Since 1993, I’ve had pretty much the same set of bits – brad-points I inherited from my grandfather and a set of Forstners I bought from Lee Valley. I’ve tried to maintain these bits as best I could, but when building all these Roorkee chairs, I gave up on my bits.
So I bought two dream sets of bits.
I first got a taste of the Lee Valley HSS Brad-points when I started working at Kelly Mehler’s woodworking school. He keeps a special stash of them that has saved our collective bottoms on several occasions. I’ve wanted a set of these bits ever since. And last week I bought the set of 28. They are all still dipped in their protective flubber and I can’t stand to remove it. Joy!
While at Popular Woodworking we got to test out some of the Maxi-Cut Forstners after being wowed by them at a tool show. They are very well made and clear chips like nobody’s business. I bought a set of five and will add to it as I can afford it.
I know there are other great bits out there, these are the ones I’ve had the best experience with so far. I hope they last as long as my previous sets.
Raney Nelson, 44, a woodworker, toolmaker and father, was killed Saturday by a piece of flying debris in his Indiana workshop.
While medical authorities are still working out the details, Hancock County Coroner Tammy Vangundy told the Greenfield (Ind.) Daily Reporter that Nelson was struck by several jagged pieces of wood that looked like they came from his workbench area.
According to Hancock County EMS reports, when medics arrived on the scene, they called the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office because it appeared that the workbench had “exploded,” though the Daily Reporter said no explosives or accelerants were found at the scene.
Though I saw Nelson briefly at Woodworking in America, the last time I got to talk with him at length was during the French Oak Roubo Project in Barnesville, Ga. We built our workbenches side-by-side during the week, and it is a bit unnerving to think that Raney was killed by his own workbench.
We all knew the moisture content in our benchtops was high, but I had no idea that a bench could rip itself apart to the point where it would become a porcupine of deadly projectiles. I suppose this is why the slab-top workbench was abandoned more than a century ago. It’s just too risky to human life.
Remember kids: Sjöbergs save lives. It’s not just a marketing slogan.
— Christopher Schwarz
The following is my photo tribute to Raney and his bench.
Many of the woodworking “gift guides” out there are a thinly veiled attempt to get you to buy some new products that are new to the store and are new, new, new.
As someone who was force-fed a diet of new tools for 15 years, here is my advice: Be wary of tools that are new in the marketplace. Let the manufacturer work out the bugs in the manufacturing process first. This advice carries over to new car models etc.
Case-in-point: A few years ago one of the big woodworking retailers came out with some 90° clamping blocks that you would clamp to the inside of a carcase to square it up. This new product was out just in time for Christmas and was in all the company’s gift guides.
But here was the problem: All of the clamping blocks were made at 89°.
Over at my other blog at Popular Woodworking Magazine, I’ve been doing a series called “The Anarchist’s Gift Guide.” These are small, time-tested and thoughtful gifts that you might actually use. I have no financial interest in any of the products. They are simply little things I have purchased and used for years in my shop. Here are the links:
Day 1 is here. Rockler Mini Drill Bit Set
Day 2 is here. Brownell’s gunsmith drill bits
Day 3 is here. Grip mini pry bar
Day 4 is here. Tiger Flakes
Day 5 is here. Gramercy Holdfasts
Day 6 is here. Draft-Matic mechanical pencils
I have a couple more to add this week. But today I am taking a day off to go to Chicago and eat myself silly.
The best thing I ever learned about furniture design came from my mom while we were driving the family Suburban somewhere in the Florida panhandle.
My mom is absolutely the best cook I have ever encountered. She can do anything with nothing. She makes it all look effortless and taste amazing. She, quite frankly, opened my eyes to the possibilities of food in the way my dad introduced me to wood.
So anyway, we’re driving back to our beach rental place one summer in the 1980s, and my mom and I are talking about food. And I describe some fruit smoothie. It’s stupid, really, but it’s a fruit smoothie with some weird combination of fruits and juices.
I say: I think that would taste good.
She says: You can visulaize that?
Me: Yeah, no problem.
Mom: That’s cooking. Right there.
That moment has stuck with me for almost 30 years now, both as a cook and a furniture designer. And after much thought, I’ve concluded there are two kinds of designers: cooks and bakers.
I have always been a cook. I am interested in combining different ingredients until I gradually achieve a perfect balance when making a sauce or casserole or carcase. I taste and taste. Modify and modify. And I’m never satisfied until the very last, when I place the food on the table.
My wife, Lucy, on the other hand, is a baker. She treats ingredients like a chemist. She measures. Measures again. And makes fantastic cookies and cakes that I cannot ever hope to make. But – and this is not a criticism – her cookies always taste the same. My shrimp and grits always tastes different, depending on what’s available and my mood.
What the heck does this have to do with woodworking? Everything.
When I design furniture, I am willing to alter the details at any stage. I refuse to use a cutting list. I simply feel my way through the project, step by step. I can do this because I have a vast library of furniture books and images in my head and in my house that I use to guide me. I start with a basic recipe that is based on the material I have, the photos of similar objects I’ve culled from my library and the desires of the person I’m building the piece for.
When I build this way, I am always happy with the result.
During my years at Popular Woodworking Magazine, I tried to build things according to more of a baking paradigm. I took the print, developed a cutting list and stuck to it. At times this process worked. The baking soda was right to the granule. Other times, I felt like I was simply reproducing someone else’s mistakes.
So, bottom line, I want my mistakes to be my own.
The problem with my approach is that it’s hard (no, impossible) to teach to others. I much prefer the approach of George Walker and Jim Tolpin in “By Hand & Eye,” who teach woodworkers to develop their designer’s eye through exercise and exploration.
My approach is more like Anthony Bourdain. Eat everything. Make yourself sick again and again until you you can find the balance between beauty and botulism. Yeah, sometimes you’ll throw up on the street, but sometimes you’ll find something that can silence a room.
A few weeks ago (Sept. 20-21) I attended the annual Open House event at Bob Van Dyke’s Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking in Manchester, CT. This year’s open house was combined with the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event for two full days of woodworking demonstrations.
The centerpiece of the open house is a gallery of student work. This year CVSW was involved in a project with the Windsor Historical Society to build accurate period furniture reproductions for the 1758 Strong-Howard House. During the event, three tables were selected to furnish the interactive rooms at the house museum.
CVSW instructors were on hand in the main workshop to showcase projects and techniques from the school class schedule. Local tool makers and craftsmen were demonstrating their wares. On Saturday there was an outdoor flea market for antique hand tools.
I put together a photo gallery of the event for those who were unable to attend. Phones and tablets should be redirected to mobile version of the gallery.
