Lost Art Press

Category: Woodworking Classes

The Minimalist Anarchist Tool Kit

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To build an English-style tool chest, you don’t need a chest full of hand tools. Here is what I consider the minimum tool kit necessary to build this chest during a class or in your shop (as soon as you have your stock dimensioned).

Handplanes
Block plane: for smoothing surfaces and trimming joints flush
Jack plane: for gross removal of material
Moving fillister, skew rabbet or large shoulder plane: for cutting rabbets
Plow plane: for plowing the groove in the lid
Beading plane: 1/8” or 3/16” (optional)

Saws
Dovetail saw
Tenon saw
Coping saw, such as the Olson, and extra blades (10 or 12 tpi)

Chisels
1/2” bevel-edge chisel
1/4” or 5/16” mortising chisel
Chisel mallet

Marking & Measuring
Cutting gauge, such as the Tite-Mark
Dividers (one or two pair)
Marking knife
Mechanical pencil
Dovetail gauge or sliding T-bevel
Tape measure
Combination square: 6” or 12”

Miscellaneous
16 oz. claw hammer
Nail sets
Hand drill with a set of bits up to 1/4”
Sharpening equipment

Depending on how you cut your dovetails, you can skip some of the equipment. If you cut pins first, you can get away without a marking knife. If you like your dovetails a little irregular looking, you can dispense with the dovetail marking gauge and the dividers. If you truly cut your dovetails “by hand” then you don’t need a dovetail saw (you ninja).

— Christopher Schwarz

Blow off Your Job. Go to Charleston

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My father is not going to like this blog entry.

I am always surprised how many people have never been to Charleston, S.C. – especially woodworkers. The city is a living and breathing design document; it’s like the pages of “By Hand & Eye” brought to life.

The houses, furniture and even the layout of the city are all textbook examples of the pre-Industrial design aesthetic. And you get this education by simply walking around the streets and alleys of this sizable city.

And the food. (Eyes roll back in head. Stomach grumbles.)

One of the hundreds of secret gardens you can spy while walking around the city.
One of the hundreds of secret gardens you can spy while walking around the city.

This weekend (March 28-29), Lie-Nielsen Toolworks is holding a Hand Tool Event at the American College of the Building Arts in the old city jail, an awesome structure. I’ll be there demonstrating both days with several pieces of campaign furniture in tow and my Dutch tool chest.

And Thomas Lie-Nielsen himself will be at this show. If you haven’t met Tom – one of the leaders of the hand-tool renaissance – this is your chance. I hope the Lie-Nielsen folks will be bringing along the new plow plane, too.

Other demonstrators are carver Mary May and Caleb James, a planemaker and chairmaker. Plus the always-capable Lie-Nielsen road crew, including Deneb Puchalski. Get full details on the event here.

And the reason my father won’t like this blog entry? He lives in downtown Charleston and would rather the streets remain as quiet as possible. Sorry dad.

— Christopher Schwarz

Why You Need a Low Bench – I Mean Bed

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A common question when I am on the road: “So when you aren’t woodworking, do have any other hobbies? Sports? Guns?”

Answer: “I enjoy woodworking, writing about woodworking, listening to loud music when woodworking, reading about woodworking, drinking a beer while talking about woodworking and cooking.”

So I am always the quietest person at a regular-person party.

I know I’m weird. But I feel less alone when students send me photos like the one above. Yup, after we finished up a brutal weekend class on building a Dutch tool chest at William Ng Woodworking School, Nathan went back to his Best Western to finish the job.

I did the same thing. On my day off I sneaked back into the school and finished detailing out the chest I built during the class. I had to go back to the school because my bed at the Extended Stay America was 38” high – too high to plane against.

— Christopher Schwarz

This Chair Will get Me Some ‘Strange’

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The most gratifying class I teach has got to be the one on Roorkee chairs.

To be certain, there is the normal amount of “explaining how to make things out of wood” in the class. But in addition to that, we get to explore:

• Cutting and riveting leather.
• Stripping and installing steel hardware.
• Mixing shellac without a digital scale or math degree.
• HVLP spraying.
• Applying wax finishes.
• Make a three-legged stool.
• Dirty Irish songs.

Thanks to the simplicity – and genius – of these chairs, the pace of this class allows for crazy stuff. Sing a shanty. Demonstrate how to hand-stitch leather. Argue about wood species. Drink 3 liters of beer and talk about the state of woodworking.

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Today we wrapped up a four-day class on building Roorkee chairs, and the students were able to complete building all of their chairs, including finishing them with shellac and wax. They completed all of the leatherwork. And they all built three-legged stools that were not on the lesson plan. (Thank you William Ng for allowing us to do all this crazy stuff and supplying us with tools, parts and awesome doughnuts.)

But the best moment (for me) came when one of the students sat in the chair he had just completed minutes ago and said the following words:

“This,” he said, “is going to get me some strange with the wife.”

Yup, I know that’s a little rude, but until someone says it about the class you just ran, shut up.

— Christopher Schwarz

Roorkee Chairs at William Ng Woodworking School

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One of the nice things about teaching different places is you get to see how each school has its own personality or vibe, if you will.

I can say this: If you like taking classes at Kelly Mehler’s School of Woodworking, you’ll feel right at home at William Ng’s school in Anaheim, Calif. Like Kelly, William has a laid-back, almost soothing personality. And (also like Kelly), William takes his equipment very seriously.

(Teaching here made me realize how much I’ll miss teaching at Kelly’s this year – he’s taking a sabbatical for a year to travel and do other stuff.)

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On Monday we began turning legs for Roorkee chairs on sweet Oneway lathes and began boring the leg mortises on a monstrous General drill press. We also started all the leatherwork for the chairs by making what seemed like a mile of belting material from vegetable-tanned leather.

Teaching the class made me realize I have a slight dimensional error in “Campaign Furniture.” I’ll publish an errata tonight after class.

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Today we crack into the chromium-tanned hides that will make the seats and start the tricky process of making the socketed mortises and tenons that create the chair’s frame.

So next time your family wants to go to Disneyland, simply agree. Send them there and book a class down the street with William Ng. Win-win.

— Christopher Schwarz