Lost Art Press

Day 4 of ‘The Anarchist’s Tool Chest’ Class

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Before we begin: My apologies for the terrible photos from my phone. The battery in my regular camera died and I am without a charger.

For someone who is now unemployed, I sure have been working a lot.

Saturday was the fourth day of teaching the class on building the chest from “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” and my sixth day of teaching at the Dictum workshop in Bavaria. I think I might be more tired than the students — and I am rationalizing that by telling myself that’s because I am building a chest along with the students, and teaching at the same time.

Or perhaps I’m drinking too much weiss beer.

Either way, I’m ready to curl into a refrigerator box beneath a highway overpass like a proper hobo.

Today we put the dovetailed skirts on the tool chest, which were a cakewalk for the students after they cut 44 dovetails for the carcase of the chest. Sunday — the final day — we’ll be making the lid and the dovetailed dust seal around it.

Then I ride to Munich Sunday night, catch a plane Monday morning and fly back to Kentucky.

Whenever I teach, I learn things. One of the most educational parts of teaching this course has been getting intimate with the wood we are using to build the chest. It’s Scots pine (pinius sylvestris). It’s a common species in Europe that is sometimes available for sale in the United States as a Christmas tree.

It is quite similar to our Southern yellow pine. It is heavy, resinous, tough and smells fantastic. The wood we are using doesn’t have the big differences in density between the earlywood and the latewood. It planes beautifully and is not terrible to dovetail.

As I was working with the wood this week I kept thinking that it would be an excellent material for making a workbench. So if you have Scots pine in your area and it is reasonably priced, I think it’s worth a look.

It’s time for dinner now. I still cannot read the menu at the restaurant at the monastery, but everything I’ve eaten has been great. As one friend put it about German food: By the end of the week I might have some blood in my porkstream.

— Christopher Schwarz

Building (and Buying) ‘The Anarchist’s Tool Chest’

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This week I’m in Germany teaching a class in how to build the tool chest featured in the book “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.” For those of you who don’t read the Popular Woodworking Magazine blog, here are some convenient links so you can follow along as we build the chest.

• Back to Germany to See an Old Friend
• Video: ‘As Smooth as a Nun’s Stomach’
• Is There a Dominatrix in the House?

Also, for those of you who do not have access to the milk paint I used to paint the chest, there is a great little article on how to make your own from this copy of Popular Science magazine from 1940. It’s quite easy and is something I must try. Click here.

And lastly, the book “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” is making its way into the retail markets. If you live outside the United States or just hate purchasing things from Kentucky, here are some links to other people who sell our book.

• Lee Valley Tools
• Lie-Nielsen Toolworks
• Tools for Working Wood
• Dictum

We have been approached by a retailer in Great Britain about carrying the book and hope to make that work. The challenge is getting it across the Atlantic at a price that is reasonable for you in the end.

— Christopher Schwarz

Rescinding a Recommendation: Gabardi & Sons

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Matt Hodgson of Gabardi & Sons makes some nice planes. No doubt about it. But after hearing from several of his customers (and one of his creditors) this year, I have to rescind my recommendation of his business.

I have e-mailed Hodgson about this and asked him to remove my recommendation from his web site, but I haven’t heard back from him.

So what’s the complaint? Since my first review of his tools appeared in the Fine Tool Journal, three of his customers and one of his creditors approached me for help in contacting Hodgson. He wasn’t returning their e-mails or phone calls. They had given him money (or goods), and they hadn’t heard from him in many months.

At this point, I can no longer recommend his business. I sincerely hope that his customers report back to me with good news on their business dealings with Hodgson.

And I apologize if my review was a factor in your purchase.

— Christopher Schwarz

A Little Sightseeing in Regensburg Before the Class

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Come Monday morning, I’ll be immersed in teaching a sawing class at the Dictum workshop at Niederaltaich. So I took off to Regensburg today with Ute Kaiser of Dictum and her partner, Stefan, to see the city.

The highlight for me, as always, involved food. We visited The Sausage Kitchen, which has sold sausages for more than 1,000 years. As we ate, we looked out over the famous bridge Steinerne Brücke. The Roman soldiers who built the bridge ate at The Sausage Kitchen, and the bridge itself carried the soldiers from the 2nd and 3rd Crusades.

While that makes you feel insignificant, the sausages make up for it.

— Christopher Schwarz

Moulding Glossary: Flutes

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flutes: A channel or furrow in a pillar, resembling the half of a flute split longitudinally, with the concave side outwards. Some authorities refer to Doric columns as “channeled” because they have a sharp arris at the meeting of the edges of each flute. They suggest that flutes require fillets between them to be real flutes.