Category: Personal Favorites

As a dork-wad of a child who wore overalls, T-shirts and cowboy boots to school, it should come as little surprise that my best friends all lived at the Fort Smith Public Library.

The children’s section of the library was in the basement of the building, and I went down there long after I could fit by butt into the tiny chairs and my knees below the munchkin tables they had there for story time.

The reason I haunted the children’s library was for books by David Macaulay.

Three of his books – “City,” “Cathedral” and “Castle” – were my constant companions at home and at school. I have no doubt that I checked out those books at the circulation desk more than any other dork in the public library system.

If you aren’t familiar with Macaulay’s books, they are the gateway drug to a full-time obsession with building things, using tools and designing structures. All three books have storylines that trace the history of a fictional city, cathedral and castle – from its planning to its destruction or abandonment.

The characters are both the people who plan and build these places, and the structures themselves. But the real stars of the books are Macaulay’s illustrations. I would stare at and sometimes try to copy some of my favorite parts of the books, especially in “Castle.” I remember even building some of the structures with my friend Chip Paris using Legos, wooden blocks and our siblings’ board books.

Macaulay’s books inspired me to build things. My dad’s carpentry books showed me how. And the members of my extended family kept me from cutting my fingers off in the process.

Books for children have been heavy on my mind for the last few months because we at Lost Art Press have been working on getting a children’s book published. As I’m typing this, we’re uploading the book’s electronic files to our printer. Next week, I’ll have the full details on this particular title, and we will begin to take pre-orders for this magnificent book from a French author.

So next time you are at the library, be sure to check out Macaulay’s books there – or perhaps you could even buy a set for some young builder in your life. And stay tuned to the blog for news on our children’s book, which will be released at the end of September.

— Christopher Schwarz

There are only a few times that I want to throw myself off a bridge. Here is the No. 1 thing that has made me crazy during the last 20 years of writing, teaching and doing woodworking.

A guy calls me and starts asking questions – detailed questions – about the tools he needs to get started in the craft. I answer his questions, which take (sometimes) hours to thoroughly answer. He comes back with more questions. I answer. Questions. Answers. On and on.

Time passes.

He then asks me how best to sell all his woodworking gear because now he is deep into golf, guitars or cars.

This has happened dozens of times to me.

I’m not trying to poop on people who obsess only about the tools of our craft. OK, I am. The tools are secondary. Heck, that’s not even right. They are tertiary to the things we build and the materials we use.

Yes, it’s OK to get obsessed with the tools. But get over that – quickly – and move on.

Yes, it’s OK to get obsessed with the material. Again, get over that and move on.

After 20 years of building stuff, I am singularly obsessed with the skills. I get the material. I get the tools. But there is no end to the skills you can acquire to apply the tools to the material to produce something really beautiful. Something with grace, which transcends both the materials and the simple tools you used. Something that transcends even you.

When I teach woodworking classes, I often talk about the “signal to noise” ratio in the writings about woodworking. Almost everything – even what I write – is almost pure noise. Let’s compare this tool to that tool. This sharpening process to that. Diamonds to waterstones. Yawn.

Signal is rare.

Signal is about what people cannot describe easily in words, photos or video. Signal is the way we move our hands that is different from the way that less-experienced people move their hands.

Signal is that small bit of information you personally rescue from the cacophony of drivel.

— Christopher Schwarz, who is done dispensing drivel for the day.

During my travels, I’ve met lots of vegetarian woodworkers. And their No. 1 complaint about the woodworking industry is how sheep must be slaughtered to lubricate hand woodworking tools.

Yes, the mighty paraffin/home canning industry has tried to provide an ethical substitute called Gulf Wax – the tofurky of the tool-lubrication world. But nothing compares to slick, silky rendered sheep guts.

Like many meat-eaters, I dismissed these complaints at first. But after some beers thought, I had a revelation.

And that’s why today I am urging the mutton tallow industry to unite with the liposuction community to give us “no-kill mutton tallow.”

Think of it: Sheep could be fattened as per usual. Then, when sufficiently obese, their fat could be safely removed using liposuction and then rendered into tallow, leaving the sheep both unharmed and sexier (to other sheep – not me).

Mutton tallow could then fill your nostrils with the smell of “hot lambchop” without the nagging guilt that some sheep had to die so your handsaw could mindlessly butcher trees with less friction.

So please, sign the petition below stating that you support “no-kill” mutton tallow. Because the next glob of sheep fat that you smear across your tool could have come from a sheep in your town.

— Christopher Schwarz