Category: Crucible Tool

Megan is teaching a Dutch tool chest class during the next three days, so today is all about dovetails in the bench room. It’s also all about dovetails at our warehouse – we have just restocked with Crucible Dovetail Templates. They are ready to ship.

These handy little tools mark out 1:6, 1:8 and 90° – everything you need to lay out the shape of the joint. The templates are made in Kentucky and are milled out of one piece of steel to ensure the tool is perfectly 90°. (It’s not a wasteful process; all the excess steel is recycled.)

I am trying to figure out how to offer this tool with 1:4, which is the redneck slope I prefer. I’ll keep you posted on our progress.

We also continue to look hard for warehouse space in Covington. We have a couple good leads. One place used to be a grocery store. The other used to be an auto repair service and was built in the early part of the 20th century. Either way, I’ve got the right shirt.

— Christopher Schwarz

Small cross-peen hammers are incredibly useful in furniture making. I’ve had one in my chest for almost 20 years.

“Wait,” you might be thinking. “Chris didn’t list this hammer in his recent inventory of his chest.”

You are correct. That’s because we’ve been reverse-engineering my favorite Warrington to make our own version. It’s now in pieces. Its handle is off to the handle-maker. And the head, which we carefully measured, is now sitting lonesome on my desk.

Americans don’t have much of a history with this form of hammer. It’s a Brit thing, just like the lump hammer we make. I don’t know exactly why that is the case. Warrington’s are quite useful.

This small hammer (with about a 4-ounce head) is ideal for setting and sinking small nails. The cross-peen (sometimes called the cross-pane) starts the nail. You hold the nail between your thumb and forefinger and strike it with the pane. (The pane misses your fingers and hits the nails.) Then you turn the hammer around and finish the job with the hammer’s round face.

The cross-peen is also ideal when setting moulding planes. I use it to knock the plane’s iron against the blind side of the escapement, ensuring the iron is in line with the profile of the plane’s sole.

And a Warrington is an excellent plane-setting hammer. Its weight and size are perfect for making lateral adjustments to block planes or bench planes. (Because I have a Warrington, I’ve never really wanted a dedicated plane-adjusting hammer. There’s no need.)

The Crucible Warrington will be milled out of one block of hardened steel and features a lot of the beautiful chamfering and tapering you don’t see on modern hammers of any type. The handle will be hickory and set into the head with a wooden wedge.

Like all our tools, the hammer will be made and assembled entirely in the United States.

It is going to be a little expensive, like our lump hammer. The hammer head is a tricky bit of machining. Though it requires less steel than our lump hammer, it has to spend a lot more time in the mill. And the handle is a 100-percent custom job (our lump hammer is a stock pattern that we modify).

I think it will be worth it. I absolutely adore these little hammers, and this one is based on one of the most beautiful ones I’ve ever encountered. It was given to me by planemaker Wayne Anderson a couple decades ago and I’ve kept it close ever since.

We hope to have these in the store in May. 

— Christopher Schwarz

This summer we decided to redesign our bench square to make it more useful, and this is the result. The original was modeled after the square shown in “l’Art du menuisier” by A.J. Roubo. This new one is modeled on an even older European tool that marks and measures 30°, 45°, 60° and 90°.

Unlike originals, which were typically made of walnut, our version has Baltic birch blades and a maple stock. This makes the tool almost immune to seasonal humidity changes so it will stay accurate for years to come. Because of the laminated construction of the blade, the pointy tips are quite strong (we threw one to the concrete several times to prove this).

The angles on the tool are perfect, thanks to the fact that we laser-cut the blades. Then the squares are further trued when the maple stock is trimmed on a dedicated fixture.

The Crucible Bench Square Mark II is $34 and is available now in our store.

We keep one of these hanging under the bench (or on the tool wall behind the bench) because it’s super handy for simple things like marking lines for crosscutting stock. The tool is lightweight at only 2.4 ounces so it’s a pleasure to handle.

We ship it unfinished, which is how we leave ours. A bit of wax will fancy it up if you like.

Like all our tools, this square is made in the U.S.A. The parts are laser-cut in Ohio and assembled in Kentucky.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. If you don’t want to buy one, the book “Euclid’s Door” has complete instructions on how to make one (and learn some cool geometry in the process).

Barely in time for Christmas, we have a batch of our Special Edition Engraved Lump Hammers in the store and ready to ship. This will likely be the last batch before the end of the year.

The engraving was designed by Jenny Bower and translated into really fluid toolpaths by machinist Craig Jackson – a real group effort. The result is a pleasure to hold and use.

— Christopher Schwarz