During the last month I have been asked how I am enjoying “retirement,” or if I’ve picked out a nice spacious refrigerator box for my new hobo-inspired lifestyle.
These people do not know me well.
Since June 15 I have taught four classes, taped two episodes of “The Woodwright’s Shop,” negotiated four book contracts, edited two books and built two projects in my shop at home. One’s a cabinet on commission – yay money – the other project is another one of those pesky A-squares that I put on the cover of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.”
This square is built from some sweet quartersawn walnut that carpenter Carl Bilderback unloaded on me (thanks Carl!). I don’t think it has been steamed. The above photo does not capture the color; the stuff is incredibly warm.
My daughter Katy and I cleaned up the beads on the square this morning, and I shot two coats of lacquer on it during lunch. Yes, I know I am going to hand-tool hell for using an HVLP sprayer. I’m OK with that.
Now I’ve got to prepare the rest of the wood for two side tables that I’m building for an upcoming DVD at Lie-Nielsen Toolworks. Saturday I leave to teach a class.
When I return, I hope to have some news on two new titles for Lost Art Press for 2011. And one of them is definitely not “Feng Shui in Your Lean-to.”
WARNING: The following blog post has been rated PG by the Society for Reverence and Decency in Woodworking Writing for its use of the expression “man nipples” and an inappropriate use of a tongue depressor.
People like to think that everything has a purpose. Woodworkers are no different. We’ve spent lots of brainpower inventing uses for the “nib” on a handsaw and the “rabbeting ledge” on a powered jointer. Given enough time, we might even come up with a use for man nipples.
So it is with great and turgid excitement that I announce that I have come up with a use for the lower horn on a handsaw or backsaw.
Let’s back up a second. Horns? Yes, good saws have horns. They are the two little bits of wood that flare out from the grip. Until recently I suspected they were there only to get broken off, forcing the anal retentive woodworker into ordering a replacement tote.
But no, the lower horn can have an important function.
Whenever I teach someone to saw, I plead with them to apply no downward pressure as they begin the kerf. I ask them to pretend that their saw is a hovercraft and to allow it to float gently for a couple stokes as the teeth slip gently into the work, parting the wood fibers with care.
Jamming the teeth into the work will get you nowhere. In fact, usually you will get stuck because the teeth will divot the work. Then as you push forward, the teeth won’t slice; instead they will jump forward from divot to divot.
But if you take all the weight off the saw, the teeth will slice cleanly.
And here is where your lower horn comes in. If you can feel the lower horn pressing hard into your palm then all the weight is off the toothline. So relax your hand, hold the saw with little or no grip and let the weight of the saw’s tote drop onto your middle finger. The lower horn will start to push into your palm. When it is pressing firmly, then move the saw backward and forward.
This advice is not in any old book that I know of. This has never been taught to me by anyone. As a result, it is as valid as a person confined to a bed (an “invalid,” get it? Just trying to offend another entire category of people).
But give it a try. It works when I teach, and it works when I saw.
One of the unexpected benefits of writing two books on workbenches has been that hundreds of woodworkers have sent me photos of their benches along with notes about the construction process and things they dislike and like about the form they chose.
And now the process is beginning again with tool chests.
This June I taught a class in Germany on building the chest from “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.” It was a miracle that anyone took the class. When the class at Dictum was announced, my book hadn’t been released. And who in Europe has room in their shop for a traditional tool chest?
The 11 woodworkers who tool the class at Dictum’s shop came from all over Europe; we even had one guy from Chicago! While I’ve had a lot of great classes, this group was particularly special, and we have kept in touch through the longest e-mail thread I have ever participated in.
And now some of them are beginning to send me photos of their chests. This weekend I got a couple from Brian Eve, a former U.S. serviceman who now runs a kindergarten in Bavaria. Brian brought a lot of tools to the class from the United States that the Europeans had never seen (one of big advantages of having an APO box in Europe).
He had an awesome Bad Axe saw and a crazy dovetail saw. It was a beautiful Spear & Jackson saw that Mark Harrell at Bad Axe had reworked by replacing the sawplate. It looked odd at first – a 200-year-old saw with a shiny sawplate. But Brian loaned it – and all his tools – to the other students, and so everyone got to try tools from all over the globe.
Here’s what Brian wrote about the state of his chest:
“Here are a couple of shots of the current state of my chest. I got the hinges installed today, and I feel confident that I probably won’t have to burn it now. It’s far from done, but beginning to look like a tool-chest-shaped object.
“I almost stopped after two hinges, but decided that now I have the hang of it, I really should take the time to do the third. I am glad I did. It feels much more stable and substantial that way. At least that is what I think now that it’s done.
“I’m off to buy some more wood for the guts tomorrow; I need some pine and oak. Or, I could just use some of the bits and pieces that I have been carting around forever waiting for that perfect project. What do you think, Spanish cedar tills, curly maple bottoms, figured ebony runners and some claro walnut for the saw till?”
I hope Brian is just messing with me there.
And to reward those who have read this far I have a small piece of news I’ll be announcing in the coming weeks. Because of my job change, my wife and I have reconsidered my decision to forgo all teaching in 2012.
Soon I’ll be announcing a very limited number of classes in 2012, including at least one on building this chest at Kelly Mehler’s school next summer. Stay tuned.
As I finished up building my tool chest for “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” I struggled with the idea of installing a lock on the lid.
Most tool chests have locks. The lock – and the sheer weight of the chest – are an ingenious pre-Industrial Revolution security system.
But I don’t like locks. Never have.
Growing up in Arkansas, we rarely locked our houses or cars. Our neighborhood was definitely a mixed-income ZIP code, with everyone from janitors to doctors. Factory workers at Whirlpool. The owner of the local roller rink – Golden Wheels.
So why didn’t we bolt our doors? Well what if your neighbor needed a cup of sugar? Or there was a fire and someone needed to save your dog? What if you didn’t have a key? Plus, in our family of six there was almost always someone home.
In fact, I’d have to say that the biggest difference of opinion between me and my wife is our locking habits. She always locks everything. She does it so automatically that she regularly locks me out of the house when I go for a run or walk to the store.
Or perhaps she is trying to send me a message….
In any case, I didn’t want to put a lock on my chest, both for psychological and symbolic reasons. I’ve always tried to be as open as possible when it comes to sharing my tools and what I know about the craft. Putting a lock on the chest seemed to send the wrong message.
I skipped the lock, painted the chest and called it done. But the next morning when I came into the shop and looked at the completed project it looked wrong. So I installed the lock and the escutcheon and am now pleased with the way it looks – except for the too-shiny key.
Skip forward a few months and I’m giving a presentation on tool chest design to a woodworking club and bring up the topic of the lock. One of the attendees raises his hand and makes a wry observation: The lockset I’d selected uses a generic key. In other words, thousands (maybe millions) of woodworkers have a key that can open my chest so they can root around in it.
“The world is filled with people who are no longer needed – and who try to make slaves of all of us –
And they have their music and we have ours –
Theirs, the wasted songs of a superstitious nightmare –
And without their musical and ideological miscarriages to compare our song of freedom to,
We’d not have any opposite to compare music with – and like the drifting wind, hitting against no obstacle,
We’d never know its speed, its power….”
— Woody Guthrie, from the liner notes of “Mermaid Avenue” by Billy Bragg and Wilco.
