Category: Yellow Pine Journalism

Some typical social media posts in my feed:

“I’ve just received this crate of Triton tools to review. They’re awesome and…” Click. Unfollow.

“This is the first in a series of unboxing videos on my latest acquisition. I can’t wait for you to…” Unfollow.

“Here’s a tiny detail of my latest project. I don’t want to spoil the surprise. Any guesses as to what it is?” Nope. Unfollow.

“To bring you more fantastic content, I’ve started a gofundme page…” Unfollow.

“There’s only a few more weeks left until the BIG REVEAL where I get to show you the beautiful project I’ve been working on all these weeks. I’m so excited to…” I am excited as well. To unfollow you.

“I hate to tease you, but…” Unfollow with extreme prejudice.

“I can’t wait to show you what I’ve been working on. But I have to manufacture some false drama first because I am otherwise completely out of things to say. And my business sensei (the Money Chicken Wizard (TM)) says I have to post something on social every day or people will forget I exist. So here’s a confusing photo of something really close up that will only confuse you. Feel free to leave a guess in the comments if you are as helpless as I am.” Thank you for your honesty. You may stay in my feed.

— Christopher Schwarz

On our way to the lumberyard this morning, Brendan and I stopped at the local IKEA to check out an interesting joint used on some of IKEA’s more expensive tables. Also, Brendan likes the meatballs there.

The joint is used on the company’s Lisabo tables and is a prime example of how CNC can be used to improve the craft. Instead of using a CNC to cut an ancient joint, the designers created an entirely new knockdown joint. It’s a self-wedging tapered tenon that locks with a single screw.

Check out the video here. More fascinating details are here at Core77. Here’s IKEA’s nice video on the joint the company calls the “wedge dowel.”

We were both impressed by the joint’s rigidity and simplicity. Still, I wasn’t there to buy an IKEA table. We also checked out several of IKEA’s other semi-staked designs. One used a threaded tenon to attach the leg – nice but the lack of rake and splay killed the look.

We also checked out a table with a flying saucer design. The legs use machine screws and a threaded plate to attach them to the top. Very clever, but it is inherently a weak design as the machine screw is embedded in end grain. These tables are $30 and are not expected to last long.

There also was a fascinating staked sitting bench that used a clever way to introduce rake and splay to the bench. The rake was drilled into the cross battens. The splay was introduced by insetting the batten at an angle. Again, a great application of CNC.

The bench was pretty comfortable. Not comfortable enough to purchase, however.

IKEA scored only two sales from us today. First was the meatballs with gravy (yum, gray food), which Brendan snarfed down in a few minutes.

The second purchase was a couple sheepskins for my Welsh chairs. While in Wales, I noticed that John Brown’s extended family used sheepskins on their chairs to add comfort and warmth. These skins were a shocking $29.99. I bought two and we tried them out at dinner tonight (which was also not meatballs).

My daughter Katy reports: “They make me feel like royalty.”

— Christopher Schwarz

My blog at Popular Woodworking Magazine will end on Dec. 31, 2018 (backstory here), and I am posting some things there during these last two months that might be of interest.

The 2018 Anarchist’s Gift Guide will begin on Nov. 1. I have 11 items picked out (so far) that I’ve been working with this year. As always, the gift guide is focused on small items that are quite useful. And they aren’t hard to find or expensive. Starting in 2019, the Anarchist Gift Guide will be posted here on the Lost Art Press blog.

I’m also posting a series of essays that are not directly woodworking related. They are, instead, my thoughts on woodworking magazines, tool reviews and the woodworking internet. They are a bit rant-y. But I figure that after 22 years of working there, I have the right to spout off a few times. Note that some of the comments seem to have disappeared due to a technical problem there. Also, one of my posts was sent to another part of the site and I cannot get it posted back on the blog for some reason. I suspect something went wrong when they altered the template on the site. Anyway, it’s not malfeasance, it’s stupidity. Here are the posts I’ve put up so far:

The Beginning of the End (of this Weblog)

Tool Reviews: You Are Not Your Toolbox

On Woodworking Magazines

I have a fourth entry in this series on social media advertising that will go up this week.

Please note that I am not ceasing my blogging efforts. Far from it. I’m just not blogging at PWM anymore. I’m not moving to another magazine. And I haven’t gotten a corporate sugar daddy. Instead, all my efforts will be here. Blog entries that I would have written for PWM will be posted here instead.

Finally, I don’t know what PWM will do with my 13 years of blog entries (there are several thousand). Those entries belong entirely to them – it was work for hire. So you’ll have to ask them.

— Christopher Schwarz

Maybe I’m just a crappy writer, or people read yesterday’s blog entry while half in the bag. Either way, I was surprised by many people’s reaction to my leaving Popular Woodworking Magazine. That was not an obituary. Or a retirement notice.

I am in no way slowing down my writing, research, building, traveling or publishing. I will continue to blog here almost every day. All the material I once generated for my blog at Popular Woodworking will be posted here instead. The Anarchist’s Gift Guide will continue here every November.

I write about 1,000 to 2,000 words a day – it’s a force of habit. And that stuff – whether you consider it BS or fertilizer – has to go somewhere.

The only difference going forward is that I plan to take on woodworking topics that I avoided in the past to avoid offending or embarrassing my corporate employer and its advertisers. I have little regard for the sneaky way we are manipulated to buy woodworking stuff on social media. Advertising is one thing. Sponsored content is fine as long as it’s disclosed according to the law (and there is a law; here’s a common-sense guide). But for the most part, thousands of dollars are spread around every day to attract you to shiny objects without you being told the relationship between the corporate sponsor and the social media star.

I’ll be honest: Among the problems facing our world today, this social media legerdemain is small potatoes. And it’s certainly not my lone crusade. I’m far more interested in getting people to pick up the tools and build stuff. But when I see this sort of chicanery in the future, I’m gonna mention it.

For example, we have all been choking on the coverage of the latest Craftsman tools event, which was a junket designed to get editors and writers to ooh and ahh over some unproven tools. (I hope they provided all the attendees with Craftsman-brand kneepads.) Craftsman has a lot of bridges to mend with me and other woodworkers. So I recommend you check out the tools in person before buying them. Or better yet, let some other early adopters take the bullet for you.

Let the games begin.

— Christopher Schwarz