that was absolutely my failure as a leader.
After the solvent incident, however, I became ruthless. If someone left a mess, I confronted them. If people didn’t follow the cleaning protocols for the end of the week, they got a nasty text the next morning. I decided that I didn’t care if my shopmates thought I was a jerk.
After about six months of being a raging (but consistent) wanker, something happened.
The shop stayed clean. Really clean. And I never had to say another word about it. When students would visit, my shopmates would warn them to sweep up their messes. Otherwise, “You’ll trigger HIM.” (Which was me.)
Weirdly, I haven’t had to raise my voice or send a nasty text for years now. I’ve returned to being an easygoing person who keeps his personal area clean, does his share of maintenance and empties the trash whenever it’s full.
It’s all sparkly waterfalls and break-dancing Care Bears.
But so help me if you dump lacquer thinner down my bathroom sink, I will have you hogtied before breakfast. OK, sweetie?
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. I know that most readers work in their shops alone. So this post might seem… odd. If I have to be explicit, the message is: Be honest with others and yourself. Even when it’s against your nature.
I’ve had a few students show up for classes with brand-new full-length leather aprons. In August. Cool. But not cool. After about 5 minutes of handwork, the aprons came off.
Canvas shop aprons breathe better, but they are still too hot in the spring, summer and autumn, especially if you do a lot of handsawing and planing.
That’s why we decided to make a waist apron instead of a traditional shop apron. I stay much cooler while working in this apron, even in the crazy heat.
Our apron is made in the USA and is designed to take a serious beating. The pockets are reinforced so your tools don’t rip through the canvas (a common problem). And the apron is not so big that you feel like a contractor who has a mobile workshop around the waist.
I’ve been using our waist apron every day for months now and could not be more pleased. It’s so comfortable and lightweight I’ve forgotten that I’m wearing it and have gone to lunch with it on.
If this sounds like a shameless plug, forgive me. But thanks to designer Tom Bonamici and the crew that stitched these aprons, they have exceeded my every expectation.
If you’ve read this far, here is a morsel of news to reward you: We are working on a compact tool roll using the same canvas and design principles.
It took us only 15 years, but we finally have our T-shirts exactly how we like them. Lightweight, long enough, breathable and made in the USA.
These gray heather shirts are 90 percent cotton and 10 percent poly. They fit true to size (we have a size chart in our store). Plus they are made in Tennessee and printed right here in Covington.
Megan and our summer intern, Harper, worked with our supplier to comb through dozens of brands to find the ones we liked. We narrowed it down to a few different brands and brought those in for testing. These shirts were far and away everyone’s favorite.
This shirt color and logo will be our standard shirt for the next couple years. When we sell out of a size, we will be able to quickly and inexpensively resupply because our screen printer is just a few blocks away.
The logo is screen printed in navy blue and is our “skep” (beehive) logo design by Joshua Minnich. The skep and the bee have long been symbols of woodworkers, who are busy bees. Our skep and bees have no connection to the Mormon church or Masons. There’s nothing wrong with either of those storied organizations, it’s just that the association between bees and woodworkers pre-dates either of them. (Sorry if this paragraph seems weird. People are always asking if the symbolism is connected to something outside woodworking.)
These shirts are $27 – a great price for a nice USA-made shirt. You can order yours here.
If you live overseas or are allergic to the gray hue, don’t despair. You can simply download this logo via this link and take it to your local print-on-demand shirt dealer. Or you can buy special printer paper that allows you to make a T-shirt transfer. Please just don’t put the logo on a thong. Or if you do put it on a thong, don’t send us a photo.
