It’s not the prettiest bench around, but I think it will get the job done (and it only has to last until December, anyway).
The top is 6′ long and 21″ deep. I had planned for it to be 38″ high, of course, but somehow it ended up being 34″ instead. Not sure how that happened.
It is extremely solid (better than my bench at home in that regard). It has only four legs, but what legs it has! I’ll pit this bench with its four elephantine legs against any 8-legged (or even 11-legged) arachno-bench any day.
I had to plane out about 1/8″ of twist in the front apron (no, I don’t know how many thumbs that is), but other than that it’s reasonably flat and square.
I still have to make the “stick” that fits in the center slot to keep tools from plunging to their deaths, and I need to make a couple of other appliances, like a bench hook and shooting board. But other than those, I’m ready to start real woodworking.
That is, after my arms recover from boring all of those holes.
Crucible Tool simply wouldn’t exist without Raney Nelson. Raney, a planemaker and woodworker who works under the name Daed Toolworks outside Indianapolis, approached John and me last September about starting some sort of tool-making enterprise.
After talking about it for about an hour, all three of us knew it could work because we’ve known each other for many years – since before Raney was a professional planemaker and before John Hoffman and I had started Lost Art Press.
So before the idea for a tool company even came up, we knew Raney had the same business ethics as Lost Art Press. We knew that he worked his butt off. And we knew he was a wizard when it came to hand- and machine-based processes with metal and wood.
Though Raney isn’t much for talking about the quality of his output, it is stellar. Ask anyone who has owned or used one of his planes and you’ll get the same story: He makes gorgeous planes that function at an extremely high level that also have a fully realized design.
So when Raney proposed starting a tool company, I said yes without thinking. Heck, I said yes without even telling my wife.
During the last eight months, Raney has transformed his three-story machine shop into what we call Crucible Lab – a fully equipped toolroom that can handle the prototyping and early production of metal and wooden tools that require precision milling and finishing.
(My part, as mentioned earlier, is working with the foundry, running the website and providing the historical design perspective on tools from Roman times to present. John’s job is to provide the administrative backbone of Crucible – getting orders to customers and fixing any hiccups along the way. I’ll focus on John’s role in a future post.)
Today I visited the lab and was amazed at how far things have progressed. We’ve installed a Haas CNC milling machine (about the size of an SUV), a precision belt sander, a Roll In band saw for cutting metal plus an incredible array of tooling and fixturing for the first tools on the design board. These machines are additions to Raney’s already well-equipped metal shop with milling machines, lathes and a surface grinder.
Though the Haas has only been up and running since April, Raney has mastered the thing and is cranking out both metal and wooden components.
So if you think it’s dumb that a writer started a tool-making company, you’re wrong. A writer didn’t start a tool company. Crucible Tool is an equal partnership of three guys who are passionate about woodworking and all bring skills to the table that we hope will make for a company that is successful at both making tools and staying in business for a long time.
— Christopher Schwarz
I don’t want to say too much about Crucible Lab because I’d like Raney to tell it from his perspective. He’s a reluctant blogger. Let’s hope he makes an extra pot of coffee this week and cranks out the story of the Lab.
When we published “The Joiner & Cabinet Maker” I had a large number of images that didn’t make it into the book for space reasons. So I put together three narrated slideshows – one for each of the projects in the book: the packing box, the schoolbox and the chest of drawers.
We sold these (along with some other assorted extras) on a CD. As CD-ROM drives have disappeared, we considered offering these as streaming video. Then we said: Nah, let’s just give them away for free.
So now you can watch all three narrated slideshows for the book on our Vimeo channel with no advertisements or other garbage. I’ve also embedded them here for your convenience.
As a kid one of my favorite things to do was poke around the attics of my grandparents’ houses. Dark and dusty with all the relics of life past stored away. When I was young most of the ghost stories seemed to always begin with noises from the attic or basement. At that age a ghost seemed much more of a possibility than it does now, so that definitely added to the thrill.
The most interesting parts of old houses and buildings are often times for me the parts not usually seen. In these places construction details such as tool marks, Roman numerals on the joints between timbers and sometimes even mistakes can be found uncovered by plaster or sheeting. Of course there are also the things that did not get thrown out that tend to accumulate in these places, saved for whatever reason and are still lying around that often have their own stories and history as well.
Saturday I managed to slip off for a while and go on the attics and basements tour at Hancock Shaker Village. What an experience! Of the 20-plus buildings at Hancock many have areas closed to the public that can only be seen on the tour.
A few of the highlights for me: The upper stories of the machine shop. All kinds of lathes, belts, pulleys and various other equipment are stored here. An old drill press with its flat belts that run through the floor below, looking as if someone had just stepped away from using it but has not run in decades.
The upper floors of the brick dwelling where many of the artifacts not on display are stored. This area looks like time stopped completely in the many rooms, staircases and hallways.
Of course there is also the basement of the trustees building where there dozens of tombstones are stored. These were removed from the cemetery at some point and replaced them with a single large monument. The Shakers, being utilitarians, used some of the tombstones later on as ironing boards.
This is just a very, very brief summery of the tour. If I tried to write about all the things we saw it would be a volume too large for a blog post! The attics and basements tour cost a few extra bucks on top of regular admission price, and I highly recommend it.
I’ve been reviewing tools and machinery for 20 years now, both in Popular Woodworking Magazine and on my various blogs. But that long career of reviewing equipment ended in January of this year.
When it became obvious that John Hoffman, Raney Nelson and I were going to start Crucible Tool, I told editor Megan Fitzpatrick that I could not write any more Tool Test entries for the magazine or for the website. It simply isn’t fair, by any stretch, for me to both make tools and criticize tools made by other makers.
As a result, you aren’t going to see any more reviews from me (Yay! Or Boo! Take your pick). I’ll still have my opinions about toolmaking, and I’ll still be happy to share my ideas for what a proper woodworking tool should do. But I’ll no longer praise or condemn makers by name.
I know that some of you are also wondering what this tool company means for Lost Art Press. Will we publish fewer books? Will I outsource the editing to other people?
The answer to both is “no.” We will continue to publish four titles a year (five if we can manage it). I will continue to be the person who edits every word of every book to make sure things make sense and flow smoothly. What will be different (and it has been for a couple years), is that I have found people I trust to help with page layout, indexing and copy editing (finding the last typos).
When we started Lost Art Press, I did all of those functions so we could save money and keep our prices reasonable.
So Lost Art Press isn’t changing one iota because of the birth of Crucible Tool.
A few other people have asked what the h#$& kind of hubris-flavored Kool-Aid I’m drinking to think that I could work as a toolmaker. I could attempt to answer that question, but I prefer to let the tools we’re designing and making to answer that question.
Finally, one more personal detail I’d like to mention. We’re going to remain a fairly small company, I’m sure. Though Lost Art Press ships more than 30,000 books a year, we are still just two people with laptops. Crucible is not intended to become a company that sets out to make the complete core set of hand tools (such as Veritas or Lie-Nielsen Toolworks).
We think there are a lot of tools that need to be made that aren’t currently on the market. Manufacturing those tools will keep us busy for at least the next five years and probably beyond. We probably will have to hire employees eventually and we might grow more than I anticipate. But our core philosophy is not to steal market share away from anyone. We think there’s a lot of room for other toolmakers to supply the needs of woodworkers.
And now we’re going to test that theory.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. Several of you have asked for details about our launch event on Sept. 15. We will have hours and an RSVP system set up in the next week or so. So thanks for your patience.
