This week I’m the guest on a podcast that is less about woodworking and more about life in general. “A Life Well Designed” is a website, blog and podcast that are aimed at simply making your life better, saner and perhaps more successful.
I was interviewed by the founder of the site, Jonathan Pritchard, who is also a woodworker and a mentalist. While we touched on the topics of craft throughout the hour-long chat, it’s more about the “why” behind what I do, both in the shop and for Lost Art Press.
I’m not used to talking about these things, so I sound like a bit of an dolt. But I do say a cussword by accident, so it’s definitely worth listening to for that. Jonathan teased out a lot of personal information (my father was a Yeti; my mother was an elite duckpin bowler) and I can honestly say that I had a great time chatting about oddball things.
If you’d like to listen in, the direct link to the podcast is here.
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.
