Category: Workbenches

… will never exist.

Since my first book on workbenches came out in 2007, I have been approached by several manufacturers about producing a “Schwarz Workbench,” where I’d be paid a royalty for every bench sold.

It would feature my illegible signature (my kids say my signature looks like “C-star Slimy”) and be built to my specifications. And that’s the point in the negotiations where I just start laughing.

My fondest hope is that you will design your own workbench that will make it easy for you to work on the faces, edges and ends of boards and assemblies. It will be the perfect size for your shop, your height and your tools. The vises will easily grip the sort of work you are fond of – big, small, curved, flat.

And it will cost you exactly what you are willing to pay: Almost nothing to several thousand dollars.

You can sign the bench as illegibly as you please, and then it will become your signature workbench.

—   Christopher Schwarz

P.S. I am perfectly willing to enter into negotiations for Schwarz-signature suppositories or toilet-seat covers. I have a lot of particular ideas about those that will blow your mind.

For those readers who are squeamish or easily offended, stop reading now.

For the rest of you, here is a little nugget of workbench history unearthed by Jeff Burks. It was published in the April 5, 1903, edition of the French illustrated newspaper Le Petit Parisien. Headlined: “Un étrange suicide,” it detailed the odd suicide of the joiner who ended his life with the help of his workbench.

Below is Jeff’s quick translation of the text. You can read it in the original French here.

A Strange Suicide

This is obviously a particular case of madness, that of the strange suicide of this joiner from Sainte-Ménehould, with whom all the press is occupied. Mr. Lemaître, the joiner in question, was sick for a long time; He was, in addition, suffering from paranoia; his rationale seemed very shaken.

Tired of suffering, he resolved to finish his own existence. But he did not use, like so many others, poison, the revolver or the rope; He wanted to be guillotined. He very patiently sharpened a spade, so it would be keen as a razor; he tied it to his joinery workbench, which had been loaded quite heavily with wood; then, using a piece of wood as a brace, he lifted his bench to 60 centimeters in height and spread himself on the ground so that, by removing the piece of wood, the spade would strike his neck.

These tragic preparations had taken a fairly long time. With a chisel, Mr. Lemaître knocked out the brace that was holding the workbench and the spade descended suddenly, working as a guillotine blade. Indeed, the carotid artery was severed and the head weakly attached to the body. The doctor who was called found him dead.

— Christopher Schwarz

If I am sent to a bad place when I die, I am certain it will be filled with bockety threadboxes.

Today I spent the entire afternoon preparing for a class at the Melbourne Guild of Fine Woodworking and prepared the stock so every student could make a Moxon vise. I started by making the blanks for the screws.

While I was turning these spindles, I threaded one with my generic “Made in Taiwan” threadbox that is available everywhere.

The spindle jammed in the tapped hole.

I adjusted the threadbox and made another spindle. It jammed in the hole. I made another. Jam. Alastair Boell, who owns the school, sensed my despair (it might have been the fact that I was screaming and peeing myself) so he came to take a look.

He made some adjustments. Jam.

Then he had the brilliant idea to cut open the threaded hole to see if we could diagnose the cause of the jamming. The problem was obvious. The tap and the thread box each cut different a tpi.

I had heard there was a batch of bad threadboxes last year. But the suppliers assured me that the problem had been resolved.

I don’t think it has been fixed entirely. There are still bad threadboxes in the pipeline. This was a new, unused threadbox I’d purchased recently with another threadbox (which worked perfectly). I brought the unused one to Australia to make sure I had a cutter that was in good shape.

If you buy a threadbox, keep your receipt. If the results from your threadbox won’t work, cut open a threaded hole you’ve made and check out the tpi.

— Christopher Schwarz

Over at PopularWoodworking.com I have a new post on how (any why) I tooth my benchtop.

If you are a bench nerd, I think you’ll like this post.

— Christopher Schwarz