Category: Personal Favorites

Being a “Schwarz” really stinks at times. Most people in the United States misspell your name as “Schwartz.”

That’s actually OK with me because that’s how you say it (sort of) in German. Well actually, it sounds more like you are saying a bodily function onomonopia-style after a big dose of the “long chicken.”

I digress.

Today I received my August/September 2012 copy of American Craft magazine, which I have been reading for almost a decade, and I am quoted in it. Yay!

My one paragraph of fame is in the “Voices” column, where the editors asked the question: “How important is history to your work?” The answers, from a variety of artists, were interesting. I’m not an artist, so mine wasn’t so interesting. But I was quoted! And they spelled my name correctly! Yay Schwarz! Oh, here’s my answer:

“History informs everything that I do in the shop or at the drafting table, whether I’m building an 18th-century workbench or an Eames table. But I don’t seek to replicate – that’s like using a phrasebook for a foreign language. Instead, I try to become fluent in ‘campaign furniture,’ or ‘French workbench’ and build things using those same rules of syntax and grammar.

“My guiding principle is from John Ruskin’s ‘Stones of Venice’ (1854): Never encourage copying or imitation of any kind, except for the preserving of great works.”

— Christopher Schwarz

While in Maine earlier this month, I was looking forward to lobster and a trip to Liberty Tool in Liberty, Maine. I wasn’t interested in buying tools at Liberty – I’ve got enough of those. Mostly I wanted to raid the store’s mason jars.

The store is chock-a-block with bits of hardware – old screws, nails, pulls, locks and the like.

I was going to drive up to Liberty Tool last Sunday, but then I found out that furniture maker Freddy Roman had beat me to it and ransacked the place.

Sigh. While I’m not much of a wood hoarder (until tomorrow, perhaps), I do pick up bits of hardware whenever I stumble on them. Good blacksmith-made chest handles can cost less than $10. A crab lock, like the one shown above, runs about $80.

While I try to give blacksmith Peter Ross all the business I can (he’s actually making a crab lock for a tool chest for me), I cannot always afford custom work. So buying old stuff stretches my hardware budget without having to buy from Home Depot.

Your best bet is to shop for the stuff in person. While you can find cut nails, hinges and locks on eBay, the prices are high. One guy was asking $7 for a nail. A bent one. Other woodworkers I know have had good luck with Robinson Antiques, especially for chest lifts and locks.

Again, you pay for the convenience. The best prices are in the scrounge market. And scrounging takes time.

I you are wondering what the heck a crab lock is, check out the video below. It’s a surface-mount chest lock that can automatically lock the lid when you close it. Of course, this is a fantastic way to accidentally lock your key in your chest. So be wary of the crab’s claws. They bite.

— Christopher Schwarz

I am not shy about my love of my Blue Spruce chisel roll. Not only is it exactly what I want and need in a chisel roll, it’s also made by Dave Jeske’s daughter Hannah.

Last time Hannah broke out her sewing machine and made chisel rolls, it was to raise money for a school trip. This time, she’s more ambitious: She is helping fund her college costs. Hannah is a double major in communications and theater and “hopes to be on Broadway someday,” Jeske says.

So now is the time to order. The chisel and marking tool rolls are now live on the Blue Spruce web site here. There are four sizes of chisel rolls and three for marking tools. They are well-made, durable and lightweight. I carry mine everywhere I travel – it has seen more wacky hotels than my family members. And when the rolls are gone, they are gone (until Hannah comes back from school perhaps).

By the way, Jeske didn’t ask me to write this blog entry. He’s too low-key. When Jeske and I were hanging out at the Lie-Nielsen Open House last weekend the topic came up. I insisted on a public service announcement.

So get out your credit card and send Hannah to college.

— Christopher Schwarz

At my first newspaper job, I hated the 2 p.m. mail call. That was when Reese Fant would separate all the day’s mail into the black cubbyholes for the reporters. More days than not, I received a postcard.

The postcards were from a retired high-school English teacher, and just about every day she had some withering comment to make about my grammar, word choice, style (or lack of it).

I hated those postcards at first.

I think you know where this story is going, but I think you’re wrong. The natural story arc is for me to recognize the importance of word precision and embrace the subtleties and nuances of the English language and become an evangelist for its proper use.

Truth is, I hated those postcards at first, and within a couple years I came to absolutely loathe them. In fact, I actively rejected my fine Northwestern University-honed journalism education to write in a coarser style to see if I could cause this retired teacher to burst a blood vessel.

I know this sounds messed up from a person who trades in words, but I am far more interested in meaning over the veneer of style.

This attitude was reinforced when I was introduced to the world of professional cabinetmakers. Before my first photo shoot with one of them, I can remember studying everything I could about the joinery nomenclature that was particular to fine cabinet work.

The next day, here is what I learned.

1. Everything is a “rail.” Table aprons? Rails. Leg stretchers? Rails? Mediary stiles? Rails. Muntins? Rails. Mullions? Again, rails. And on and on. Rail, rail, rail. Did this diminish his work? No. Did it diminish my understanding of his work? No, again.

2. Everything is a “groove.” Dado? Nope, groove. Rabbet? Bzzst! Groove. Cross-grain rabbet (a fillister?). Groove again. A long mortise? Yup, a groove.

3. Every operation is “run.” Crosscut? No — run a cut. Rip? Run that to 7”. Mould an edge? Run the edge? Cut the tenon? Run the tenon. Run was the only operation. And when you make furniture for a living, you have to run, period.

Why am I telling you all this?

Today I read an interesting book, “The Wrought Covenant,” from the Brockton Art Center, which was recommended to me by Peter Follansbee. It’s a gold mine of information on early furniture, but one of the essays had the following statement:

“We should further the retrieval of a proper seventeenth-century furniture typology by referring even to the individual parts of each form as much as possibly by their correct period name and placement; if we are to enter the craftsman’s world and his community aesthetic, we must learn their organization from his point of view, not ours.”

This stuff really makes me crazy. On the one hand, using words in a precise manner makes it easier to talk about things across a distance, such as when using the Internet. On the other hand, the language divides us. We discount people who haven’t learned the precise words for a haunch or a bolection.

Well, screw that.

If the meaning is clear, we are cool. Period. If the work is solid, we are cool. I am not silently correcting your grammar or word choice. I don’t give a poo if you don’t call it a dado or a micro-bevel or a “land.” In the end, anyone who becomes immersed in the craft will get the hang of the lingo. But until then, to quote one of the best movies ever, “Lighten up Francis.”

— Christopher Schwarz