Registration is now open for:
• Build a Cricket Table with Derek Jones (July 30-31)
• Build the “Anarchist’s Tool Chest” with Megan Fitzpatrick (Aug. 2-6)
• Make a Carved Oak Box with Peter Follansbee (Nov. 8-12)
• Build a Dutch Tool Chest with Megan Fitzpatrick (Dec. 3-5)
If you have any questions about classes, send an email to covingtonmechanicals@gmail.com.
— Fitz
Registration for 2021 classes at our storefront opens at 10 a.m. (Eastern) tomorrow, May 17. We have only a few classes scheduled as we are trying to ease back into the new world. As you can imagine, a lot has changed both in Covington and with our business.
Some of our favorite restaurants have closed, but new ones have opened. We’re working on some new kitchen and bathroom facilities for visitors. And Brendan Gaffney has left us for Upstate New York.
One of the biggest changes has been the strange new barrier that has emerged between Ohio and Kentucky because of bridge construction. The old Roebling Suspension Bridge is closed entirely for repairs. The main bridge, the Brent Spence, is being fixed and repainted, so getting across the river is more difficult than ever because of continual lane closures and the giant condom that has enveloped the structure. As I write this, even our pedestrian bridge across the Ohio River is closed because a large stone fell from one of its piers.
It’s enough to make you consider taking the Anderson Ferry. Or swim.
So if you do plan to take a class, I recommend you stay on the Kentucky side of the border (no, you don’t need a passport, just bring a jug of corn liquor). There are lots of great hotels and Airbnbs in Covington that are walking distance from the storefront.
Here are the three classes we’re offering this year:
July 30-31: Build a Cricket Table with Derek Jones
Aug. 2-6: Build an “Anarchist’s Tool Chest” with Megan Fitzpatrick
Nov. 8-12: Make a Carved Oak Box with Peter Follansbee
Dec. 3-5: Build a Dutch Tool Chest with Megan Fitzpatrick
We hope to offer a few more classes before the end of 2021, but we are waiting to see if instructors will be able to travel. And if students are willing to sign up.
I’m not going to teach here or anywhere – at least for now. One of the after-effects of the pandemic has been how our publishing business has grown (almost four-fold). Keeping Lost Art Press running smoothly is more than a full-time job for me and John.
Like it or not, however, I’ll still be helping the instructors out during the classes. That means making sure there’s enough toilet paper, helping students who need assistance and occasionally brandishing the “encouragement whip” when the dovetailing slows down too much.
If you haven’t taken a class here, it’s important to remember that we are not a school. We don’t have an ice cream machine or a masseuse. But we do offer high-quality instruction, tiny classes with only six students, excellent workbenches and a walkable historic neighborhood to explore.
Plus Bean, the three-legged shop cat.
So if you are ready to travel and to attempt talking to strangers, I hope you’ll consider joining us. All we ask is that you be vaccinated against COVID-19. You can read more about that decision here.
— Christopher Schwarz
I don’t make many unequivocal statements, but here’s one: Some non-stringy species of white pine is the correct wood for a tool chest. And if you can get it, choose sugar pine or Eastern white pine. These are lightweight woods that are easy to work with hand tools, and they are typically less expensive in the U.S. than any hardwood, with the possible exception of poplar. And while poplar will work for a tool chest – as will any wood, really – it’s heavy and harder to dovetail than pine. And that will make your tool chest heavier than it needs to be.
Fully loaded, a sugar pine “Anarchist’s Tool Chest” weighs in the neighborhood of 200-225 lbs. (The hardware and choice of wood for tills and other interior bits will affect the weight, as, of course, will the specific tools inside.)
And while I’ve never weighed a pine Dutch tool chest fully loaded, I used to work out of a poplar one while teaching on the road, and I had a heck of a time lifting it in and out of my car. So I’m keeping one of the pine ones I’m building right now to make my peripatetic woodworking life just a little easier.
For the tool chest classes I teach here, I do my best to source beautiful, clear sugar pine, which is typically available in wide widths – the fewer pieces in panel glue-ups, the better. But every once in a while, someone will ask if they can prep their own wood for a class – and it’s usually for the anarchist’s tool chest class – the one for which the wood prep is the most demanding and most critical that it be good. I say sure…but you darn well better do a good job of it. A) I won’t have time during the class to fix any out-of-square edges for you and B) I won’t have on hand matching stock to replace a piece should something go terribly wrong. C) I don’t want to help lift your full-size oak or purpleheart tool chest into your car at the end of class.
But if you insist on bringing your own, below are the steps to follow (some of which are pretty basic…but you never know what people already know).
The flatter the wood, the easier it is to prep – and the more plain the grain, generally the easier it is to dovetail. I don’t want any points of cathedrals or bird’s eyes in my pins and tails (or knots, or course). So the first thing I do is to lay out rough cuts to avoid anything problematic. I start with the largest pieces (above, that’s the front and back of the ATC), and try my best to have all my glue-ups be only two pieces (you can see above that I typically have to use three pieces in at least some of the carcase and lid panels).
So first, I mark out all the pieces, and if they’re longer than 14″ or so, I rough cut them about 1″ overlong at the chop saw and about 1/2″ overwide at the band saw (or I joint one edge then cut them overwide at the table saw). For pieces that are shorter than 14″ (and therefore can’t safely go through the planer), I keep them attached to another piece until after the surfacing is done. You don’t, however, want to leave the pieces much longer than they need to be. The longer a board, the more likely it is to be twisted – the less of that you have to take out, the better. Because the more you have to remove from one surface to correct twist or a cup, the more will go into your dust collector.
In order to run the wood through the planer to get it flat (and all of it to the same thickness), you need one flat face; that face registers on the bed of the planer. If you’re good with a jointer plane, you may not need a jointer. If you’re decent with a jointer plane but have to prep wood for seven people and have three days to do it, you definitely want an electric jointer.
If you have a helical head on your jointer, you don’t have to worry much about grain direction, but run the stock in the correct direction anyway; it’s a good habit to adopt. The grain should be running downhill. And if there’s a crown in the board on one face, there’s probably a cup on the other. When you run the wood across the cutters, you want it supported as much as possible at the outside edges, so the cupped face should face down. If you’ve already arranged it with the grain running correctly but the cupped face up, simply flip the board end for end, before jointing it. (Odds are pretty good that the heart side will be facing up.)
With thick wood, you can get away with jointing it only enough to create flats at the outside edges to register on the planer bed. But the planer rollers will flatten thin wood…which will spring back after it exits the planer. So for 3/4″ (or thinner) stock, I always run the stock as many times as necessary across the jointer to flatten one face completely. And because I think it’s unsafe to have to push too hard, I’d rather make several light cuts than one deep cut; I usually have the cut set to no more than 1/16″
After the final jointer pass, I stack the boards atop the planer, flat face down, with the last end that went over the jointer facing toward the planer mouth – that’s the way they get fed in (last off jointer, first in planer). Though again, if you have a helical cutter, it’s not (usually) that critical.
I follow the same steps every time I use the planer; that way, I never get turned around. As I pull pieces off the far end, I stack them back in the exact same orientation as they were run through the machine. Then if I have to run them again to get to a certain thickness and the first face is flat, I flip them end for end as I feed them into the planer for the second pass. And repeat. That way, I’m removing wood from both faces, and hopefully equalizing the moisture exchange. (And if I have someone catching for me, I make sure they don’t flip the boards as they stack them.) Same steps for the operator every time. And if the first face isn’t flat after one pass, the board is in the right direction without flipping it to simply run it through again.
And here’s the critical part for classes when it comes to thicknessing: I run all the wood that has to be the same thickness at the same time. I would never run, say, the front and back of a through-dovetailed carcase then come back three days later and run the ends. In order to avoid problems, all the pieces must be the exact same thickness – your best shot at achieving that is to do it all at once. I don’t care if the pieces are a hair over or under 7/8″ – I just care that they’re all the same.
Once all the stock is flat and to thickness, I joint one edge in preparation for cutting it to final size (even if I’ve already jointed an edge to cut a piece to rough width, I do it again, in case it got bashed up), and mark the jointed edge; that edge will run against the table saw’s fence.
But it’s the table saw work that scares me the most in folks prepping their own stock; if the pieces aren’t square, the person’s class experience is doomed – and I don’t want that. But if I have to take the time to correct problems, the other students in the class suffer. So at least one person (in addition to me) is going to be unhappy.
So I am ultra careful at the table saw to make sure my cuts are square. First, I rip the pieces to final width, making sure I keep the wood tight to the fence. Then I triple check that the crosscut fence is dead square to the blade, and before we got a reliable slider, I clamped like pieces together to make sure they were the exact same length. (Now I trust the stop on our slider. But I don’t trust the stop on your slider.)
So after setting my stop I raise it, then crosscut one end square (with the jointed-edge mark against the fence), then drop the stop, flip the board and cut it to length. Boom – two square ends, and the right length. Repeat.
Once all the pieces of that length are cut, I reset the stop and cut the mating pieces. And so on with the rest of the stock.
Note that all of the above assumes no glue-ups. Throw wide panels into the mix and you add glue-ups to the prep. I’ll write about those in a few days.
We have received several questions (and a threat of a lawsuit) about why we are requiring students in our classes to be vaccinated for COVID.
This decision was entirely mine, and I wanted to explain it here (and give Megan a place to send future questions).
In simple terms, COVID-19 is a deadly and highly transmissible disease, vaccines are not perfect and this building is my home, where I live with my wife and one of our kids.
Our workshop is a tight interior space, and students are almost on top of one another, huffing and puffing as they cut, plane, chop and carve wood. In other words, this is an ideal place for COVID to spread.
And though the vaccines work well, they are not perfect. And so I ask that if you come into my home that you be vaccinated to keep everyone as safe as possible. The vaccine is free and widely available, so there is no economic or class discrimination at play.
Finally, we are not asking for your medical information. No one will ask to see your vaccination record. It’s the honor system. If you are happy to deceive us, that’s on your conscience.
My hope is that by 2022, infection rates will be so low that we won’t have to worry about COVID much. But for this year, I’m asking: Please, get vaccinated before you visit my home and shop.
— Christopher Schwarz
I am delighted to announce that registration will open at 10 a.m. Eastern, May 17, for three classes later this year at the Lost Art Press storefront.
August 2-6: Build an “Anarchist’s Tool Chest” (with me)
November 8-12: Make a Carved Oak Box with Peter Follansbee
December 3-5: Build a Dutch Tool Chest (me again)
And there’s a possibility that Derek Jones and Chris Williams will be crossing the Atlantic to teach here…but that’s still up in the air due to travel restrictions. If they are able to make the trip, we’ll let you know about their classes ASAP.
We will require that all registrants be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 by the class date, and follow CDC guidelines on masking at the time of the class.
There are six bench spaces available in each class; a waitlist will kick in once a class is sold out. (And I beg you: Please be sure you have the class dates available before registering.)
If you’ve taken a class at the storefront in the past, you might notice that the registration is a little different this year: The full class fee is collected at registration (the instructor will still, however, determine the stock fee, which will be payable to her or him at the start of the class).
Note: While you can click on the “Register Now” buttons on the Covington Mechanicals ticketing site, sales won’t be live until May 17 at 10 a.m. Eastern.
And because it’s been a while since we offered classes, here are a few FAQs to jog everyone’s memory:
If you have questions about a class, send an email to covingtonmechanicals@gmail.com. Please DO NOT email the LAP help desk.
“Why can’t the LAP help desk help with classes?” These classes are not through Lost Art Press; I’m handling all the backend stuff and billing, and each instructor (including me) is an independent contractor who is, in effect, renting the space for the class duration. Meghan handles the LAP help desk (questions about books, orders, etc.), and she is busy enough without having to forward stuff about classes to me.
“Why isn’t the stock fee included with the registration fee?” Each instructor does her or his own stock buying and prep, and we have no way of knowing far in advance of the class how much the wood (etc.) will cost. Especially right now. So the instructor will let registrants know the stock fee at least a week before the class starts, and payment will be due to her or him at the start of class.
“What is the cancellation policy?” You can cancel for a full refund up until four weeks before the class date. Refund for cancellations within four weeks prior to the class date will be issues only if the slot can be filled.
“I tried to sign up right when classes went live, and didn’t get in. You suck!” I’m sorry. We have limited space and only six benches for students. But please see below.
“Should I bother signing up for the waitlist?” Yes! We do have cancellations – and when that happens, I notify the first person on said list, who then has 24 hours to register. And if that person can’t make it, on to the next, and so on.
“Will Chris be teaching any classes?” Nope – he’s crazy busy with publishing projects.
“I’m coming from out of town; where should I stay?” Check out this blog post, which has suggestions not only on where to stay, but where to eat and non-woodworking-related greater Cincinnati attractions.
“Will you offer a class in X?” Possibly. Send me an email, and if we think there would be enough interest, and we can find the right person to teach it, we will consider X topic.
“Will you offer more classes in 2022?” Most likely – but far fewer than we did in 2019. We’re extremely busy with other stuff, and while it’s great fun to have people in the shop, we can’t get much other work done while classes are going on.
Other questions? Here’s that email again: covingtonmechanicals@gmail.com.
p.s. I’m also teaching the Anarchist’s Tool Chest at the Florida School of Woodwork (in Tampa) Sept. 20-24, and the Dutch Tool Chest at the Woodworking School at Pine Croft (Berea, Ky.) Oct. 15-17.
— Megan Fitzpatrick