Ron is originally from Alabama, but he now lives in Ohio and works for Procter & Gamble. His tool chest reflects “Proctoid” sensibilities – they are notoriously precise people – plus his Alabama heritage. It’s a bit like a BMW 740 painted like the General Lee.
Which is all kinds of awesome.
This short video has a tour of Ron’s chest during a class at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking. And it involves (as always) nipple rubbing.
— Christopher Schwarz
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)