Warning: If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don’t you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can’t think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it? Do you read everything you’re supposed to read? Do you think every thing you’re supposed to think? Buy what you’re told to want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping…. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you’re alive. If you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned- Tyler.
When I built the tool chest for “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” my goals were both selfish and hereditary. My chest is an ark, a way to carry my tools forward in time to protect them for my kids or – barring that – my grandchildren.
People ask me all the time if they should buy either new tools or vintage ones. The answer is: neither. If you can acquire tools that have been properly set up and cared for, you will have acquired one of the greatest treasures of the craft.
So this morning I was heartened by a blog post by Joshua Klein, a Maine furniture restorer and excellent photographer. He and his 3-year-old son, Eden, have just finished building a tool chest for the young one.
I had a tool chest when I was young – the folding plywood sort filled with tools with blue plastic handles. I loved that chest, and I know that Eden will love his even more.
As a nerd who saw my fair share of the scummy bottoms of school garbage cans as a kid, I take a dim view of bullies. So for the next couple weeks, we at Lost Art Press are going to hold some auctions to raise money to help The Wood Whisperer fend off a nasty DDoS attack – because defense against this crap costs a lot of coin.
To kick things off, we are auctioning off the final leather-bound copy of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” (which normally runs $185), which I will ship anywhere in the world on my dime. This is a hand-bound book, made by artisans at The Ohio Book store in Cincinnati. It is made to last several lifetimes.
So here’s how the auction will work. I’m going to start the bidding at $50. If you want to bid, leave a comment stating your bid. The highest bid that is posted BEFORE midnight on Friday, March 9, wins the book. Yup, I’ll ship it to Japan, Iran or even any of the -stans. That is as long as your payment clears.
Note that 100 percent of your bid will go to Marc and Nicole Spagnuolo. I’m not making a dime.
During the weekend we’ll post more auctions, including some copies of the out-of-print “The Art of Joinery,” which some nutjob is selling on Amazon for $500. Plus some Lost Art Press T-shirts that are no longer available.
Stay tuned. And stay strong, Marc and Nicole. You aren’t alone in this.
OK, after a technical hiccup, we have this worked out.
The 60-minute movie about the tools in “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” is now available for instant download in our store for $8. The download includes all the extras available on the DVD: the slideshow of the step photos, the SketchUp file and a text document that further explains some of the tools I chose and why.
This purchase is available for domestic customers through this link. International customers can also purchase this by sending $8 via PayPal to john@lostartpress.com. You will then receive a link to download the files.
Note that this download is a big file – 700 mb – so it will take some time when you order it. The download is one file – a zipped file. After you download it, it will decompress into a folder containing the video (an .mov file) plus the extras.
On days like today, I wonder how many more times I can teach a class on building The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.
On Friday, I finished up a five-day class where I and 10 students built a tool chest entirely by hand, the only way I like to build them. It was a fantastic class. (View a Flickr set here.) They were good students – not a single jerk in the group. They worked until they dropped, and we all had a good laugh and a beer at the City Tap after class each day.
Plus Roy Underhill provided instruction, entertainment and popsicles through the week. It sounds like heaven, and it was. So what the heck is my problem?
Today I taught the first day of a two-day class at the Woodcraft store in Atlanta (in Roswell, Ga., in truth) and today we made a stick. OK, we actually made three sticks. First we made a lone stick (a straightedge), then we made a pair of sticks (winding sticks). Tomorrow we’ll make “stick in a stick” (a try square) and “stick through a stick” (a marking gauge).
No massive 75-pound carcases that needed to be lugged around. No dovetailing the end of every board that crossed your bench. No endless sharpening of your chopping chisels. No giant bowl of ibuprofen.
Instead, the 10 students at the Woodcraft focused today on removing the right shavings from the right places on these 30”-long sticks. I had to lift some shavings from the floor at one time during the day, but I’ll survive.
It’s funny how a small project, such as a wooden layout tool, can be a welcome relief after a vigorous but totally energizing and then draining project such as a tool chest. I better enjoy this while I can. When I return home to Kentucky on Monday night I’ll have 17 days to finish up a secretary for a photo shoot.
