Here’s what stinks about teaching woodworking classes: You don’t have any time to take them yourself.
One of the classes at the top of my list is to take a carving class with Peter Follansbee, one of the authors of “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree.” Of all the carving traditions out there, I am most enamored with the simple geometry of the 17th-century stuff. And Peter is a riot.
When I was teaching up at the Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking, I saw that Peter was teaching a weekend class there. I got excited, until I saw the date: Sept. 14-15. I’ll be on a plane to England.
Stupid England.
Anyway, that doesn’t mean that you can’t go to the class. If you are at all interested in this topic, I can’t recommend anyone more highly. Details on the class here.
This week at The Woodwright’s School, we had a new “first” when it comes to making Anarchist’s Tool Chests.
All 10 students (plus the instructor) had their tool chest carcases assembled by the end of the day Tuesday, the second day of class.
To what do I attribute this success?
Good help.
Thanks to Bill Anderson of Edwards Mountain Woodworks and Megan Fitzpatrick of Popular Woodworking Magazine (not to mention Roy Underhill himself), we’ve been able to keep the students on the straight and narrow. Stopping trouble before it starts. Serving them tea. Rubbing their loins with the balms of forbidden trees. And whelming them – not underwhelming, not overwhelming.
Anyone who has taken a class at Roy Underhill’s The Woodwright’s School knows that you don’t bring a tape measure to class. It will almost surely be confiscated and returned to you at the end of the class.
Today, however, Megan Fitzpatrick needed to cut down some 12’-long poplar sticks for a tool chest class she’s assisting me with this week. And she really wanted to use a tape measure to mark out her cutlines.
So while Roy was stirring the glue pot…
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. You should see how she smuggled in a Japanese saw. Ye-ow.
The chest is built from clear Eastern white pine. The carcase and skirts are completely dovetailed. The bottom boards and battens are attached with cut nails.
The lid is a mortise-and-tenon frame with a dovetailed dust seal around it.
The carcase of the chest is painted in black milk paint (three coats) and ready to go. The lid is glued up and the dust seal needs to be leveled to the lid. Then it can be painted. The dimensions are as per “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” – about 24″ x 24″ x 40″. It’s a full-size chest, not a traveling version.
The interior is empty. No tills or dividers.
If you are interested in buying the chest and can pick it up at the school in Manchester, Conn., send an e-mail to Bob Van Dyke at Bob Van Dyke at bobvandyke@sbcglobal.net.
When Ty Black started as a shop assistant last summer, he was bemused and amused that all my hand tools were stamped with my shop mark.
“I’ll bet your kids are stamped with this, too,” he joked.
Ty’s reaction is common. Many home woodworkers and tool collectors I’ve met take a dim view of marking your tools. It is “hubris,” according to some, because you are putting yourself on the same level as the maker of the tool. I’ve been told that I should only mark tools that I’ve made. Stamping lowers the value of the tool to collectors (though that attitude seems to be changing).
I have to laugh at these attitudes. When you work in a shop with other people, marking your tools in some way is essential so you can keep track of your tool kit. Lots of people own a Starrett 12” combination square, and when yours grows legs, the stamp is the only way to ensure it’s coming back home without a fight.
I’m not worried about theft, per se (though that was a concern in early shops). But before I marked every marking gauge, chisel and hammer, my tools would end up going home with my students. It was always accidental, but is was always annoying and stressful.
Of course, one can go overboard with a name stamp. See Joel Moskowitz’s blog today at Tools for Working Wood for a great example of this.
If you are going to take a woodworking class and still think a stamp is silly, mark your tools in some manner. Add a dot with some nail polish. Add a temporary stripe of brightly colored tape. Something. I’ve seen too much confusion at the end of a class when people are trying to decide whose chisel belongs to whom.
And if you want a fantastic stamp, contact Infinity Stamps. The company’s employees will design a stamp for you based off a sketch or whatever else you have. They are fast and great to deal with.
Gotta go. I have make a crapload of try squares today. And I hope to stamp them all before dinner. That’s another thing I like about my stamp. It announces happy hour for the day.
