These butt hinges from Horton Brasses – while not the cheapest option – are always reliable and lovely.
When I can’t afford the fancy forged hinges (or would rather spend that money elsewhere), I most often reach for 2-1/2″ butt hinges from Horton Brasses (item PB-409, about $42 per pair, including screws and shipping). And while butt hinges are available at any hardware store and at a range of price points (some incredibly cheap in both price and quality), I know the extruded brass Horton hinges are always exactly the same and thus interchangeable. I can use one I have on hand to lay out the mortises, and when the new set arrive, I know they’ll fit. (That, however, is perilous behavior – indulge in it at your own risk.) And I know they’ll come with the finish-matched slot-head screws I request. And no, I get no kickbacks from Horton Brasses (or anyone else).
This is a more minimalist look than strap hinges of any kind, but I like the way they look, and they take up zero usable surface area on the chest. Plus, I always have extra hinges on hand from other projects when I buy two sets because I need three hinges.
My starting point for locating these is to go by an old rule: Measure the overall width of the lid (or door or other surface to be hinged) and divide by two. That number is the distance between the hinges – or at least a good starting point. I often bump them out a little more. With the help of a square, knife a line at the location for the outside edge of the hinge. And I always mark the outside edges on every hinge, every time. If I follow the same steps no matter the project, the less likely I am to screw up.
Align the hinge to the first mark, then use the hinge itself to guide the knife as you mark the other end. Try not to slip and scratch the hinge – especially if you chose an antique finish, as it scratches somewhat easily.
Set a cutting gauge to the thickness of the hinge plate, then scribe the mortise baseline from edge to edge on both faces.
Saw to the baseline. Or use a chisel to cut a V in the waste toward the line (a relief cut), then place the chisel, bevel toward the waste in that V with the tool perpendicular to the work, then give it a good smack to reach the baseline. Pare out the waste, or do it with a small router plane (which is overkill … but fun), or a combination of the two.
With the waste removed, test the fit (and I always put the leaf with the barrel piece reaching to the edges on the carcase; the leaf with the cutouts at the end goes on the lid). If all is well, punch the locations for the pilot holes. Why a punch instead of eyeballing it with an awl or pencil? The punch has sloped edges to fit the countersink, so the point automatically finds the center. Eyeballing it can also work – but my eyesight is less reliable than my centerpunch. And the punch (with adjustable pressure for different hardnesses of wood) is awfully fun to use.
Have your marking knife close at hand, then place the lid atop the chest and center it side to side with the back edge butted against the hinge barrels. I set an adjustable square to my best guess on one edge, then show the square to the other edge. Adjust right to left as necessary, then hold it tightly in place. Or have a friend do it for you.
With your marking knife, flat side always against the hinge, nick a mark on the back corner of the lid where the barrel meets it on both ends of both hinges. Make sure the mark is deep enough that you can see it, but be wary of pushing too hard, as that can move the lid out of alignment. It needs to remain still while you make all four marks.
If you used a less reliably made brand of hinges, mark each for its location on the chest so you know which one goes back where, then remove them. You’ll need to use the mated hinge leaf on that exact hinge to mark the mortise on the underside of the lid. If you used a reliably made brand – that is, you know they are interchangeable, you can remove just one … or none, if you happen to have an extra handy.
Fold the hinge over the mortise location (make sure you have the correct leaf), then mark around it with a marking knife (flat side toward the hinge) – or a thin pencil (0.5mm) if you’re afraid of nicking the finish on your hinge. But the knife will provide better accuracy.
Set your marking gauge to the hinge leaf’s thickness if it’s not still set. Or if you’re using a small router plane, set that to the thickness. Either can be used to mark the baseline on the angled edge of the lid (fencing off the flat underside). If you use the router plane here, turn it so one corner of its blade cuts the wood as you drag it to score a baseline.
Chisel or rout out the waste. Deepen the edges of the mortise with a wide chisel as needed – and be careful at the front edge of the mortise; that’s a long-grain cut. If you hit too hard there, the wood will split. If it does, don’t panic. Just pull the chisel out of the cut, then remove the waste on the chisel floor up to the line. If you still need to remove waste at the shoulder, use a sharp knife instead of a chisel.
Reattach the hinges on the back of the chest (if you took them off), then place the chest on its back, and the lid with the inside face up, on your bench. Slide the lid into position at the back edge until the hinges meet their mortises. Punch the hole locations, then drill and drive the screws.
The above is excerpted from the hardware chapter of “Dutch Tool Chests,” by Megan Fitzpatrick.
Anthony Parsons, a luthier at Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Co.
More than 150 years ago, in the heart of Appalachia, James Edward Thomas, known as Uncle Ed, loaded up a handcart and pushed it along the banks of Troublesome Creek, selling his handmade mountain dulcimers in Hindman, Kentucky.
Today, at Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Co., the making of these same dulcimers, as well as guitars, mandolins and banjolynns, have helped dozens of people recover from substance abuse addiction and find fulfillment as luthiers and musicians.
“There are a lot of dulcimer makers who have been connected to this place,” says Doug Naselroad, luthier and founder of Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Co. “So it’s sort of like a firmly rooted tree right here in Hindman – the music, the instruments and the people keep coming back.”
The Origins of Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Co.
Nearly 15 years ago, in an effort to further revive Hindman’s luthiery roots, the Appalachian Artisan Center invited Naselroad to come to Hindman to start a school of luthiery.
Doug Nasleroad, luthier and founder of Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Co.
Naselroad has been playing and making guitars since 1969. He was mentored by Homer Ledford (a neighbor and encourager). In 1979, he opened his own shop in Mount Sterling, Kentucky. He worked for Collings Guitars in Austin in the 1990s. He’s taken notes from many instrument makers he’s met along his life’s path, and he’s built many instruments, including guitars, mandolins, harps and dulcimers, for well-known musicians, including John Prine, Lyle Lovett and Steve Miller.
In 2012, Naselroad founded the Appalachian School of Luthiery. Once fully embedded in the community, Naselroad was struck by the number of people affected by the opioid epidemic, and wanted to help. Around 2016, he and a former colleague began to formalize a plan, leading to their founding of the Culture of Recovery in 2020 – an apprenticeship program for folks recovering from substance abuse disorders.
“It was very organic,” Naselroad says. “It grew up out of the need of the place, the resources that were available and the community that started to grow there. I really feel like it’s a mission. To put it plainly, I just think it’s what God put me down here to do.”
At first, the idea was simple: Teach people how to make instruments in order to learn a craft that will enrich their lives.
That idea became a lifeline for many and led to the founding of Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Co., a nonprofit formed in partnership with the Appalachian School of Luthiery, providing jobs and helping with recovery.
“I realized that it was a critical part of their recovery to learn a skill and develop a career that they could fix their hopes on,” Naselroad says.
A New Way Forward
In September 2020, Anthony Parsons, then 22, entered rehab at Hickory Hill Recovery Center.
“I was at the death of my addiction,” Parsons says.
Through Hickory Hill, he entered the Culture of Recovery program, and once a week, he would come to Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Co. and learn how to build guitars. Parsons has played guitar since he was 12, but had no woodworking experience.
“When I got here, it was just like, oh man, this is exactly where I’m supposed to be,” Parsons says. “And they were nice enough to give me the opportunity to continue doing that. They hired me when I was just getting done with rehab, and I’ve worked here ever since.”
It took Parsons about a year to get the hang of the neck-making process.
“You’re learning something for the first time, and maybe you don’t have a lot of experience in it,” Parsons says. “It takes determination to get past your initial frustrations because not everything comes naturally to everybody, and that’s OK. But I think when you push past that aspect of it, that’s where you grow.”
Today, Parsons mainly builds guitars and banjolynns, but he has a hand in most of the instruments, and is usually the last person to touch them before they go out the door.
“I make sure they play really nice and that they sound good and everything’s working,” Parsons says.
Much of his work is by hand, with fine attention to detail.
“It’s kind of an art form in a way,” Parsons says. “We have a few templates and stuff, but really, it’s by feel. You kind of close your eyes and you feel the neck in front of you and you feel for lopsidedness or anything like that. And you just spend time with sandpaper and files and you make sure that it’s as good as it can be. And I think that process in particular can be really soothing. It helps take away some worries from time to time if you can just get in the zone and work on it.”
Parsons, who enjoys everything from Tony Rice and Doc Watson to slam metal, plays nearly all the instruments thoroughly, before they go out the door.
Currently, he’s going to school to earn his drug counseling license.
“I hope, and who knows if this could ever happen, but I hope to be able to do some of that here rather than have to leave – be able to kind of help out here and maybe work that into my position and help counsel the guys as I can,” he says.
Naselroad says watching people enter the Culture of Recovery straight out of rehab – raw and often lacking confidence – and witnessing them become accomplished woodworkers is an amazing experience.
Woodworking is Magic
Lessons begin with entry-level instruments.
“We have a little ukulele that’s made kind of like a wishbone,” Naselroad says. “We have a guitar and a banjolynn that are basic wooden instruments. And then, as soon as people are interested, we make the traditional mountain dulcimer of Knott County, Kentucky.”
Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Co.’s catalog is structured, but not restrictive.
“We use traditional violin-making tools for the mandolins,” Naselroad says. “There’s a lot of hand carving that goes on with drawknives and spokeshaves. At some point, we do end up using abrasive planers and power tools in a modern workshop.”
Instruments are often made from Appalachian hardwood.
“It’s been a wonderful ongoing experiment,” Naselroad says. “The woodworking part has just been a joy because we get to find out what instruments made of hackberry, Osage orange and persimmon sound like – all these instruments that you never see in the industry because we have all these Appalachian hardwoods, and we can try them and fine-tune the process. We’ve got some real outstanding results that way.”
This, Naselroad says, has been driven by his people.
“My guys just love to build from things that are from this place,” Naselroad says. “They have a real sense of place. One guy came in one time, and he said, ‘I got some big, wide, tulip poplar shelf boards from my wife’s grandfather’s general store. They were the produce shelves at the C.B. Caudill Store. I’ve got to see if I can make a guitar out of it. Will that work?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, sure. Let’s see what it does.’ If it’s stable, it’s crack-free and it’s quartersawn, we can generally make a functional instrument – and sometimes a really excellent instrument.”
Fine woodworking, Naselroad says, can be a magical experience.
“Instrument making, for me, is the best example of fine woodworking because it’s like this tremendous magic trick,” Naselroad says. “You take a muddy old log from the woods, and you process it, and you cut it just so, and you dry it and you build this thing at the end of which you have music. It’s like a magic trick. And that to me is the most functional kind of woodworking.”
And when people become enthralled by this magic trick and challenged by this labor-intensive work, their attention refocuses on something other than obtaining drugs, Naselroad says.
The factory.
“The gratification, the endorphin rush that comes from drug abuse, is replaced by something that doesn’t punish you, something that you can actually get a reward out of and not be given time by the courts,” Naselroad says. “You’ve got a positive goal, an obsession, if you will, to replace the one. It actually rewires the chemistry of the brain of the addict.”
Jeremy Haney has been with Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Co. since October, 2019. Like Parsons, he was introduced to the Culture of Recovery program through Hickory Hill Recovery Center.
“I came down and started learning how to build instruments,” Haney says. “And from there, it’s just been one step after another, gaining knowledge and experience. And later on, I gained a job here at Troublesome Creek Instrument Co.”
Woodworking came naturally to Haney, in part because he’s always been artistic.
“I think that helped a lot with the learning process,” he says. “But I did have my challenges. It was a big learning curve, learning the process, the steps and having my eyes opened up – the details that I would’ve never had them opened up to. Learning how to build these instruments, you have to look at fine detail, and that’s just something I wasn’t used to doing. So that was a big learning curve for me.”
Having something to put his mind and hands into helped ground him, Haney says.
“This kind of work is therapeutic,” he says. “So that was a big help for me, from my recovery standpoint. I think they go hand-in-hand and one really supports the other.”
Today, Haney solely builds mandolins and is considered one of the country’s leading mandolin makers, Naselroad says. Each mandolin takes him one to two weeks to build.
“It’s a mixture of power tools, hand tools and sandpaper – a lot of sandpaper,” Haney says. “I try to be as flawless as I can.”
Haney loves the work.
“I kind of just naturally took to it, and it’s something that I’ve learned that I’m actually good at,” Haney says. “So not only is it rewarding in the sense that it’s therapeutic, it’s also rewarding in the sense that at the end of the build, I get to hear this instrument being played. And getting feedback from the people that buy these instruments, saying how much they love them and how good they sound, it’s pretty rewarding all the way around in that aspect.”
One of Haney’s instruments was purchased by an organization that donated it to Ricky Skaggs.
“Knowing Ricky Scaggs has one of my instruments is probably one of the highlights of my career,” Haney says. “Hopefully, I have a lot more moments like that in my future. But right now, that’s good enough for me. Never in a million years did I think I’d be building instruments, let alone having somebody like Richard Skaggs own one.”
Haney hopes to one day have his own shop and brand.
Community & Music
Community is a core component of recovery.
“We eat together, we work together, we design our stuff together,” Naselroad says.
With shared goals, there’s a shared sense of purpose.
“It’s like one big meeting, all the time,” Haney says. “Talking about your problems in recovery is a big thing. It’s something that’s vital in recovery. You need to talk it out and get other perspectives on what you’re going through, because being in it firsthand, you really can’t see the problem or the solution. Having somebody’s opinion or somebody’s perspective from the outside may give you a better perspective of what you need to do or how you need to handle it.”
With so many fellow colleagues in recovery, Parsons says he always has someone, which has helped him stay clean and sober.
Music is key to the recovery process, too.
“I just left the factory a few minutes ago, and one of our newest employees was sitting with our shop foreman, and they were having something like a guitar lesson over there after work,” Naselroad says. “My crew is full of musicians and songwriters,” Naselroad says. “They write as part of their recovery. In the 12-step program, journaling your feelings and your experience is a means by which you get a handle on a lot of things. And a lot of them like to journal about their upbringing, their addiction and their recovery. We take the instruments that we make and we do radio shows and festivals – all kinds of opportunities for them to express themselves.”
For Parsons, it’s the process that matters.
“Having a hand in this process, where you start with something that’s just a tree, and you end up with this really fine instrument, that’s beautiful,” Parsons says. “You have this guitar or mandolin or dulcimer or whatever it may be in your hand and you can strum it, Parsons says. “And it has this really beautiful sound and then you get to see where all your hard work and dedication has come out on the other side and you have a finished product. I think recovery is very similar. If you work to mold yourself into the person you want to be, and you put in all the work, and there’s other people that help you too along the way, just like the instruments, I think you also get a really beautiful and wonderful product at the end. But it requires work and dedication, just like the luthiery does.”
The Flood
In July 2022, after 10 years of laying the groundwork for the factory, it was gone – all of it.
“On the day of the flood, we pretty much thought that we’d all lost everything and one another,” Naselroad says.
The night of the flood, Parsons woke up to constant emergency alerts on his phone, telling him to seek higher ground and to seek shelter.
“It was scary,” Parsons says. “Luckily, where I live in particular, I didn’t have to worry too much, but I had no idea what was going on. That morning, I had every intention of going to work, but there was mudslides at the end of my road and I couldn’t. So then I started trying to call and text people and nobody really knew what was going on. Nobody could get to the factory. And then I finally got a hold of somebody and they were just like, well, everything’s gone.”
It was difficult, but no one wallowed in it, says Naselroad, who called his crew and said, “You guys were skilled luthiers yesterday. Today, you are disaster recovery workers, so pick up your shovels.”
Jeremy Haney, on cleanup duty at the school,
Everyone dug in and went to work.
“There was mud and dirt and grime everywhere,” Parsons says. “Wood had been washed down the creek. There was a bunch in the facility still, but it was all water-damaged and dirty. All our tools were in the mud. At the time, I didn’t know what was going to happen because this is still my livelihood. This is what I do to make money. So I was pretty worried about that, but we’ve really bounced back from it. Luckily, we’ve had a lot of supporters along the way. A lot of people have helped us rebuild.”
They lost five buildings, including their factory, which took three years and millions of dollars to restore. Throughout it all, Naselroad managed to keep everyone on the clock full-time, paid.
Doug Naselroad, picking tools out of the septic mud.
“You would be amazed at how strong and capable and dedicated my crew was in the midst of this disaster,” Naselroad says. “When we finally got back, the guys felt like they were back home again,” Naselroad says. “The flood, while it shook my confidence in the creek – I don’t trust the creek like I used to – it really affirmed my faith in the community, not only my guys, but the church community, Eastern Kentucky, and a lot of nonprofits and artists who stepped up.”
This included famous musicians, such as Chris Stapleton and Tyler Childers.
“Without them, we wouldn’t have made it through that first winter,” Naselroad says.
A Promising Future
Troublesome Creek Instrument Co. has produced about 400 instruments since its founding, despite the flood and the pandemic. Prices range from $525 for a dulcimer to $6,000 or more for a high-end guitar.
“Social-impact luthiery is an idea that never occurred to me until I was doing it,” Naselroad says. “But it’s a community that I’ve been privileged to serve and it’s been a wonderful, wonderful time. I really think that it’s a string of miracles that have put us where we are today, the flood included. We lost everything and then had everything put back in a really spectacular way. There’s a community strength that’s there that goes beyond just our shared interest of luthiery. A lot of life and death stuff has happened in the past four or five years.”
If you can use woodworking to give people the gift of a better life, then you are fortunate, Naselroad says.
A reminder that the Lost Art Press storefront is closed today for Memorial Day. We’ll be back to regular hours (10 a.m.-2 p.m., Mon., Tue., Wed. & Fri.) as of tomorrow.
My traveling Dutch Tool Chest, with all the stuff I’m about to load into it. And yes, I can lift it once it’s fully loaded…though I admit it’s getting more difficult the older I get!
Chris and I are once again headed to London to teach classes with the London International Woodworking Festival at the end of October. Chris is teaching a four-day (Oct. 26-29) Irish Chair Class, and a short class (Oct. 30) on Peasant Carving, and I am (no surprise) teaching a four-day (Oct. 26-29) Dutch Tool Chest Class, then a short seminar (Oct, 30) on making the most of your tool chest. And we’ll be around for the October 29-30 fair, of course!
Last week, we received a treat of an email from Douglas Lambert, who recreated three workbenches from “Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use” by Christopher Schwarz* in Lego form, and sent us detailed plans for each:
You can download the plans for free at each of the links above.
We reached out to Lambert to learn more about him and his work.
“I’m a video editor from Brazil, living in São Paulo,” he says. “I love Lego – it’s been a passion of mine since I was a kid – but I also have a big fascination with woodworking (my grandfather was a woodworker, so I think I got it from him). For a brief period of time, I actually tried to be a woodworker, but I couldn’t really do it because I just don’t have the space for a working woodshop in my apartment. So, I started reading a bunch of stuff about it and decided that if I couldn’t be a ‘physical woodworker,’ I could be like an ‘academic woodworker’ in a sort of way. I follow the community, read the magazines, and love the books from Lost Art Press.”
Lambert says after spending so much time researching woodworking, he wanted to create something adjacent to the craft that people could actually build.
“I had previously designed a full woodworking shop for the Lego Ideas website, but it didn’t get the proper votes to become an approved project,” he says.
(Previously, he designed another project based on the Brazilian Ipê tree that got some great attention.)
“Since I already had Chris Schwarz’s book on workbenches because of my plans to one day build a real one, I decided to take on a new challenge,” Lambert says. “If I couldn’t have a real bench in my home, I could turn Chris’s iconic workbench projects into Lego sets. That way, I could finally have a woodworking bench that I could put right on my editing desk as a nice piece of decoration.”
It took Lambert about two days to come up with the design for the three sets.
“Doing the very first one was definitely the most difficult part,” he says. “I had to figure out the proper relationship between the Lego parts and the scale of a proper workbench, and I had to create a whole new design ‘language’ from scratch. I had to figure out how to make a wood plane look right, how to create the wood shavings, get the color schemes down and make sure everything was recognizable as woodworking tools using the proper Lego pieces.”
He designed everything digitally in a program called Studio, which gave him access to unlimited bricks.
“Once I cracked the code on the first bench, the other two went much faster,” he says. “After finishing the digital models, I bought the actual pieces to see if the design worked in real life, and they turned out very stable and awesome to look at.”
Lambert originally offered these instructions on his website.
“I used to sell them for a dollar, but I’ve decided to share them for free,” he says.
If you’d like to support Lambert’s work, you can use the site to leave a donation of a dollar or whatever you like.
“It’s just a cool way for me to share these designs with the community and help other people get these little benches onto their own workspaces,” he says.
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
*Copies of Christopher Schwarz’s “Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use” (Popular Woodworking Books, 2010) are readily available on the secondary market.
