There is a certain segment of my extended family that has a theory about garbage disposals.
Their theory, and I will try to be as neutral as possible, is that sink-installed garbage disposals are bad. Quite bad. Why? Well the disposals make a sort of gray paste out of all the foods that you grind up with this seemingly handy kitchen appliance.
This paste gets caked to the inside of your pipes and attracts rats. The rats crawl up the pipe of your sink to eat the gray paste. Eventually, they crawl into your home – hungry and with a taste for meat….
I encounter this theory during holidays and other family occasions, and I let it pass without comment. I don’t have the time, energy or electronic scope to bother. Some other members of the family (no names here) have figured out that the dangerous gray paste is a myth. We maintain our silence together.
This is how I deal with stupidity on the Internet.
Most serious woodworkers I know don’t have the time or patience to debunk all the idiotic stuff that gets passed around as fact. We roll our eyes and simply continue to do what we do. Who knows? Perhaps we’re the dolts and the rats will come eat our entrails one night.
My fellow journalists will chastise me for failing to jump into this battle between truth and falsehood. I admit that at times I am tempted to ride a steed down the hill into the melee, though I know it’s a waste of time. Why?
There is no Church of Woodworking. No true gospel of bark. Woodworking information is more like food than it is like religion. You are responsible for the information you consume. Try a little bit of everything – we all need a little junk food – but ultimately you are what you eat.
Consume the things that make you more productive. Things that get you in the shop and building stuff, instead of wondering how much chromium is in an exotic alloy. That’s the difference between protein and marshmallow puff.
And don’t condemn the Ding Dongs. Have one every year or so – the empty calories will remind you of what good food is.
— Christopher Schwarz
Fair warning: If you read this blog entry you might end up with a dog that has decorative details.
If you build furniture of a traditional sort, you should consider owning some beading planes. While beading planes are (in general) quite common, furniture makers use the less-common small ones – usually 1/8”, 3/16” and 1/4”. These planes add shadow lines to traditional work that are sometimes lost on the modern eye.
The margin between backboards or bottom boards, for example, is much nicer if beaded. And any flat expanse is best broken up with a bead when you have drawer fronts and door fronts that are flush to their face frames.
Heck, bead those face frames while you are at it.
I couldn’t imagine building furniture without them. Beading planes are faster than a router or scratch stock and leave a beautiful, ready-to-finish surface without sanding.
The challenge, however, is finding beading planes that are a notch above firewood. This summer I hit several tool emporiums and inspected at least 100 beading planes that were sized for furniture. None was worth buying.
So if you can’t find vintage beading planes, you need to find someone who will make them for you. Phil Edwards at Philly Planes is one excellent source. And you might be able to talk Matt Bickford into making you some. Old Street Tool still isn’t taking orders.
So please take a look at the work by Caleb James, a chairmaker, planemaker and excellent craftsman in Greenville, S.C. I met Caleb in person for the first time in the spring, used his planes and placed an order for two beading planes to round out my set – a 1/8” and a 1/4”.
I’ve had the 1/4” plane for a while, and the 1/8” came today.
They are outstanding. Beyond outstanding, really.
Caleb isn’t taking orders for planes right now as he is clearing out a well-deserved backlog. But bookmark his site and watch for when he opens ordering again. Then pounce.
When your beading planes arrive, you’ll want to put a bead on everything. Even your dog.
— Christopher Schwarz
Suzanne Ellison – artist, indexer, researcher and butt-kicker – made this for my office. It’s constructed using tools from Roubo’s “l’Art du Menuisier” plus a crow. There is no crow in Roubo to my knowledge.
Suzanne calls this crow “Cato.” Yes, after Cato Fong.
— Christopher Schwarz
