For the next 10 days my blog posts will be erratic and fueled by barbecue, beer and fatigue. If you e-mail me during the next fortnight, my response is liable to be brief, odd or not forthcoming.
Why? I drive to North Carolina tomorrow to tape two episodes of “The Woodwright’s Shop” with Roy Underhill, then teach a five-day class on building “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” at The Woodwright’s School and then teach a two-day class at the Atlanta Woodcraft on building the essential marking and measuring tools.
Then I will take a long nap. Actually, that nap thing is a lie. When I get back from my Southern tour I’ll be unloading almost 6,000 pounds of “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” books and then packing up all the pre-publication orders we’ve received (thank you, kind reader) and taking them to the post office.
Then a nap? No. Then I have to finish this Campaign Secretary that has to be completed by March 15 for Popular Woodworking Magazine.
So all this is my way of saying: If you try to reach me during the next month and I don’t respond, it’s not because your smell offends me.
Roy Underhill has flung open the doors to sign up students for the 2012 classes at The Woodwright’s School. As usual, there are a lot of great classes on the roster being taught by uber-talented people, including Peter Follansbee, Peter Ross, Mary May, Bill Anderson, Elia Bizzarri and Roy himself.
And then there are my classes.
In 2012 I’m teaching two classes at Roy’s shop – both on how to build The Anarchist’s Tool Chest. You’ll be able to build either the full-size chest or its slightly smaller cousin, which is designed to travel.
Though I do not have the awe-inspiring raw talent of the other instructors, I can promise at least one puppet show during the week-long class.
Visit Roy’s site for more details. My classes from Feb. 20-24 and Sept. 17-21. If for some reason the class is full, be sure to get on the waiting list. There is always some churn.
Several readers have asked where I’ll be teaching classes in 2012 on how to build a tool chest, so here is an update.
A couple notes on the class itself. If you don’t like cutting dovetails, you might want to reconsider. A good chunk of the class is a Bataan Death March of sawing and chopping. But by golly, you will be able to cut dovetails in a coma when it’s over.
It’s absolutely OK if this tool chest class is your first project. You’ll do fine.
If the class is filled up and you really want to attend, please sign up for the waiting list. Classes always have “churn.” Some people drop out because of a family event (marriage, surgery, divorce, graduation etc.). Others misread the class description (“I thought it was the ‘Anachronist’s Tool Chest,’ and I wear my +1 chainmail to bed”). So if you get on the waiting list for the class, there is a good chance you’ll get in.
And lastly, you will have a choice as to which chest you build: the full-size chest illustrated in “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” or the traveling-size chest I posted in this blog entry.
So here’s the line-up:
Feb. 20-24, 2012, at The Woodwright’s School. Roy’s calendar shows slightly different days, but he hasn’t updated his online calendar yet.
July 30-Aug. 3, 2012, at Kelly Mehler’s School of Woodworking. This class is listed as full, but get on the waiting list if you are serious. Trust me on this. “I thought it was ‘The Atavist’s Tool Chest.’”
And if your year is already full, I’m working on my 2013 schedule and already have plans to teach this class in Connecticut and am negotiating with some chaps/blokes in Australia.
“But to prevent their apprentices from doing so (running away),” continued Ebenezer, “the masters generally bind them by an indenture to stay a certain time. An indenture is a contract in writing. The reason it is called an indenture is, because it is, or at least it used to be, made in two parts, one for the master and one for the apprentice, and these two parts are written on the same sheet of paper and then cut apart in a waving line, so that the edges of both papers are indented in exactly the same way, and thus they will fit each other precisely.”
“What good did that do?” asked John.
“I don’t know exactly,” said Ebenezer. “They thought they could put them together again, and if the two parts fitted, that would show that it was all right. But now I am going to indenture you, or else I might expect, that, after you have sawed here three or four times, and I had had all the trouble of teaching you how to do it, you’ll get tired and so not come any more. I’m not willing to begin unless you agree to come seven days – and saw for me one hour each day.”
“And how about planing?” asked John.
“That will be a separate apprenticeship,” said Ebenezer.
“Well,” said John, “I will agree to it.”
“This indenture witnesseth that John Gay binds himself to Ebenezer Greenwood as an apprentice for seven days, an hour each day, not less than three days each week, and that Ebenezer Greenwood promises to teach him the art and mystery of sawing.”
— from “John Gay; Or, Work for Boys: Work for Spring” by Jacob Abbott, 1864
Next year I’ll be teaching how to build “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” twice at The Woodwright’s School, Roy Underhill’s fantastic hand-tool asylum in Pittsboro, N.C.
Without further ado, here are the dates:
Feb. 18-22 and Oct. 6-10.
Roy says he’ll open up registration for these 2012 classes as soon as he can finalize the rest of the year’s classes. So stay tuned to his site at woodwrightschool.com.
This tool chest class is one that I ran in Germany this year as a milk run. I was terrified that the whole thing would self-destruct. Luckily, it went very well. Here are some videos of the class throughout the week:
While I was happy with the class, I have fine-tuned it over the summer to make it better. Instead of everyone in the class building a full-size chest, students will have a choice. They can build the full-size chest as featured in the book “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.” Or they can build a slightly smaller version that I call “The Traveling Anarchist.”
This smaller chest is based on an example that I purchased from Thomas Lie-Nielsen this summer. You can see photos of this rough-and-ready chest in this entry. I took the basic design and improved the joinery so that it is the same as on my full-size chests. Yet it will still hold a pretty extensive kit of tools. It really packs them in.
Why would you choose the smaller chest? Well you might have less room in your shop. Or perhaps you operate with a smaller tool kit. Or maybe you are a slower dovetailer and want to ensure that you keep up with the class. Whatever the reason, you will end up with a chest designed to last lifetimes.
Students will begin with prepared parts – all the panels will be glued up. And we’ll dive into dovetailing within moments of the class beginning. If this scares you, don’t let it. Most of the students in my class in Germany were dovetailing amateurs (some were definitely not!). But by the end of the week they were all very competent and confident when it came to this joint.
I remember that on the last day of the class we had a lot of visitors to the school at Dictum who were admiring the dovetailing while the students were struggling with the massive through-mortises in the lid.
“Dovetails,” one of the students scoffed. “That’s easy stuff. Try mortising.”
If you are interested in building a tool chest I hope you can join us this year. These should be fun classes.
