Sometimes I just stare at a project for a long time and wonder what the heck to do next.
This morning I tried to figure out how to get the saws onto the lid of my traveling chest. Layouts. Drawings. Staring. A long walk to pick up some Dogfish Head. And this is what we have.
These three rabbeted cleats are only screwed to the lid in case I change my mind. The tool rack on the front of the chest? Ditto.
— Christopher Schwarz
Our new coffee table is complete and ready for the living room. No, no, I’m serious.
Because we don’t have a scrap of space in the house (this is said in the shadow of a mountain of “Mouldings in Practice” books in the sunroom), this traveling tool chest is going to become the coffee table in the front room of our house, where I do most of my writing.
When I leave town to teach, I’ll roll the chest to the shop, fill it with tools and head out.
It sounds like a great plan, except I have to come up with something to do with the sea chest that my feet are propped on now.
Yesterday I applied three coats of General’s “Coastal Blue” milk paint to the chest and installed all the hardware. The two sliding tills are complete. Now I just need to make the saw keepers for the lid and add a couple racks for chisels, drivers and dividers.
Those can come a little later. I’ve got to finish up a couple more urgent projects, including getting some coffee in my gullet.
— Christopher Schwarz
Before I took apart my traveling tool chest today for painting, I installed the crab lock that blacksmith Peter Ross made for me.
It’s a surface lock, which is mounted to the front inside wall of the chest with five screws. It might just be the easiest lock to install – there’s just a small mortise needed on the chest’s rim and the keyhole. Peter is making an escutcheon plate for me now, which will go on after the paint.
The workmanship on the lock is, of course, first rate. Peter is still working out the details on pricing, so if you are interesting in getting crabs for your chest, drop him a line.
Enough yacking. The photos tell a better story.
— Christopher Schwarz
System is not work, but is simply a law of action for reducing work. It does not require special executors, but permits few to accomplish much. It loads no man with labor, but lightens the labor of each by rigidly defining it. Hard work begins when system relaxes. System never, under any circumstances, interferes with variations in human action, but includes them. Elasticity is not a quality of system. Comprehensiveness is.
System is the result of two rigid laws: a place for everything and everything in its place, and specific lines of duty for every man… .
In many shops half the things are everybody’s business and never done; the others are nobody’s business and half done.
— James W. See, “Extracts from Chordal’s Letters” (American Machinist, 1880)
“The things you own end up owning you.”
— Tyler Durden, “Fight Club.”
I am not a wood collector. After you finish reading this blog entry, however, you’ll probably call me a liar.
Yesterday I and a couple friends filled a 17’-long U-Haul truck with wood and drove it three hours to my home, where it sits outside my house this morning. The wood came from the basement of a woodworker who is winding down his craft. It is stuff he amassed during the last 20 years.
He approached me a few months ago about buying it, and I resisted. I never like to buy wood unless I have the project ready to build. Why? Oh there are so many reasons.
1. I don’t have the space to store wood. Every scrap of storage space in our house is given over to books – the basement, the guest bedroom, the sunroom, the garden shed.
2. I think you get a better color match if you use wood that all comes from the same tree. It’s easier to get it from the same tree if you buy small quantities right when you need it.
3. When I have had a stock of wood sitting around, I find that I always end up with too much or too little wood for what I need. So I end up buying more (with a poor color match) or having little bits of waste sitting around. And I have no space for that.
I could go on and on. But the question of the day is why did I say “yes” to this guy after saying “no” to similar offers since 1993?
It must have been the 30”-wide clear cherry and the 20”-wide walnut. People do dumb things for wide wood. And so Megan Fitzpatrick, Ty Black and I spent all day yesterday loading up this huge U-Haul truck. Today I will spend all day unloading it. Sorting it. Making a pile of stuff to burn through the winter.
I don’t feel like I own this wood – it owns me and I don’t like that. Already I’ve started looking for specific projects for these pieces. Megan needs walnut for a blanket chest. Ty needs mahogany for a drawing table. We need bookshelves galore.
But right now, I need two ibuprofen and some clean gloves.
— Christopher Schwarz
