You can buy a custom branding iron or metal stamp to sign your work. But what if you are, uh, parsimonious? Or perhaps your name is Megan Fitzpatrick?
This week I ordered a custom rubber stamp for a promotional thing-a-ding we have coming at Lost Art Press. As always, I used Simon’s Stamps in Massachusetts, which I’ve been using for years. They are fast, cheap and do good work.
Just choose a size of your stamp and upload your artwork. My stamp was 2-1/2” high and 2” wide. (That is huge.) Cost: $16 plus shipping. Turnaround time: Less than a week.
These stamps would be a nice way to mark your handiwork with a custom logo or even your signature. You can send Simon’s Stamps almost any kind of freaky shape and they’ll make a nice stamp with it. And the best thing is you don’t have to invest in an expensive metal stamp.
Now I just need to find some pink ink pads to really make it mine.
Avert your eyes if you are sensitive, squeamish or have a heart condition. If there are small children in the room, send them outside to play.
Today a reader pointed out a new kind of “tool crafter,” separate from the saw painters, oilcan bow-tiers and moulding plane lamp makers.
It’s the router-plane coat rack makers. They are, of course, on etsy.com.
Yup, they took a perfectly good Stanley No. 71-1/2 with its square cutter still intact and turned it into a wall rack:
“It certainly could use a good scrubbing but the patina it has really adds to the history. Imagine hanging this in your entryway as a coat/purse/scarf holder – it would certainly draw some great attention from your guests!”
If I hung this in my entryway, my woodworking friends would probably gut me with a deer knife and hang me on one of the knobs.
However, that’s not the worst price I’ve ever seen on a Stanley No. 71-1/2 with an extra-wide accessory base…..
Having tools does not make you an anarchist. It’s what you do with those tools that is the proof.
I want to warn you before you read another word, this blog entry is not specifically about woodworking. I hesitate to even write it. But I feel the need to explain myself a bit, and I promise to keep it brief. I also promise that I won’t stray into these waters much in the future.
There are many flavors of anarchists out there. My flavor is Individualistic Anarchism, specifically “aesthetic anarchism.” What does that mean to me?
I intensely dislike large institutions: governments, religious institutions and large corporations. But it would be an error to say I am not political, spiritual or capitalistic. It is my belief that institutions are the cause of most problems – not the solution.
I dislike many laws – gun laws, drug laws, sex laws to name a few. But mostly I dislike how laws are used to enslave us – they favor corporations over individuals, and the continual growth of government and its encroachment on our lives.
I don’t vote. I don’t go to church. I don’t employ people – and I never will. I view rent as theft. When I buy things, I always try to buy from individuals – the maker if possible. When I have to buy something manufactured, I buy from companies that aren’t exploiters. I buy Pointer jeans from Tennessee. My jacket was made by Schott in New Jersey. My wool sweater was knit in Ireland.
But most of all, I like to make the things I need. I do all our cooking, and every night (except pizza night) I cook dinner from scratch. We buy our meat from the butchers, the Finke family. The produce? The Finkes grow some of their own; the rest I try to buy from Findlay market or Loschavios. I like to keep everything very personal.
Making furniture for yourself and others is indeed a radical act. It removes that part of your life from the continuous cycle of purchasing, consuming and repurchasing. The Morris Chair I am sitting in will be the last easy chair I’ll ever need to build. And it was my hope when I wrote “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” that once you saw that this was true, it might seep into other areas of your life, like it has into mine. You might even quit your corporate job.
Which brings up money. Isn’t it difficult to walk away from a corporate job and a steady paycheck? Yeah, it’s like trying to force yourself to dive into Lake Michigan in February. But if Lucy and I can do it, I think many families can – if they are willing to eschew debt.
Lucy works only part-time as a writer, and I have just this silly little business – no trust fund here. How do we do it? We don’t have any debt. Zero dollars – zero cents. Once I realized how much I had to work to service our mortgage, student loans and car payments, we shifted every resource to pay off everything. In May 2008 I paid off our last debt – our mortgage. And that’s when anything became possible.
One of the things I enjoy about visiting my father in Charleston, S.C., is you are always walking distance from stunning furniture from all over the world and across several centuries.
I spent this morning collecting images, details and dimensions for my next book and stumbled into a store I’d never been in before. It specializes in furniture from the West and East Indies – specifically campaign furniture.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved campaign furniture – my grandparents had several pieces – and I’ve always wondered why it wasn’t a popular style among woodworkers. It’s manly, simple, robust and (generally) well proportioned.
The store’s owner has been importing it into Charleston for about 15 years and showed me a lot of construction details I hadn’t yet considered, such as how examples that used teak as a secondary wood were much more likely to be the real deal. Teak is quite bug-resistant. Dovetail joinery that didn’t rely on hide glue was a good thing because of the wetness, heat and bugs that would eat the hide glue.
If someone else doesn’t pick up this idea and run with it, campaign furniture might be a book in my future. Earlier this year I proposed a campaign chest project to Popular Woodworking Magazine – I haven’t gotten a “yes” or “no” yet. Perhaps these photos will sway Megan.
Earlier this year, amateur woodworker Rob Thomas made a bold decision – to learn hand-tool woodworking using “The Joiner & Cabinet Maker” from 1839 as a road map.
And to hold his nose to the grindstone (and ensure he had the tools to do it) he started a campaign on Kickstarter.com to fund his tool and material purchases in exchange for items as small as a patch (see above) and as large as the full-on chest of drawers.
What’s Kickstarter? Visit Rob’s page here to read all about it.
Since launching his Kickstarter.com campaign, Rob has been busy building packing boxes – the first project from “The Joiner & Cabinet Maker.” Most readers skip right to “The Schoolbox” in the book, a sweet little dovetailed chest.
I think those people are missing out. The Packing Box project has four critical lessons that will enlighten any hand-tool woodworker.
1. Many times the ends of your stock can be left long in nailed work and then trimmed square after assembly. Yup, you don’t four-square everything before assembly. When I first learned this detail, I slapped my forehead repeatedly.
2. You learn how to make rub joints with hot hide glue. No clamps.
3. You learn to use cut nails in carcase construction. Cut nails are awesome.
4. You learn to clinch/clench nails.
When I started working with my daughter Katy on woodworking, the first project we built together was The Packing Box, which we sized to hold the DVDs for her class at school.
I encourage you to bookmark Rob’s blog, The Joiner’s Apprentice, to follow him as he builds his way through “The Joiner & Cabinet Maker.” It’s quite interesting to watch his thought processes and see the results.
And Speaking of Inspiration…
Since I first read about Kickstarter.com I’ve been thinking of starting a campaign to help fund the purchase of the Lost Art Press LLC headquarters. As some of you know, I’ve been actively hunting for 19th-century buildings in Covington, Ky., to house our book inventory (which has completely filled our basement and storage shed), house our workshop, mailing facilities and provide for a storefront for our publishing activities.
And on Tuesday, my dream building came on the market.
It’s the Covington Brewery Building, an Italianate building with three storefronts and six apartments above, all in pretty good shape. The building was the headquarters for the John Brenner Brewing Co. in Covington. And it was part of a long-gone campus of brewing facilities on Scott Street in Covington.
The price? Less than $200,000.
I’ve been working on selling the idea to my wife, Lucy, but she is the far more rational person in our relationship.
My plan is to offer classes in building custom workbenches and tool chests as part of the Kickstarter campaign. She (wisely) worries about the maintenance on such a huge building.
In any case, Rob Campbell has inspired me to grab the dice and shake them in my hands. We’ll see if I actually roll them.
