Christian Becksvoort, at the 2014 Lie-Nielsen Toolworks open house.
Just a reminder that you’re invited to Christian Becksvoort’s “Shaker Inspiration” book release party on Jan. 12, from 7-10 p.m. – plus he’ll be in and out during the Lost Art Press open house that day (10 a.m-5 p.m.).
Christian will give a presentation on his work and a short reading from his new book (and sign copies of it and his other books if you like); we’ll have snacks, beer and wine, and non-alcoholic beverage choices).
If you plan to attend the evening shindig, please send me an email at covingtonmechanicals@gmail.com to let me know how many are in your party (so we don’t run out of provisions).
Yes, my darlings, we will have a prize for the best entry submitted for this Caption Challenge.
Sharpen your wits and enter** as many times as you wish. The Challenge ends on January 1, 2019 at 1500 hours in my time zone (North America EST).
I will select the winner and the two-pronged prize is a Lost Art Press bandana and a Chester Cornett button (pictured below) and Chris Schwarz will send these anywhere in the world.
Hey, we never put our books on sale. But we have several hundred T-shirts that were dwelling in our cellar that we need to clear out. These are leftovers from Handworks and are of excellent quality.
The shirts are 100 percent cotton American Apparel shirts. Made in Los Angeles and printed in Kentucky and Indiana. We are selling them for $17 plus $5 shipping anywhere in the United States (sorry these ship only in the U.S.). Basically, these are at cost, plus what it costs to box them and ship them. Quantities are limited, so don’t dawdle.
The fastest way to see the shirts is to go to the Apparel page of our site via this link.
The Lost Art Press charging station is brought to you by the Clutter Bros.
When adults watch broadcast television, they can easily discern what is a commercial and what is the program. This ability isn’t innate (kids get easily confused), but we’ve learned to pick up the signals when we’re being shook down for money in exchange for happiness.
When product placement became a big thing in films and television, we learned to spot it after a while. So now most of us roll our eyes when we hear “Now all restaurants are Taco Bell” in the 1993 schlock-fest that is “Demolition Man.”
But on social media, the rules are different. There are laws requiring people to disclose commercial relationships, but they are followed only sometimes and enforced almost never. So it’s up to us to train ourselves and our children so we don’t get sucked into believing a sponsored “review” or praise for a tool that was given – not earned.
Believe me when I say that there are much bigger problems in the world – starvation, overpopulation, hate, wars. I can’t do much about those. But I can help you separate the wheat from the chaff with reviews. That’s because I worked behind the glass-filled nylon curtain full-time for 16 years.
Before I go further, let me also say that I have immense respect for the men and women who end up shilling these products on social media. They are all incredibly hard-working, creative, entrepreneurial, skilled at the bench and – most of all – eager to help fellow woodworkers.
And this is exactly why they were targeted by tool manufacturers to help promote their tools.
Here are the clues I look for on social media that something fishy is going on.
The person obtains tools at a rate you never did, even when you were new to the craft. Tools are damn expensive. If someone starts talking about new tools more than once a month, I am suspicious.
Their shops match. When I see a shop that is filled with tools of one color – orange, blue, green, whatever – I’m on alert. I don’t know any real woodworker who has purchased all their machines or power tools from one manufacturer.
Most of the tools in the shop are new.
The projects seem to use a lot of tools, way more than you would use. “Wait – you are using a track saw to crosscut your backboards when you have a chop saw and a table saw?”
They end up using tools that aren’t really woodworking tools. Cordless caulking guns? Laser levels? (Greg Pennington excepted).
Many projects seem designed to highlight tools. A charging station. Clamp racks. Glue caddies. Sawblade holders.
Sudden conversions. Watch for language that goes something like this: “I’ve never liked X and always preferred Y. But recently I finally gave Y a try, and boy is it amazing!” Getting free tools makes this flip-flop easy for our brains.
They obtain machines they cannot reasonably afford. Manufacturers are happy to send out a $10,000 thingy in exchange for months of goodwill advertising from a “marketing partner.” If someone gave you a new Austrio-Awesome combination machine when all you had was a Cheap-O-Plastico benchtop saw, you’d be happy to tell everyone how awesome the Austrio-Awesome is. And your awe at the upgrade would be music to the marketing department at Austrio-Awesome.
If they mention negatives to a tool, they are straw men. “Though I wish the laser were a different color and the belt clip was more adjustable, the tool is fantastic.”
They have banners from manufacturers in their shops.
My hope is that this sort of sly advertising will become less effective. Manufacturers will stop sending out free tools and direct more of their money to engineering. And the men and women of YouTube will grow tired of the game and embrace what got them their audience in the first place: A deep love for the craft and sharing what they know with others.
The Woodworker magazine, Chips from the Chisel: Good Fellowship, 1936
“Old things return with a difference. Nowadays we do not burn Yule logs nor go a-mumming. Our feasting has less of the grand heartiness of the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, Christmas, almost alone of all the great feasts, has retained its essential spirit of universal good will. Christmas opens the heart, sweeps away some of the cobwebs from our darker corners. The feast of the family, it reminds us of the greater family to which we all belong, and a tide of good fellowship flows out at Christmas to the poor and the lonely as at no other time of the year. We should all be poorer without it, for there is a fellowship in rejoicing which remains over when the last crumb of the feast has been swept away, when the last sprig of holly has been burned.
“Among craftsmen, especially, a spirit of good fellowship makes all the difference. Modern conditions do not always make it easy. Wherever there is a feeling of insecurity a man may easily become distrustful of his fellows, guarding his knowledge with the feeling that it is the one thing he has to arm him against the world. But hoarded knowledge can never be as productive as knowledge which is shared. It is not the man who warns off enquirers with a mutter of “trade secrets” and a “please-keep-off-the-grass” expression who will keep abreast of the times, but the man who will readily exchange experiences, discuss, and, when need be, give guidance to others. It is remarkable, when one comes to think of it, the number of ideas which are generated in conversation. A tradesman can easily, in answering the questions of the novice, be brought to consider for the first time the whys and wherefores of using certain processes. Such was the trade custom, but why? Or, swopping experiences with another old hand, he gets to know of other methods as sound, maybe sounder, than his own. But he has to give as well as take. There has to be fellowship, even in the generation of ideas.”
Yes, my darlings, we will have a prize for the best entry submitted for this Caption Challenge.
