Category: The Anarchist’s Tool Chest

A dog kennel carved and inlaid may be rare but it is not valuable, and the man who carved and inlaid it was not a genius but a lunatic.

— Herbert Cescinsky, 1924, antique furniture expert

New values have come in, new prospects of easy money are for ever enticing young men still further away, but it is doubtful they are happier for all that, for one can have easy money and an empty life, which is a poor substitute for creation. The wise ones will provide for it in their leisure and wood seems the natural medium for most of us. It is kind stuff to handle, it is creative work which keeps us close to first essentials by helping to provide necessities for the home, and it gives scope for every bit of skill and judgment we can develop, with always the promise of beauty in the end.

— The Woodworker, March 1951

Now and again in our topsy turvey world we get glimpses which show us with sudden clarity what an odd scale of values men are building up for themselves to-day. And that, in spite of the general scramble for money, the true riches for all of us lie in our tools and our skill.

These, in the dawn of the world were a man’s first, best friends. They remain his best friends still in a world grown old and infinitely complex. By means of them he can unlock the doors to a life of creative activity that is full of interest. Without them he is mere shadow of the man he might be.

— The Woodworker, May 1954

No wonder we feel so much at home with wood as a material, at once our most faithful servant and best friend. But the men who are keeping alive the tradition of fine furniture are the little men, scattered over the country who still in their workshops give the lie to the cynical modern view that in these days people will only work for money and that the satisfaction of the work counts for nothing.

Just as there are the men who do woodwork in their spare time, finding in it the kind of pleasure and satisfaction which their own daily work too often denies them.

— The Woodworker, April 1951

In those days a journeyman’s full tool chest was quite a costly investment, and many a man found it an expensive undertaking to supply himself with all the tools he needed. Besides his ordinary bench and everyday working tools, he was obliged to carry a lot of odd tools that are not much thought of these days. Sash planes, match planes, moulding planes, beading planes, coves, rabbits (sic), side filisters, try and other squares, mortise gage, and three or four other squares, bevels, miters, and a half a dozen or more saws of various kinds, including a dove-tailing saw – a saw which is now almost extinct – plumb-bob, and two or three dozen chisels, gouges, and many other things the modern carpenter never wants or thinks of.

The moving of tool chests was quite a big job, and the chest itself was a fearful and wonderful combination of usefulness, clumsiness and adaptability. I keep mine as a “mechanical relic,” now over 60 years old.

— A Retired Carpenter, The National Builder, January 1914