Shortly after “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” was released I got a nasty call from a reader.
“I’m a graphic designer. I own other Lost Art Press books,” he said. “And I have to say this new book has a terrible, amateurish design.”
“Exactly right,” I replied.
Each of the three books in the “anarchist” series takes its design cues from different points in history, reflecting something about the book’s content or storyline. (This is true for all of our books; we don’t have a house style.)
“The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” is supposed to look like a manifesto set on a Macintosh. The chapter headings were made with a clicky label maker. The body copy is 11-point Cochin, a free font, and is set on a 17-point baseline (way too much space between the lines). The font used for the quotations is Courier 8 point, another freely available font.
From a broader perspective, the book doesn’t have a formal “grid,” which is the underlying structure used by most page designers when setting columns, photos and drawings. Photos intrude into the body copy in awkward ways. Yet, the book is (I think) still readable from a typographical perspective.
For the second book, “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” I looked to 18th-century pattern books and 17th-century texts. The book’s physical size is the same as Andre Felibien’s “Des Principes de l’Architecture…” The body copy is Caslon 12 point (on 13-point leading). Caslon is from the early 18th century (circa 1722). The style of the subheadings, the drop capitals and even the running heads on the pages are all ideas swiped from early books.
Plus, of course, the book’s copperplate etchings by Briony Morrow-Cribbs add to the overall older feel to the book. The idea behind the book design (and the book itself) was to treat vernacular furniture with the same respect as the high-style stuff.
The third book, “The Anarchist’s Workbench” (download it for free here), is from an entirely different place. It is meant to echo the books of the early 20th century that were set with Linotype machines. The body copy is, again Caslon, but the letters are set tighter. The type is 10.5 point on 12-point leading. In fact, all of the text in the book (except the data page at the front with the ISBN) is set in some form of Caslon – a common feature of books of this time.
Unlike the other two books, the text is carefully justified to look more formal and present letterspacing that looks like it was done by a real designer. The images and text are locked to a rigid grid system. The design is (supposed to look) mature. And that mature design is supposed to reflect the ideas in the book (poo jokes aside).
Apologies for the “behind the scenes” content. I get asked sometimes why our books look so different. This is why.
At first glance, the workbench in “The Anarchist’s Workbench” appears to be almost identical to the bench I built in 2005, which has shown up in a number of magazines and books. It’s chunky, made from yellow pine and the workholding is a leg vise, planing stop and holdfasts.
Despite their similarities, the workbench plan in this book is a significant improvement. During the last 15 years I have found better ways to laminate the top using fewer clamps, easier ways to make the massive joints, plus layout tricks here and there that result in tighter joints all around. The top is thicker, heavier and creates less waste when using 2×12 dimensional lumber.
The workholding is far more effective. Thanks to improvements in vise manufacturing and a mature understanding of how these leg vises work, the vise is strong enough to hold boards without the help of a sliding deadman. There is no parallel guide, so you can work at the vise without stooping. The planing stop uses a metal tooth, made by a blacksmith, that holds your work with a lot less sliding. And the pattern of holdfast holes in the top – something that took me years to get right – ensures there will almost always be a hole right where you need one.
The fact that the bench is similar to my bench from 2005 is somewhat of a comfort to me. It means I wasn’t too far off the mark when I began my journey. And equally remarkable is that 15 years of building workbenches of all different forms, from Roman benches to a miniature one from Denmark, wasn’t able to shake my conviction that a simple timber-framed bench is ideal for many woodworkers.
In addition to the fully matured workbench design, this book also dives a little deeper into the past to explore the origins of this form. I first encountered this type of bench in a French book from about 1774, and at the time I couldn’t find much else written about it. Since then, libraries and museums have digitized their collections and opened them to the public. So we’ve been able to trace its origins back another 200 years and found evidence it emerged somewhere in the Low Countries or northern France in the 1500s. We also have little doubt there are more discoveries to be made.
And finally, the story of this bench is deeply intertwined with my own story as a woodworker, researcher, publisher and – of course – aesthetic anarchist.
That’s why we’ve decided to give away the content of this book to the world at large. When it is released later this summer, the electronic version of the book will be free to download, reproduce and give away to friends. You can excerpt chapters for your woodworking club. Print it all out, bind it and give it away as a gift. The only thing you cannot do is sell it or make money off of it in any way.
If you prefer a nicely bound book instead of an electronic copy, we sympathize. That’s what we prefer, too. So we plan to print some copies of this book for people who prefer it in that format. Those will cost money to manufacture (we don’t make low-quality crap here at Lost Art Press) so we won’t be able to give those away. But we will sell them – as always – at a fair price for a book that is printed in the United States, sewn, bound in fiber tape and covered in a durable hardback.
This book is the final chapter in the “anarchist” series – “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” “The Anarchist’s Design Book” and now “The Anarchist’s Workbench.” And it is (I hope) my last book on workbenches. So it seemed fitting that to thank all the woodworkers who have supported me during this journey, this book should belong to everyone.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. If this goes well, John and I are discussing making the other two books in the anarchist series free to download. We don’t know when (or exactly how) we will make that decision. But it is on the table.
After numerous production delays, which I will blame on the mole people instead of the pandemic, “The Anarchist’s Design Book: Revised Edition” is now back in stock and shipping from our warehouse.
This is the fifth printing of the book, which means there are about 15,000 copies in circulation. By publishing standards, that’s a sad failure. But for me, I couldn’t be happier.
As a young writer, I aspired to work for a major metropolitan newspaper with 500,000 people reading my stuff every day. Then, as a working journalist, I grew tired of documenting the failures and successes of others. I wanted to be the one to fail. And here I am, failing every dang day and somehow still eating (thanks for the cookies this week, Megan).
These books in the “anarchist” series – the tool chest book, the design book and the forthcoming workbench book – are as much about making furniture as they are about making a life outside the normal corporate structure.
And as a bonus, the stuff I write doesn’t end up lining the Birdcages of America. Right? It doesn’t, does it?
The tool rack on the front wall of Christopher Schwarz’s Anarchist’s Tool Chest – the chest he built for the book.
Editor’s note: As promised, Christopher Schwarz and I are writing a series of blog entries that explain how we have improved the construction process for “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” during the last nine years (and several hundred chests). But the tool rack discussion isn’t an improvement; it’s an addition. And because the choices on saw storage can affect the tills, I’ve written a bit about them, too.
Tool Rack
When Chris and I were discussing what to include in this series, I said, “What about the tool racks?” which he and I do differently. He replied, “The tool rack isn’t in the book.”
You’d think I’d remember that…having read the book a time or two!
So here are our tool racks – in each case, a piece of scrap stock with a series of 1/2″ holes drilled 1-1/8″ on center. They have a bead on the top edge because we’re fancy…and we like our beading planes. Both racks are simply screwed in place on the inside front wall of the chest, which makes them easy to remove if need be for repair or replacement.
But they are slightly different. Chris has a saw till in the bottom of his chest, because a) that’s traditional and b) he has more long handsaws than do I, and needs a place for them in his chest. I have but two panel saws, which are stored on the underside of the lid of my chest at home. (If I need a large handsaw at the Lost Art Press shop, Chris is kind enough to let me use his.) Note: Chris has improved/changed the way he now builds the floor saw till; you can read more about that here.
Here’s a detail shot of one of the two uprights in Chris’s saw till. Note the backsaw on the left edge of the picture, stored toe down between the longer saws. The wall at the back of the till keeps other tools from getting knocked into the saws, and serves as a stop for the lowest till.
Here’s my first ATC, which is in my shop at home. I used the underside of the lid to store my longest saws (which, like me, are actually rather short).
Chris uses the space between his longer saws to store his shorter backsaws, putting them toe down in between the longer saws. I store mine behind my tool rack, which is bumped out a little bit from the front wall of the chest with some scraps.
So while Chris’s tool rack is about 1″ thick x 1-1/4″ wide, mine’s closer to 1-1/4″ x 1-1/4″, because I need the extra width to catch one side of my saw handles, and have enough room for the holes and handles of the pokey tools that hang in them (chisels, screwdrivers and the like). The little scraps that bump it out from the wall are about 1/2″-5/8″ thick.
Mine is also a bit lower in the chest – at around 8″ – because I needed enough vertical space for the my saw handles. Chris based the location of his off his longest chisel handle (plus an inch or so). Yours should be located based on what you’re going to put in it – not our measurements (though 6-1/2″ to 8″ is a decent starting point).
This is the tool rack in my chest at the Lost Art Press shop.
In the detail shot of Chris’ chest above, you can see a similar setup on the front of his saw till – he added that rack a few years back to hold larger chisels and the like when his front rack got full. It’s a few blocks to hold the tools out from the till wall, with a 3/8″ thick (or so) scrap in front to catch the handles.
Sliding Tills
The front-to-back depth of the sliding tills is based off being able to fully slide them just past one another so that you can easily access stuff in the lower tills. Because I have no floor saw till for the sliding tills to run into, I was able to make my tills slightly wider than what’s in the book … but I must confess that on my first chest (the one in my basement), I made them about 1″ wider than is ideal. They’re 10″ … because the carcase interior is 20″ front to back. But of course the top one runs into the handles of the tools in my rack, and the middle ones runs into the rack itself. Oops. (Still, it’s not debilitating.) Now, I make the tills about 9-1/4″ front to back, which is only 1/4″ more than what’s in the book. I guess I do that just to be different; it doesn’t gain me much storage!
But as I noted above, Chris has changed the way he builds the saw till, so it now sits just below the runners for the bottom till, allowing him to bring that runner (and the one for the middle till) all the way to the front of the chest.
On the left is the lid of the original ATC, with through mortise-and-tenon joinery. On the right is my ATC at the Lost Art Press shop, with loose-tenon joinery. You can’t see the difference (except on the back edge of the lid), and like the one on the left, the one on the right is strong enough for even the largest of sitters.
Editor’s note: As promised, Christopher Schwarz and I are writing a series of blog entries that explain how we have improved the construction process for “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” during the last nine years (and several hundred chests).
Loose-tenon joinery goes back to Greek and Roman times – boats were built using drawbored loose tenons. I start with this fact so as to (hopefully) stave off slings and arrows (which go back further than Roman times).
When Chris built his lid for the first Anarchist’s Tool Chest (the one in the book), and when I built my first one (now in my basement shop at home), we cut through mortise-and-tenon joints for the lid. Now, we employ that loose-tenon joint that goes back to antiquity. Sure, we use a modern approach (the Festool Domino), but the joint is time-tested, and plenty strong enough for these lids (a theory that has been tested time and again by people triple my size sitting on the lid of my chest at the Lost Art Press shop).
The mortises and tenons as shown in the book.
If you’re building one at home and feel the urge, go ahead and cut the mortises and tenons if you like – that joint is the strongest. But also plenty strong enough are two other joints Chris tried out in classroom settings: the bridle joint (slightly easier/faster), then the half-lap joint (easier/faster still). He was on a quest to get the builds down to five days when he tried these out – and they helped to shorten the journey…but not enough.
Now, we pull out the Domino XL, because it’s the only way we’ve found to get the lids glued up before the students leave on Day 5 (and again, the joint is plenty strong). And while at the beginning of the week, we get a grumble or two from time to time when someone asks how we’re doing the lids, by Day 5, everyone is so tired and eager to be done that they embrace the change. And they all leave with the frame-and-panel assemblies done.
But the Domino XL is a $1,500 tool, so use one of the three other approaches if you don’t have or have access to one.
After running the mating grooves on the frame pieces and panel (which in all but the most advanced-student circumstances we do with a dado stack on the table saw), dry-fit the assembly to determine the layout of the two 12mm x 140mm loose tenons. We use the same setup for all students in a given class, so we then set two combination squares to the desired settings: one small (the shorter measurement) and one large (the longer measurement).
While you could perfectly align all the pieces and mark across both at once, we find it’s safer (read: fewer mistakes) if we have folks use the squares – with a reminder to always register the stock off the outside edges – to mark the mortise locations on each piece individually. Anal-retentive? You bet. Does it cut down on errors? Absolutely.
To further reduce the possibility of mistakes, we set up stops to hold the work while using the Domino; they restrain the work against the fairly significant pressure required to plunge the tool into the work, and hold the work flat to the bench. If the mortises aren’t at 90°, it causes problems, so everything we can do to help make them perfect, we do.
With the work restrained, it’s simply a matter of keeping the fence on the Domino flat to the wood, so we encourage – strongly encourage – that you grasp and push down with one hand, using your other hand to plunge by pushing on the back of the tool, but not grasping the handle. (We’ve found that grasping the handle results in folks pushing down and tipping the tool a bit during the cut.)
Here, I’ve aligned the registration mark on the business end of the tool with one of my mortise location marks on the rail. Note that all my pressure downward on the tool is with my left hand. My right hand is simply pushing in. I also have the toes on my left foot hooked under the rail of my workbench. You have to exert a fair amount of pressure to plunge the tool’s cutter into the work; my hooked toes keep me from sliding backward.
After the mortises are cut, make sure you dump out the sawdust in the bottom of the mortise. Though our dust collection is good, it’s not good enough to clear all the dust from the mortise bottoms.
No, you don’t really need this picture…but I was so happy to catch the falling dust with my camera that you get it anyway.
With the mortises all cut, do a dry assembly before opening the glue.
Oh good – it worked! (Note the faint marriage marks on the top of all the pieces – I re-established those on each piece after I planed up the surface. Those make it a snap to get things together in the right orientation.)
Once everything fits together, cut a 30° bevel on the top edges of the lid (or just soften the edges, per the book) before glue-up.
No bevel on the left; bevel on the right (plus my lid panel is a little thicker, not by design, but because that’s what the stock for the class in which I built this one allowed).
Arrange the rails (the long pieces) with the mortises facing up, and squeeze in a healthy amount of glue, spread it all around and up the mortise sides with an acid brush, then stick the loose tenons in place. Put glue in the stile mortises (move quickly now, as things will get drippy) and slip them onto their mates on one rail. Slide the lid panel in place (remembering that the lid panel lips over the rails…not under), then put the second rail in place and clamp until dry.
Unless things go very wrong, you should need only one clamp at each end. Make sure to push the rails and stiles down flush to the clamp’s bar – that will help you get a co-planar assembly.
Now, just as it says in the book, cut dovetail joints for the dust seal (one tail on each side piece) and glue the dust seal to the front and sides of the lid. Then add some nails for good measure. The dust seal will see a lot of opening and closing action.
There’s one last difference – and this one is motivated by experience, not by a classroom setting. In “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” Chris writes to cut a bevel at the back ends of the dust seal to act as a stop when the lid is open. The bevel can break off with repeated use, so now, we cut these two sticks flush with the back edge of the lid’s frame-and-panel assembly. The wall makes an excellent lid stay.
At left is the “stay” image from the book; in the center is one of Chris’s bevel stays after nine years of use; at right is my flush-cut dust seal. (I have a chain on my chest that acts as a stay…but the wall is right there, so I don’t really need it.)
