Category: Anarchist’s Gift Guide

You need good tweezers (and sometimes a sharp X-Acto knife) to remove difficult splinters.

I’ve tried a lot of brands. I’m sure there are some really high-end ones out there that I haven’t used, but the best commonly available ones are the Tweezerman brand. I get these from the drugstore and pick the “precision point” tip versions with the most outlandish colors so I can spot them easily in my tool chest.

These tweezers have sharp tips to dig into your flesh (this is a good thing) and they grip like crazy so you can pull the offending sliver from deep inside your hand (or wherever…).

— Christopher Schwarz

Disclaimer: We buy all of our tools. We don’t accept advertising or sponsorships. We are not part of any affiliate program. We don’t make any money if you buy these items. We just like these tools.

I wrote about these in August. They are still awesome and I still use them every chance I get.

Why am I writing this, then? To tell you not to bother ordering them from the Two Cherries website. I ordered some, they charged my card but the pencils never arrived – Pencilgate. So if you want them, I recommend Tools for Working Wood. They won’t let you down (and the pencils are the same price when purchased direct from Two Cherries).

Fantastic pencils. Great lead. Great wood. Perfect balance and feel in the hand.

— Christopher Schwarz

Disclaimer: We buy all of our tools. We don’t accept advertising or sponsorships. We are not part of any affiliate program. We don’t make any money if you buy these items. We just like these tools.

Editor’s note: I usually start this gift guide in November, but November got away from me. Apologies. I started this guide after my kids began asking me what I wanted for Christmas. Some of the suggestions I gave them ($3 Bessey mini clamps, blue tape etc.) were so useful and appreciated I thought that others might agree. 

I’ve always had a cork sanding block. It’s such a crucial part of my tool kit that sometimes I forget about it.

Cork blocks are useful as a backing material when hand sanding. If you hold the paper with your fingers only, the wood is unlikely to feel flat after you sand it. If, on the other hand, you use a rigid plastic or hardwood block to back up your sandpaper, you will have to work long and hard to get the surface feeling flat.

Cork is the perfect middle ground. It is rigid enough that the wood feels flat. Yet it has enough give that you can follow the hills and valleys of a large surface and get the job done quickly.

Where should you buy cork sanding blocks? Good question.

My old boss made me one from a piece of 3/4” plywood where one surface was covered with adhesive cork – the kind you line kitchen drawers with. It works OK. The better tool is a piece of solid cork. The block I use measures 1” thick, 2-1/2” wide and 7” long. You can wrap a 6” sanding disk around it (we don’t bother with sheets of sandpaper here because we don’t use much of it).

Finding cork blocks for sale on the internet is all about paying insane amounts of money for shipping. Your best bet is to buy a block from a local woodworking store, where you’ll pay about $6 to $10. You are probably paying too much, but the blocks don’t wear out or go bad.

Another option is to buy a cork “yoga block.” These typically measure 4” x 6” x 9” and you can get one for less than $20. Then you can cut them down to whatever size you like (using woodworking tools). And you can make some for your friends, too.

— Christopher Schwarz

Disclaimer: We buy all of our tools. We don’t accept advertising or sponsorships. We are not part of any affiliate program. We don’t make any money if you buy these items. We just like these tools.

This will end up in the 2019 Anarchist’s Gift Guide, so consider this Christmas in August.

I’m no carpenter, but I use carpenter pencils all the time for rough layout and (after planing them in half) for leveling the legs of chairs. Most of the carpenter pencils from the home center are miserable physical specimens. The lead is crumbly or comes pre-fratcured. The wood is spongy and offers no support. These examples get tossed.

During the last two weeks someone stuck an extra-long carpenter pencil in our shop’s communal pencil cup. My best guess is a student left it behind (finally, our first profit from offering classes). The pencil stuck up above all the others. It was red. A few days ago I grabbed it and have now claimed if for my own.

It’s a Two Cherries carpenter pencil, and it’s the best one I’ve ever used. It’s 9-1/2” long, which makes it feel more like a magic wand. Its wide faces are gently rounded. The wood carves beautifully. The lead is soft but can be knifed to a fine point.

I realized how fond I was of it when Megan tried to take it from me today in the machine shop. I resisted.

I know it costs more than the free crap they give you at the hardware store. Most good things do.

— Christopher Schwarz

Today I had to return to IKEA to buy some sheepskins to outfit the stick chairs I’m building, and I was stopped cold by one of the company’s displays.

It was a bunch of 36” plastic flexible tapes, offered for free like the ubiquitous IKEA pencils. These tapes were plastic, marked in both inches and centimeters and were dispensed like you remove a page from a desk calendar.

I grabbed two (by accident). They are exactly what you need for measuring along unusual curves in the workshop. When I make chairs, I’m constantly trying to determine the length of a curve without resorting to math. Bending a metal tape measure around a curve is a crap idea. And so I usually steal a flexible cloth tape from Lucy’s sewing kit to do the job.

Now I don’t have to.

These silly free tapes are an absolute boon if you work in curves. And the price (free) is beyond fantastic. To thank IKEA, be sure to buy one of its $1 cinnamon rolls (and feed it to the birds outside) or sample the free cookies (they are made from the same material as the furniture, I suspect).

— Christopher Schwarz