Our new coffee table is complete and ready for the living room. No, no, I’m serious.
Because we don’t have a scrap of space in the house (this is said in the shadow of a mountain of “Mouldings in Practice” books in the sunroom), this traveling tool chest is going to become the coffee table in the front room of our house, where I do most of my writing.
When I leave town to teach, I’ll roll the chest to the shop, fill it with tools and head out.
It sounds like a great plan, except I have to come up with something to do with the sea chest that my feet are propped on now.
Yesterday I applied three coats of General’s “Coastal Blue” milk paint to the chest and installed all the hardware. The two sliding tills are complete. Now I just need to make the saw keepers for the lid and add a couple racks for chisels, drivers and dividers.
Those can come a little later. I’ve got to finish up a couple more urgent projects, including getting some coffee in my gullet.
Before I took apart my traveling tool chest today for painting, I installed the crab lock that blacksmith Peter Ross made for me.
It’s a surface lock, which is mounted to the front inside wall of the chest with five screws. It might just be the easiest lock to install – there’s just a small mortise needed on the chest’s rim and the keyhole. Peter is making an escutcheon plate for me now, which will go on after the paint.
The workmanship on the lock is, of course, first rate. Peter is still working out the details on pricing, so if you are interesting in getting crabs for your chest, drop him a line.
There are only a few times that I want to throw myself off a bridge. Here is the No. 1 thing that has made me crazy during the last 20 years of writing, teaching and doing woodworking.
A guy calls me and starts asking questions – detailed questions – about the tools he needs to get started in the craft. I answer his questions, which take (sometimes) hours to thoroughly answer. He comes back with more questions. I answer. Questions. Answers. On and on.
Time passes.
He then asks me how best to sell all his woodworking gear because now he is deep into golf, guitars or cars.
This has happened dozens of times to me.
I’m not trying to poop on people who obsess only about the tools of our craft. OK, I am. The tools are secondary. Heck, that’s not even right. They are tertiary to the things we build and the materials we use.
Yes, it’s OK to get obsessed with the tools. But get over that – quickly – and move on.
Yes, it’s OK to get obsessed with the material. Again, get over that and move on.
After 20 years of building stuff, I am singularly obsessed with the skills. I get the material. I get the tools. But there is no end to the skills you can acquire to apply the tools to the material to produce something really beautiful. Something with grace, which transcends both the materials and the simple tools you used. Something that transcends even you.
When I teach woodworking classes, I often talk about the “signal to noise” ratio in the writings about woodworking. Almost everything – even what I write – is almost pure noise. Let’s compare this tool to that tool. This sharpening process to that. Diamonds to waterstones. Yawn.
Signal is rare.
Signal is about what people cannot describe easily in words, photos or video. Signal is the way we move our hands that is different from the way that less-experienced people move their hands.
Signal is that small bit of information you personally rescue from the cacophony of drivel.
— Christopher Schwarz, who is done dispensing drivel for the day.
So I went to dinner with some friends tonight, including Megan Fitzpatrick at Popular Woodworking Magazine. And she mentioned that there had been a ruckus at WoodCental about my review of Veritas’s new steel.
I wandered over there tonight and wondered what upside-down universe I had stepped into.
So if you are wondering what I think about the new Veritas PM-V11 steel, which I have six months of experience with, here’s the short version.
1. Its edge life is longer than A2.
2. It is as easy to sharpen as O1.
That is a positive assessment. You might not like me personally (that’s OK), and you might therefore read in some nefarious side commentary. That is your personal battle. The only things that are true are points one and two above, which were stated clearly in both the online and print reviews.
I love the steel. I think it is awesome. I’ll be buying replacement blades of it for my planes. End of story.
The turnings on the Roorkhee chairs I build are beyond simple – easier than pen turning, to be sure. But some woodworkers simply do not want anything to do with a lathe. For those of you who fall into this camp, here are some ideas.
1. Get over your fear/dislike of the lathe. It’s a fun machine, whether powered by foot, indentured servants (e.g. children) or electricity. This would be a fantastic first turning project.
2. Pay someone to turn the legs for you. There are lots of production turners who could bang these legs out in about an hour.
3. Make the chair with legs shaped by other tools. As shown in the photo above, in the 1930s version of this chair made by Kaare Klint, the makers omitted the cylindrical turning near the top of the leg. The shape at the foot could be made with a drawknife, spokeshave and a gouge or two.
Then there are the chairs shown below, which have a “Land of the Lost” feel to them – kind of mid-Chakka, if you ask me. I think they look clunky, so I’d opt for one of the three choices above.
