Category: Anarchist’s Gift Guide

The Anarchist’s Gift Guide – comprised only of stuff we have bought and used in our shop – starts today and runs over the next 13 days.

Chris started this “gift guide” years ago (read past recommendations here) after watching a woodworking TV personality’s “gift guide” for one of his sponsors. Clearly, he’d been given a list of worthless stuff that they wanted gone. 

Chris thought: What if some poor spouse/child/friend actually took this crap advice?

This gift guide is – as always – unsponsored. Toolmakers who ask to be included in the guide (and they sometimes do) are automatically excluded from it. We don’t make money from these recommendations – there are no affiliate links. We paid full price for these items. And we’ve sought out at least a few things that your children could afford to buy for you.

Here goes.

Chairmaker’s Non-redneck Pencil Gauge

Last summer we made a batch of Redneck Pencil Gauges, which we still use here today. We started with a basic Marples marking gauge. Then we added a metal fence that allowed the gauge to be used for inside and outside curves. And we added a friction-fit hole so you could add a pencil (included) to the gauge.

It’s an ideal tool for marking out mortises and the spindle deck on a chair, plus dozens of other operations where a knife line or scribe line is undesirable.

After making one batch of gauges for sale, we never got around to making more. But now Marples has picked up the ball and created its own gauge, with three improvements.

1. They use a brass fence instead of a steel one (it looks classier)
2. They use a brass locking knob instead of a yellow plastic one (again, classy)
3. And they made the pencil clamp adjustable, a nice upgrade from ours.

The gauge is available through Workshop Heaven in the U.K. for £20.90, and they ship to the States. If you weren’t able to purchase one of our Redneck Pencil Gauges, this will definitely fill that need. 

(You can, of course, make your own gauge using “The Stick Chair Book,” a free download.)

– Chris

This is the final installment of the Anarchist’s Gift Guide 2023 – tomorrow, it’s back to our regular programming.

Buffing Kit for Wax
From the automotive world comes this incredibly useful buffing kit. I put the pads on my random-orbit sander to buff out wax on tabletops and the like, and the pads makes life so much easier. These have hook-and-loop backing so they go right on the sander. I use the tool at a slow speed and buff out Renaissance wax and our Soft Wax. Sad part: I couldn’t find a good local source, so I had to go to Amazon for this one.

Knipex Mini-Pliers
Until this year I resisted the call of the Knipex. But after talking to Jason Thigpen of Texas Heritage at Handworks about his mini-pliers, his tone of voice was enough to convince me to give them a try.

The Knipex set of XS Pliers is not cheap, but the tools are head and shoulders above the stuff at the home center. I have ours hanging on the tool wall behind my bench and grab them constantly for dealing with stubborn fasteners or gripping something odd.

These mini-pliers have an enormous grip and grab really well. You won’t be sorry.

Dearborn Denim Carpenters Jeans
I’m always looking for USA-made jeans that aren’t for the mustache-and-too-tall-bicycle set. This year I tried a pair of Chicago-made Dearborn Denim jeans. The denim is 10 ounce, so it’s not terribly heavy. The cut is roomy so you can move. And the pockets and loop are handy.

For $79 – not bad.

My biggest concern with them is – as always – the front pockets. I blow mine out after a year of use and have to get them repaired. These have pockets that are made of lightweight material, so it’s only a matter of time.

But I am hard on clothes. You might not have abrasive leg hair like mine.