Can you help us Find a WINNER? Go here. I have just been fitting the handles to my own new tool chest. Near the end of the job, fitting components with screws is satisfying and tricky. One slip and the surface is scarred. Overtighten and the screw head is burred or worse it snaps off. Done well, it depends on preparation, good pilot holes, choice of screws and screwdriver.
There are dozens of screwdrivers in my box, gathered over the years they are used for a multitude of indelicate tasks. Opening tins of paint is a favourite. Yet a really good screwdriver should be very carefully fitted to the screw head. Do this well and it will sit in the head of the screw, gain purchase and drive the so and so home with no damage to the job or the screw head. Happy days.
This is the head of a well prepared screwdriver see how the worn end is reground to exactly fit the slot and see the two small chamfers on either side of the blade this is to suit the width of the screw head, stopping it projecting beyond the chamfered screw head and scuffing the countersink in the job
This is the set of screwdrivers we have picked to go in the cabinet that Chris Schwarz made and Jon Greenwood has prepared. They are cabinetmaker style handles in beech; boxwood would have been posher but it has no effect on the job.
There is another class of screwdriver that is maybe better than these. these are gunsmith screwdrivers. Here the blade is not tapered as in the blades above but parallel where they fit the screw. So, more contact with the screw but more expense. The blades above came off eBay and with a small amount of work from Jon Greenwood will be usable for years. Just remember all screwdrivers get worn out just now and again, so dress the end to fit the screw you are using.
These screwdrivers are for slotted screws. We found a nice set of Posi drivers from DeWalt that will be arriving soon for more general work. These cost us about £16 from one of the sheds.
A lot of trouble with Posi drivers is again that they get worn, and rather than pick a new one out of the box we bash on with the job, burring over screw heads. So this little set will enable our young Woody to help avoid that. Many of us at Rowden have taken to using a small cordless drill to do all the small screw driving around the shop.
I would like to put one of these drivers in the box as well but I don’t think we have one spare. Though this is a hand tool box I think we all use these now pretty well all the time.
Remember folks these tools are going into a tool box made by Chris and being GIVEN away in a competition. Closing date is end of November. You must be under 25, a Woody or would-be Woody. Write to me tell me why we should give it to you and send some images – that’s all it takes. Here are the details. PASS IT ON PLEASE
Can You Help us Find a Winner? Chris Schwarz came here this summer and made this wonderful tool chest. He sells these in America for $4,000 which is a pretty fair price. We are offering this chest a s prize to a young talented woodworker full of tools and with an all expenses paid trip to Rowden for a one week course (this will be for the finalists). Entries close Nov. 30, 2015. MORE DETAILS HERE and pass it on.
All they have to do is send me a short paragraph about themselves and why they make and a file of images of what they have made. Anyone 25 or under. I am not restricting this to UK, but finalists would need to get to Devon for the week course and would need to get the tools chest home if they won.
What Tools go in that Tool Chest? Today and over next few weeks we are going to look at the tools we are putting into this chest and why. The aim will be to fill the chest with either new or secondhand, quality tools. Many will come from my own tool collection or from Rowden toolboxes or, maybe, from donations. What I can’t find here I will ask other makers to help donate and what is left we will buy. Maybe one or two tool sellers and manufacturers are going to be asked to contribute a specific tool that we cannot supply ourselves.
Chisels This will be controversial. Well, this is an English tool chest and I wanted Sheffield steel chisels. I could have gone for Ashley Iles chisels, which are very popular in Rowden. But I didn’t. I could have gone for Lie-Nielsen carbon steel chisels, but they are American and I get the message from my students that one member of the staff is pushing the A2 chisels as being just as good as O1 steel.
Well, after 40 odd years doing this I would disagree. O1 carbon steel takes a sharper edge than A2. This modern A2 is great above 30°. It is also great for the amateur who does not sharpen every day as it holds the 30° edge for a long time. But a bench chisel is not just for battering with a mallet.
At Rowden we grind at 25° and hone at UP TO 30° (without the training wheels). The advice we give is that once 30° is reached, regrind to 25°. Then you can pare and chop with the same blade. Above 30° you can only chop. I have a mixture of pre-1960 Marples chisels and Japanese chisels in my own tool chest and I have bought the blades shown on eBay for my own students. The steel is hot forged, not cold fabricated. This makes it, I believe, a carbon steel better than O1, which is the modern high carbon steel.
So I have gathered a mixed set of Marples and Sorby blades plus a very nice thin-bladed paring chisel that I have had for 20 years. You can see from the existing Marples labels two or three of them are hardly run in, let alone used. Most have boxwood handles and the narrow neck that defines the period of Sheffield steel that I am talking about – pre-1960.
I use Japanese paring chisels, so this lovely paring chisel will go in the chest. It’s a really beautiful tool: thin bladed, forged steel, as hard as it comes and sweetly shaped by an expert. Jon Greenwood, bless him, is tasked with the problem of flattening the backs of these blades and grinding and honing a perfect edge. Ready for work.
Next screwdrivers, then marking and measuring, then maybe planes. We are really stuck with the saws!
People ask me what I do with all the tool chests I’ve built while teaching classes during the last five years. The quick answer: I sell them, of course. Sometimes I’ll sell a partially completed shell for $300 to $500. Finished and fully fitted chests with custom blacksmith hardware fetch $3,600 to $4,000.
(Yes, it was weird at first selling tool chests to woodworkers. But Lucy and I are happy for the business, especially now that my oldest daughter is in college.)
This summer I built my last Anarchist’s Tool Chest for the foreseeable future while teaching a class at David Savage’s Rowden workshop in Devon. I built the chest entirely by hand, including all the interior fittings, hinges and lock. I painted it black. Darren Millman, Savage’s right-hand man, made the veneered panel for the lid.
It’s a pretty good piece of work, considering it was produced by a jet-lagged American trying to teach a class of 18 students and build a chest in a week.
Savage is giving this chest away to one fortunate young maker in the UK. He’s filling it with tools. And you’ll get a course at his very excellent workshop.
Entering is easy. Check out this entry on Savage’s blog. And please spread the word to anyone you know who might be interested.
Though I’ve taught at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking for almost a decade, I’ve never been there after dark. It’s a bit like running into a familiar school teacher in an unfamiliar place, like the grocery store.
When I teach at MASW, I like to eat lunch in the young forest behind the school, but tonight I was tripping, fumbling and crunching across that familiar ground trying to find my students so I could make sure they didn’t poop in Marc’s lake.
I found some tents in the clearing, but they were deserted. That’s spooky. I looked out over the surrounding corn fields that were lit up by the Super Blood Moon and thought: This is going to be a weird week.
For the next five days I’m leading a class of 18 young aspiring woodworkers in a class officially called “Hand Tool Immersion,” but which I affectionately call “The Baby Anarchists.” We’ll be fixing up hand tools and building a tool chest. While that doesn’t sound extraordinary, it is.
Marc Adams graciously agreed to slash the tuition for the students to make it affordable for young woodworkers. He donated the materials for the tool chests we’ll be building. And he is allowing all the students to camp in the forest behind his house and school (I think 14 or 15 are back there now).
About 100 readers of this blog have donated tools and cash so that all of these students will end up a kit of tools they need to seriously get started in woodworking.
And woodworking friends – Raney Nelson, John Hoffman, Brian Clites, Tim Henriksen, Justin Leib – are donating their time to help the students get individual instruction.
Now we just have to feed this crew, so I’ll find out if Domino’s pizza delivers out here (just kidding; this is Papa John’s territory).
I’ll be posting photos of this class all week here and in Instagram under the #babyanarchists hashtag. I hope you’ll follow along here and on Instagram because a lot of you out there made this class possible. And I am deeply in your debt.
Author’s Note: This is the third of a three-part interview with Chris about The Anarchist’s Tool Chest. If you missed the first two conversation, you can read them here and here. As promised, this final installment was generated entirely by reader questions. A special thank you to all of you who sent in questions for Chris, including the many thoughtful queries that I was unable to work into this interview.
Jeff:Chris, in The ATC you captured my attention because you interwove your heartfelt conviction about the state of modern consumerism into a book about traditional woodworking. Do you have other convictions that can likewise linked to how or why you’re in the craft? If so, any plans for a book along those lines?
Christopher Schwarz:Aesthetic anarchism is pretty much the framework for my approach to the craft and life. It even guides the way I buy music and food.
I have lots of other things I feel strongly about, but they don’t have much to do with the craft directly. For example, I don’t believe in free will (it’s a long explanation and not a religious one), but I probably shouldn’t write a woodworking book titled: “You were Supposed to Screw That Up.” I will have to give this some more thought, however. It’s a tough question.
Leslie: Chris, I’ve come to regard your time-honored design for an English sawbench as essential in my shop. But I have difficulty keeping the saw in alignment, especially when using postures that aren’t unduly tiring on my body. I’ve tried the posture you describe in The Anarchist’s Tool Chest [pp. 285 – 286], but had little luck. Could you please explain one or two alternative (but still efficient) body stances for using the sawbench?
CS: The only other body stances I know for sawbenches involve sitting down to rip (a la French) or some of Adam Cherubini’s odd foot stylings he showed in his Arts & Mysteries columns.
If the traditional stance doesn’t work, you might try overhand ripping at the bench. That works for most (and is what I prefer, actually)For crosscutting, try clamping the work to the sawbenches and see if you can employ one leg comfortably to stabilize the work.
Turning the saw around so the teeth face away from you is another solution, as in this photograph:
You’d have to have the work secured with clamps or perhaps one leg. It also spreads out the work between both arms, which helps some people. I am sure there are other stances out there. I just haven’t encountered them. Apologies.
Jacob: Hi Chris. My question is about the relationship between construction methods and philosophy. In The Anarchist’s Tool Chest, I thought you were arguing that the dovetail – because of its history in the craft, the skill it demonstrates, the tradition it represents – is emblematic of woodworking anarchy. Yet you’ve recently done away with this joinery in the “baby” ATC, and the only dovetails I’ve noticed in the posts about your forthcoming Furniture of Necessity are the sliding dados on the table.
Just so you understand where I’m coming from, last year I didn’t feel confident had cutting dovetails, so I actually had to make my ATC with rabbets and screws. But that gets to the heart of my question: What is the anarchist’s joint? Does the concept of a beginner’s chest supplant any of your arguments in The Anarchist’s Tool Chest? I guess I’m wondering if woodworking anarchy is more of a skill set or a mindset? Thank you.
CS: For me what is important is that the joinery be superior to the crap that falls apart in a few years. Nails and screws that have been thoughtfully driven can last 200 or 300 years.
It also relates to the material. Dovetailing melamine will probably end poorly.
So while I love the dovetail and think it is the end-all joint, screws and nails and other well-made joints in solid material can outlast us all. Whatever joint it is, make it well and use good materials – that’s the opposite of the typical factor-made thing.
Cameron: The Anarchist’s Tool Chest is a book that had a big impact on my making philosophy. Not only because it turned me on to hand tool woodworking, but because aesthetic anarchism as it was presented tied up a lot of the ideas that brought me to the craft in the first place. It was one of those great moments when you’re reminded there are people out there who feel the same way about something, and not only that, but here’s someone who is doing it in a way that can have a real impact on our culture. OK, fanboy bit finished. Now for my question:
As someone who works in the technology sector, I’m interested to know: Have you ever come across a furniture maker who exemplifies aesthetic anarchism while using automated technology? I can imagine a future where tools like Cad, Makerbot, CNC, and 3D printing – programed to produce traditional pieces with traditional joinery – could allow individuals to make more of their own goods, and probably in a smaller home workshop than we currently need.
CS: Tools are neutral. My table saw grants me freedom by feeding my family at times. When I worked in a factory shop, the table saw was a symbol of my submission.
What is important to me is that people make things instead of buying them (if possible). So CAD, 3D printing, laser-cutting, water-jet machines and Shopbots are all awesome ways to accomplish that goal.
But why do I like hand tools so much and encourage others to try them? Everything with a cord ends up n the landfill. Hand tools last centuries. Sustainability is important to me.
Hand tools have fewer limits than machines (think chisel vs. table saw). A table saw limits your cut with a table, a fence, the size of the rails and the diameter of the blade. A chisel has almost no limits when it comes to shaping wood.
But I try not be a jerk about it. If you make stuff, you’re cool in my book.
Brian: Following up on Cameron’s vision: Chris, ever the twain shall meet? Is craft anarchism essentially about the ends of furniture quality and maker independence? Or the means through which that furniture is made?
CS:It’s both. If you don’t make it, then you can’t have an end product. If you don’t have an end product, then you aren’t making anything.
I know it seems circular. It probably is. Maybe I should write a book on turning.
Stupidity aside: The ways and the means are equally important. You can’t have handmade objects without someone making them.
Brian: Or can you?…
Ethan (The Kilted Woodworker):Chris, can you confirm the rumor that all involved with the writing, editing, and publishing of The Anarchist’s Tool Chest have a secret tattoo hidden somewhere on their body?
CS: I’m 47. I was born in an era where only criminals and sailors had tattoos. And I don’t like needles. Plus, even if I had a tattoo, you’d never be able to find it beneath my fine layer of yeti fur.
