Last night I dragged myself home after the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event in our office, laced up my running shoes and set out on a three-mile run. It turned out to be a ghostly sprint through the neighborhood.
It was about 10 p.m., and a wild wind and drenching rain convinced me to wear a hat and pull my sweatshirt’s hood around my face. As I was stupidly pushing through this weather I kept seeing brief flashes of white off to the side from the porthole of my hood.
After the third white thing, which I had to jump over, I slowed my pace a bit to see what the hell these white things were. After running by a couple more houses, I got my answer.
They were white pressboard pieces of furniture that my neighbors had dragged to the curb for “large-item pickup day.” It’s a twice-annual event in our town, when you can drag almost anything to the curb and the city’s garbage contractors will pick it up without complaint. Couches, beds, lawnmowers are common.
But even more common are these furniture-shaped objects made from crappy white melamine.
They are usually broken in some small way. There might be a bunch of white drawers on top of them. And they are everywhere. I counted 12 more on the remainder of my run.
And as I slowed my pace in front of our house I was soaked and disappointed as I thought how my neighbors would be off to Target to buy some slightly more fashionable melamine things that I’d have to leap over in another couple years.
We have nothing at our curb for large-item pickup day. I opened my front and was greeted by the sight of the bookcase I finished last month for our front room.
The year that my book on workbenches came out I had a conversation with one of the editors of a competing magazine.
“Nice work,” he said about the book. “I guess you’re done.”
I must have looked confused, distressed or constipated because he continued on with his explanation.
He said something like this: Most writers in any field – be it woodworking, haberdashery or animal husbandry – get only one really good idea during their lifetimes. The rest of their lives are spent re-casting that same idea and repeating it until no one else will listen.
I was horrified.
I thought I would have perhaps two ideas in my lifetime. One on woodworking. And one on dinosaurs.
It’s been four years since that conversation. And with “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” about to go to press, that little chat is weighing heavy on my mind.
In the famous words of Westley: “Get used to disappointment.”
This week I am finishing the layout chores for “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” and we are on schedule to send it to the printer on April 15. Barring a plague of locusts, that means the book should be shipping the first week of June.
I’ve spent the last 14 months writing this book, and all I can say is that I cannot discern if it’s something worth reading or a stinking turd. I’m too close to it.
I can say that during the last couple months, I’ve given three presentations about the content of the book with mixed results. My favorite reaction to the content was at the Northeastern Woodworkers Association’s Showcase in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. It went something like this:
Him: Why would anyone want to use a tool chest when you can put your tools on the wall?
Me: A chest protects tools from dust.
Him: But having them on the wall is so much better. You can get them so much easier.
Me: But they will get dusty. Dust has salt in it, which attracts moisture.
Him: A chest is a dumb idea.
Me: OK.
Him: Really. A wall rack is better than a chest.
Me: OK.
Him: Really, a chest? Dumb.
The funny thing about the above conversation (and about a dozen more like it) is that “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” is not a book that is going to try to talk you into building a traditional tool chest. Yes, I cover the topic in great detail. I spent months studying traditional chests and have about 13 years experience using one.
Yes, there are complete plans for the chest. Yes, I really like my chest. And yes, I think that a proper tool chest is a great thing for your shop.
But I will be surprised if more than a handful of people actually build this chest. That’s because the tool chest is actually a metaphor for what this book is really about: Assembling a reasonable kit of tools so you can be a woodworker instead of a budding tool collector.
Oh, and it’s about cheese, craft beer and micro-farming.
But let’s say you just want to build a tool chest. Should you buy this book? Nah. In fact, I’ve boiled down the entire content of the book into a one-page .pdf that you can download by clicking here.
Design brief: Before commencing on any design other than a copy a design brief must be prepared. A design brief is a collection of all the data relevant to the construction and use of the article and the design is based on this information. The brief can best be produced by writing down as many questions as possible about the job, and then by experiment, research, measurement or judgment, find the answers to these questions. For example, questions about a coffee table might include the following:
Where will it be used?
Who will use it?
How many people will use it?
What will it carry?
How will people sit at it?
What will be its top shape?
How high will it be?
What will be its basic constructional form?
What will be the finish?
What wood is preferred or is available?
Will the top have any special finish?
Will a shelf or rack be required?
Design sketch
The answers to these practical questions will give the worker the length, the width and the height required. From these three figures a number of design sketches may be produced and the best one selected (Fig 90, for example).
Working drawing
From the design sketch it will now be possible to build up a working drawing. For items of coffee-table size a full-sized drawing is an advantage; larger items must of course be drawn to scale. These full-sized drawings can be drawn on decorator’s ‘lining’ (ceiling) paper. Before making a start the following table of ‘finished sizes’ should be consulted (Fig 91).
The sawn sizes are those used by the timber yards when sawing logs into boards. The finished sizes are those to which the sawn boards can be planed, either by hand or by machine. This figure is both the maximum which can be obtained from the sawn board and also the size marketed as a planed board. In planning component sizes these sizes should be kept in mind in order to use wood with the greatest economy. A reduction of thickness of 1mm (1/16in.) may afford a considerable cost saving.
The working drawing (side view) (Fig 92) is built up as follows. Draw the ground line (A) then draw the top of the table (B). Consult the finished sizes and draw in the top thickness (C). Mark this off to length (D). Consider the overhang and draw in the outside edge of the legs (E). Consult the finished sizes again and draw in the leg thickness (F). The top rail (G) is drawn in next, wide enough to give a good joint but not wastefully wide. This can be made narrower if the extra support of a stretcher rail is given. The end (width) view can be similarly drawn. To save space this can be superimposed on the front view (shaded area).
When a proper mortice and tenon construction is to be used (as in this example) the length of the tenon must now be ascertained. This is easily done (Fig 93) by making a full-sized drawing on graph paper. Finally the inside edges of the legs can be tapered below the joint. This design retains the simplicity of an all-right-angle construction.
To obviate frequent reference to a drawing in the early stages it is convenient to produce a cutting list (Fig 94) and to work solely from this in the early stages.
Finished (i.e. final) sizes are used in the list, which avoids allowances being added at several stages in the work. Unfortunately, although there are only three dimensions there are many more names for them, e.g. length, height, width, depth, broad, thick, and so on. The three to be used are length (the distance along the grain), thickness (the smallest dimension) and width (the intermediate size). Width and thickness are often the same size.
To avoid confusion components are often lettered, as in the first column. The remaining columns are self-explanatory except for the blank one. A tick here signifies that the component has been sawn out. A cross tells that the piece has been produced to size and is ready for marking out.
Editor’s note: This weekend I had the privilege of working with Ernie Conover at the Northeastern Woodworkers Association’s “Showcase” in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Ernie, shown in the photo at left, helped judge the furniture show and taught hand skills during the show. Ernie has many books and magazine articles to his credit and runs The Conover Workshops. During our weekend together, Ernie noticed I was selling copies of “The Essential Woodworker.” Ernie then opened his laptop and showed me a review he’d written of the book in 1991, which he kindly allowed me to reprint here.
Soon after embarking on the reading of “The Essential Woodworker” I was a young student again. Only this time I was not shrugging of “as unimportant” the basic skills and techniques that are “essential” to being a top quality woodworker. I would like to kid myself that “The Essential Woodworker” was a review, however, I learned much!
Top educator and craftsman, Robert Wearing, prefaces the book with an astounding premise, which becomes the basis of the book. That is, that there is a multitude of books and articles available to woodworkers, but that the vast majority of these are far too advanced. They all neglect basics. Therefore, “The Essential Woodworker” is totally dedicated to hand woodworking basics. It is a primer designed for struggling neophytes working alone-without the aid of a teacher.
“The Essential Woodworker” succeeds admirably in its purpose. Anyone (machine or hand tool woodworker alike) who works through the clearly written text, with myriad of photos and fine illustrations, will gain much! All of the illustrations are done by the author in a clear, perspective drafting style that is most elucidating.
Mr. Wearing also subscribes to a thought that I have long held. Namely, that high quality woodworking is impossible without the use of bench planes. In the first chapter, he goes into the sharpening, tuning and use of these essential tools, along with a host of other basic skills, in detail. In succeeding chapters he explains the basic skills involved in table, carcase, and drawer/box construction. Chapter 4 on drawer construction was really written some years ago by Mr. Wearing’ mentor, Cecil Gough. The author explains in the Introduction, “that he cannot improve upon his tutor on this subject.” Finally in Appendices A through I Mr. Wearing presents detailed plans for a host of jigs, fixtures and work aids.
American readers will have to do some translation of terminology. For example half blind dovetails are lap dovetails, wood is timber and rabbet is rebate. Even the author loses sight of basics, and occasionally refers to skills and practices not covered in the book. For example the art of using a plane in a shooting board is not covered, however, the reader is several times instructed to “shoot” the ends of timbers.
Robert Wearing has given me some startling ideas reference teaching. Mastery of woodworking is not a progressive line starting with basics and ending with Zen mastery, but rather a ring joined immutably. The task for instructor and student is to break into this ring at a juncture where basics are mastered but interest in not lost. “The Essential Woodworker” does this admirably. As for Robert Wearing, I can only think of the lines from Julius Caesar, “Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus, and we petty men walk under his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves.”
