Category: The Anarchist’s Tool Chest

This post has nothing to do with woodworking. But it has everything to do with the way that I approach life. So if you are one of the people who appreciated “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” read on. Otherwise, there’s nothing to see here.

I don’t buy a lot of stuff. Basically, I wear stuff until it falls off of me or breaks. I still have sweatshirts, jackets and vests from high school – and I graduated in 1986. So durability is important to me. Here are some of the things I really like.

Pointer Jeans: I wear blue jeans every day. I hope to be buried in them. While there are lots of stupidly expensive domestic blue jeans out there, you can’t beat Pointer jeans. This company is almost 100 years old, operates out of Tennessee and produces outstanding jeans at the same price as the imported stuff.

I have their slim cut jeans and carpenter’s jeans. Awesome stuff. Fits great. Looks great. Wears like iron.

Red Wing shoes: You can still get good shoes that are made in the United States and are designed for real work. I have a pair of Red Wing boots that are simply awesome. The Maine company has a less-expensive Chinese line of shoes, but those don’t interest me.

American Apparel: For me, this is the Lie-Nielsen of the T-shirt world. This California company defies every stereotypical business model and produces fantastic clothing at reasonable prices. Half of my clothing – T-shirts, sweatshirts, underwear – is American Apparel. We have a retail store here in Cincinnati, and it amuses me greatly to shop there. All the employees and customers are college hipsters, except me. I don’t care. It’s comfortable, made well and well-priced.

Orient watches: Confession time. I’m a watch whore. I love mechanical watches, as opposed to the quartz battery-powered stuff. I have some old 1960s-era Hamilton watches that I love, but nothing – nothing – beats an Orient watch. These Japanese-made mechanical watches are durable, priced well and beat the pants off all the European stuff. I think they are better than the Swiss movements. Orient has a long history of making mechanical movements, and the company weathered the quartz movement while other makers shuttered their doors or switched to making digital crap.

Saddleback Leather: Pretty much everything I want in a commercial good is embodied by the Saddleback Leather company. This family-run operation makes incredible leather goods of the highest quality and at reasonable prices. My wallet, shoulder bag, laptop case and suitcase are all Saddleback. They know how to make stuff. They know how to treat customers. Enough said.

— Christopher Schwarz

Just because I prefer to use hand tools doesn’t mean I don’t like high technology. The Internet is one of the most decentralized ways to communicate outside the corporate channels.

So Robert Justiana’s version of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” is pretty cool in my book. It looks pretty standard from the outside, but when you open the lid….

I’ll let Robert tell the story instead.

“I was pleased to be invited to submit pictures of my Anarchist’s Tool Chest, but needed to include a short (?) letter.

“First, I would like to thank (Lost Art Press) all for the work you are doing to preserve our craft.  A special thanks to Christopher for writing the book, which has had what is best described as a profound effect on me.

“When posting that I was on my third reading of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” I was not exaggerating. My first read was educational and eye-opening. The book gave voice to the way I felt about both modern woodworking and our disposable, consumer society. Moreover, by the time I had finished it, I was determined to build the chest and change the way I work with wood. Before that, I would not have even considered building a project of this scope with mostly hand tools.

“I began working with wood about 25 years ago, but always lusted more for Norm’s arsenal of machines than for Roy’s collection of vintage tools. Until starting my chest, my experience with hand-cut dovetails ranged from terrifying to miserable. Now I actually enjoy them, finding reasons to cut more and trying to make each successive one fit better than the last.

“The second reading of the book was my guide while building the chest, and the third (and ongoing) is as I sell off my extraneous tools and round out the contents of my chest.

“Finally, I must confess one tiny bit of heresy. I was so inspired by your blog entries about painted and decorated chests, and by Peter Follansbee’s carvings that I wanted to embellish my chest.  As a nod to my other skill set and to the limits of my carving, I used my small C.N.C. to carve the inside of my lid panel and to pay tribute to the book that inspired me.  Thank you again.”

— Robert Justiana

At the present day it may be fairly claimed that machines have supplanted hand labour in working wood.

Year by year improvements have gone on, until bench work and hand skill have become comparatively unimportant elements in wood manufacture; and, as Professor Willis remarked before the Society of Arts, 1852, “nothing remains to be done, but to put the component parts together.” None, except those who have learned their trades when and where machines were not used, can realize this change.

You may tell the apprentice of to-day about going out through the snow to a board-pile, selecting your stuff, carrying it in, and after scraping off the snow in winter, or sweeping off the dust in summer, laying out the stuff with a chalkline, and straight-edge, ripping out the job by hand, setting it about the stove to dry, and then dressing it up with a jack plane. You may tell him of mortising by hand, cutting tenons and shoulders, with a backsaw, and he will look at you with an incredulous stare.

No wonder; for this sort of thing has passed away, and with it, we are happy to say, some of the hardest labour that ever was dignified with the name of mechanical. It was mechanical, nevertheless, and called for the continual exercise of judgment and skill; from the cutting out to the cleaning off, it was a kind of race between brains and muscle, in which brains sometimes conquered.

Many a time, as older hand workmen will remember, would a small man, without that muscular strength that seemed to be the main element in his work, have earned his dollar or two dollars more at the end of the week than his strongest competitor, simply by his superior hand skill, superior judgment, and superior tools.

— John Richards, “On the Arrangement, Care, and Operation of Wood-working Factories and Machinery, Forming a Complete Operator’s Handbook” (1873) Hat-tip to Jeff Burks for the tip on the book.

The Individualist-Anarchist has been generally philosophical, practical, yet slightly removed from reality by virtue of his philosophical tendency, and at the same time highly self-conscious…. His philosophy stresses the isolation of the individual – his right to his own tools, his mind, his body, and to the products of his labor. To the artist who embraces this philosophy it is “aesthetic” anarchism, to the reformer, ethical anarchism, to the independent mechanic, economic anarchism. The former is concerned with philosophy, the latter with practical demonstration.

— Eunice Minette Schuster, “Native American Anarchism,” page 10