Lost Art Press

Category: The Anarchist’s Tool Chest

Debasing the Dovetails

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The real challenge in teaching a class on “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” is this: How can I make woodworkers cut dovetails as fast (and accurate) as possible?

When I first began teaching tool chest classes, we weren’t able to glue up the carcases until late, late Wednesday night or Thursday. Then it was a mad rush to get the rest of the chest completed.

Since then I have learned to put away the “encouragement whip” and get out the “punishment whip.” (I wonder why women rarely take my classes?)

Today – the second day of the course at the Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking – we have a third of the 15 chests glued up. The rest will be glued up on the third day before lunch. This is a frickin’ cake walk.

What has changed? Well, to be honest, I am a poor teacher at best. Honest and true. But I have learned a few tricks from some fantastic teachers. Here are two of them.

1. Teach the information is small, manageable bites. Send students back to their benches to perform one operation. Repeat. This is from Trevor Smith, a high school physics teacher in Troy, Mich. The dude is an amazing teacher. I watched him teach for one day and learned more about teaching that day than in any other time period.

2. If you say it will happen, it will happen. Advice from Doug Dale, one of the outstanding assistants and teachers at Marc Adams School of Woodworking. If you set the goal for the day as “you will finish this particular operation,” then – surprise – the students achieve that goal. Weird.

And there is one thing I bring to the table: debasing the dovetail joint.

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I do not treat this joint as a holy relic – St. Christopher’s duodenum. It’s a mechanical joint that is easy to cut if you break it down into small bites (thanks again, Trevor). None of the operations in cutting a dovetail is hard. The only thing that is difficult is being consistent with every operation.

With five chests together today, and all of them looking really, really good, I feel justified in drinking a beer.

— Christopher Schwarz

One Opening in an ‘Anarchist’s Tool Chest’ Class

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Build this chest (Roy not included)
Build this chest (Roy not included)

Because a student had to cancel, there is one spot open in my tool chest class on Aug. 5-9 at the Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking.

This is the only opening in a tool chest class until 2014 I believe.

If you can ditch work that week, contact the school’s director, Bob Van Dyke, via e-mail or phone: bobvandyke@sbcglobal.net or 860-729-3186. During this class we’ll be building the chest out of some outstanding Eastern white pine – Bob is a wiz at finding beautiful stock.

And we will be eating at Frank Pepe’s pizza. A lot. Perhaps until I am sick.

— Christopher Schwarz

The ‘Traitor’s Tool Chest’ DVD Only $12 (Hurry)

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ToolChestDVDWhen I make a DVD, the producers always give me a certain number of free copies to give to my mom or (in the case of some really dull DVDs) to use as drink coasters.

As a result, I have 19 copies of “A Traditional Tool Chest in Two Days” sitting on my desk right now that I would rather be somewhere else. I have enough drink coasters.

So we are going to sell these DVDs at half price to our loyal blog readers. Instead of $24.99, you’ll pay $12 plus domestic shipping.

Why did I call it the “traitor’s” tool chest in the title? Read here.

We only have 19 of these. So if you want one, click now or forever hold your mouse.

— Christopher Schwarz

I Like Chests (Though You Might Have a Nice Rack)

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I am wed and bred to the traditional tool chest. I’ve been working out of one since 1996 and have no plans to suddenly switch to storing my tools in stacking rubber boxes.

Sure, I’ve experimented with other systems (like when I experimented with lesbianism in college). But after giving them a year or two in parallel with my tool chest, I always went back to the warm embrace of of the big floor chest by my workbench.

If you hate tool chests, that’s cool with me. But you need to come up with a way to hold your tools that makes it easy to work at the bench. Since publishing “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” I’ve been asked about once a month to please, please, please design a wall-hung tool cabinet that is the equal of a floor chest.

Now that I’m juggling two book projects, I’m really not equipped to design a complicated piece of tool storage and give it a real-world test. But perhaps you are.

When I consider tool storage, here is a list of the things that are important to me. Other woodworkers at the extremes (French-fitting neat-nicks and those who are casual about tool care) will disagree. That’s cool. Write your own book.

1. Tools protected from rust, dust and damage. I spent a lot of time fixing up tools or saving up the money to buy my tools. So I’ll be damned if I’m going to let them rust or get cruddy. Good tool storage should keep the tools protected. Period. This is why I don’t like open tool racks (which I’ve experimented with a lot). The tools on the open racks are more likely to get rusty or (more important) go missing.

2. All tool can be grabbed instantly or by moving one sliding/swinging layer in front. Your tool system should not be a Chinese puzzle box. H.O. Studley’s toolbox is cool, but it is a tool-storage nightmare.

3. Tools aren’t obscured from view in drawers. When tools go into drawers, they seem to disappear from memory. I like tools in the open because of this simple fact: When you can see all your tools your memory about their location is much improved. I have to nudge my marking knife to grab my carpenter’s pencil, so it’s easy for me to remember where the knife is – I’ve seen it 100 times that day.

4. The storage is flexible without distinct spots for everything. I tried French-fitting my tools. It was a chore to make all the little racks and holder bits. Then I decided I wanted the shoulder plane somewhere else and so I had to change it all.

5. The tools should be in smallest space possible. When your tools are in a compact area you won’t have to walk across the shop to pick them off the rack across the room. It’s all right there, just within arm’s reach.

6. The storage should be inexpensive and movable. I’d rather buy more wood for furniture. And someday I might have a cooler shop on Russell Street.

This is a quick back-of-the-napkin list. But I think it’s pretty good.

Oh, and it should be black.

— Christopher Schwarz

What Would Never be Recovered

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“This or that quiet place, the home of peace, was turned into a ghastly battle-field, with the naked and maimed corpses of trees lying about. Bad enough, all this was. Still, trees might grow again; the hollows might recover their woodland privacy and peace for other generations to enjoy. But what would never be recovered, because in fact War had found it already all but dead, was the earlier English understanding of timber, the local knowledge of it, the patriarchal traditions of handling it.”

— The Wheelwright’s Shop by George Sturt (Cambridge, 1948)

(Image from “Four and Twenty Toilers” [1900] by Francis Donkin Bedford [1864-1954]. Image from Jeff Burks. Download the full book here.)