While seeing the completed toolbox of Henry O. Studley is a drool-inducing experience, the real excitement has been taking out each tool, photographing it from every angle and then measuring and documenting everything.
This is where the real questions and answers come from. Which tools did Studley make himself? Was he left-handed? What sort of joinery and moulding profiles did he favor? How did he treat his tools?
It might seem like a brutal slog, but we are having a ton of fun measuring every drill bit, peering into each ferrule and counting every rivet. We get only one chance to do this right the first time.
I have pages and pages of notes and small revelations. My head hurts. But we are going to keep measuring, micing and recording everything we can find.
Anytime I get to examine a piece of work this closely I feel like I know a bit about the builder by the end. This is no exception. This guy was one of the greats.
This morning we began shooting photos for the new book “Virtuoso: The Toolbox of Henry O. Studley,” and I shot this short video with a narrative by Don Williams, the author of the book.
There’s not anything more for me to add, except that these photos were taken by me with my Canon G12. The photographer, Narayan Nayar, is using his Leica M9 for the book’s photos.
Narayan Nayar’s eyes hop briefly off the road ahead and aim right at me.
“Do you think you are an obsessive person?” he asks.
“Um, not really,” I answer. “Do you think I obsess about things?”
“Absolutely,” he replies, returning his eyes to the road.
At first I thought it was an oddball question that came out of the blue during a long car ride. But in hindsight (or perhaps thanks to three beers at dinner), it now makes sense. Because today Don Williams, Narayan and I are on the trail of one of the most obsessed-over woodworking gems of the 19th and 20th centuries: the tool chest of H.O. Studley.
On Tuesday morning we will begin measuring and photographing the famous chest for a book that Don is working on that is tentatively titled: “Virtuoso: The Toolbox of Henry O. Studley.” After years of work, Don has managed to get access to this much-heralded tool chest.
So after Woodworking in America wrapped up on Sunday afternoon, the three of us took off on a car ride to an undisclosed location to visit the chest and and the workbench of this piano and organ maker who worked for the Poole Piano Co. of Boston and died in 1925.
Even in his lifetime, Studley was well known for his tool chest.
“Mr. Studley had for a great many years been in the employ of the Poole Piano Co., and was accounted a rather unusual mechanic,” according to his obituary in The Music Trade Review. “He was the possessor of a set of tools that was the envy of his co-workers, all of them made by himself by hand and some of them beautifully inlaid with pearl and ivory, and which were always proudly exhibited by Mr. Studley to those who showed an interest.”
The chest is quite obviously the result of one man’s amazing obsession with his tools and the chest that holds them. Every tool is perfectly fitted into a compartment – even the small items in the tiny drawers.
And obsessions with the chest have survived for almost 100 years after Studley’s death. Woodworkers have pored over the poster of the chest published by Fine Woodworking. The episode of “The New Yankee Workshop” that features the chest has been analyzed frame by frame. People have built near-replicas or miniatures of the chest. One company – Shepherd Tool – even tried to produce a commercial kit of the chest. Planemaker Wayne Anderson says a photo of the Studley chest is what first inspired him to become a toolmaker.
And now we are set to photograph and measure every square inch of the thing – a rather obsessive chore – for a book that probably will be 18 months to two years in the making.
In fact I shouldn’t even be telling you this – it’s far too early to discuss a project like this. And I can’t tell you much else – such as where we are or who owns the chest. All that I can tell you is that we are staying in a roadside motel (all the chain hotels are full) and we ate a huge meal of … no, that might give something away.
Stay tuned here. We’ll be giving you more details as we obsess over them.
Just in case you need yet another reason to stop by the Lost Art Press booth at Woodworking in America: we’ll have limited-edition, signed Anarchist Tool Chest art prints for your viewing (and purchasing) pleasure.
There are two prints on offer. One design features a collage of 22 images from “The Anarchist Tool Chest” and a silhouette of the iconic Anarchist’s Square. The other design is a poster-sized version of the “chest design” image on page 354 of the text.
All prints have an imaged area of roughly 20 x 30 inches and are made by me in my studio. And to make things even less straightforward, both designs are available in two formats. Why two formats? Honestly, it’s because Chris had a brain aneurism while trying to decide which format he liked better. Don’t worry—he’s fine now. Mostly.
1: Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308, one of the finest giclée papers in existence. This matte paper seems to absorb light and draws you in like nothing else. The detail, depth and tonality of images printed on it and its velvety texture make it one of my all-time favorites and the gold standard in the fine art print industry:
These sheets are 24” wide by 36” tall, signed at the bottom by both myself and Chris and can be framed like a poster (they won’t be matted and shrink-wrapped version in the photo above). The HPR prints are $80 at the show and will come in a protective bag and rolled in a tube.
2: Canvas Gallery Wrap. These prints are made on a coated cloth canvas, dried, given a protective coating, then stretched by hand onto a wooden frame about 1-1/4″ deep. Images made on canvas have a unique character derived from the surface irregularity of the canvas and the dimensionality of the wrap:
The coating applied to the canvas after the print is made has a slight sheen to it and protects from UV degradation. The wraps can be hung as-is or inset in a frame, offering a very different look on a wall than a traditional framed paper print. These canvas prints measure approximately 20” x 30” and have a black border. They’ll come in a protective sleeve but are a bit unwieldy because they’re mounted on rigid stretcher bars. (They’ll be a great option for those of you driving to Cincinnati). They cost $120 at the show and will also be signed by me and Chris.
We’re bringing a very limited run of all of these prints to WIA: fewer than 50. The prints will be first-come, first serve. And yes, if you buy them at the show we can mail them to you at home (we’ll charge only actual shipping and packaging costs).
After Woodworking in America, we hope to offer these art prints to the rest of our customers. We’ll post details in the coming weeks here on the blog and through the LAP newsletter.
I’ll write a little more on the creation of the ATC images in a later post, but even if you’re not interested in taking one of these prints home for yourself, swing by the Lost Art Press booth at WIA just to see the images produced with greater care and in greater detail than what would ever be possible on the pages of a book.
If there are any questions about the prints, I’m happy to take them in the comments.
— Narayan Nayar, the designer who created the photoillustrations that open the chapters of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest”
