This entry is the sister to yesterday’s entry on our fancy plant mister. We found these vintage glass apothecary bottles and immediately bought some for shop liquids. We keep our backup supply of 50/50 water/alcohol potion in it.
The bottles are 7” tall and hold 250ml. The best part is that the bottle’s opening and its stopper are ground glass. So opening and closing the lid is a sensory pleasure (look, I know I’m weird).
The bottles are a dark brown glass. Ours came with an old pharmacy label on it that was covered in handwriting. Our bottle held Akutol, a first aid spray.
These bottles are gorgeous things that you don’t see much anymore.
OK, enough whimsy.
— Christopher Schwarz
To read previous entries in the gift guide, click here.
As a woodworker, sometimes I ask too much of the wood.
Instead of just putting a cushion on a chair, I’ll do everything possible to force the wood to be as comfortable as possible. Naked. With no help from anything cloth, leather, foam, feathery or furry. So, I have spent years (almost two decades) learning to saddle seats – plus dial in the angles of the back and arms and seat deck – to increase the chair’s bare comfort.
But while looking at hundreds of historical chairs, I’ve seen hints of a reality that I should acknowledge more often. When it comes to comfort and warmth, wooden chairs are often assisted by wool, animal skins and cotton (to name a few).
For several years I’ve encouraged readers and customers to use sheepskins on their wooden chairs, which add lots of warmth and comfort (my favorite source for these is Driftless Tannery).
A Welsh interior at St Fagans National Museum of History.
If sheepskins add too much bulk or warmth, try a wool blanket. While I was visiting St Fagans National Museum of History, I was struck by how much of the seating there was displayed as covered in woolen blankets or quilts.
While some might be put off by covering your work with a blanket, I think they are a nice complement to the woodwork – two colorful, renewable, durable and handmade objects working together to add ease and beauty to our lives.
A Forest chair in Shelburne, Vermont.
This relationship between blankets and chairs is old. Recently Angela Robins, sent me a photo of a Forest Chair in Shelburne, Vermont, that had been modified to wrap the sitter in blankets and warmth. I love its almost skeletal appearance – and it looks naked without its coverings.
Sometimes the union between blankets and chairs is somewhat hidden.
One of the small nails on the underside of a chair’s armbow.
Antiques dealer Tim Bowen in Wales recently pointed out some small nails on the underside of the arm of a stick chair. The nails’ heads protruded slightly, perhaps about 1/8”. And they weren’t structural or part of a repair.
Tim said he sees often finds these nails on old chairs and they are covered in strands of wool or other cloth. He suggested the nails acted as hooks to help keep blankets in place on the chair.
So during my most recent trip to Wales I brought back a lovely Welsh wool blanket. And I have a box of tiny old headed nails – more like escutcheon pins, really – with square heads. Just like the nails that Tim showed me.
It’s time to introduce my chairs to a new friend from the sheep world.
Again, you likely know that we don’t like plastic. You might not give a crap. So if you have no problem with all the plastic bottles and stuff in your life, skip this entry. It is not for you.
One of our favorite shop liquids is a 50/50 mix of tap water and ethanol. Not for drinking (we’d get nothing done). But for softening end grain to make the wood it easier to chisel or plane. The potion recipe comes from woodworker Frank Strazza, and we can confirm that it is awesome.
But how to apply it to the work? In the Before Times, we had some in a jar and ragged it on. But that was wasteful. Eventually we found this classy spray bottle with brass guts and a glass exterior. The place we bought it from no longer carries it, but similar “plant misters” litter the internet. A Google search will turn up a dozen choices.
The plant mister works great. We don’t lose any on a rag. And we can easily see when we need to mix up some more.
And yes, a plastic spray bottle will work just as well. But you likely will be ejected from the Fancy Lads & Lasses Academy for it.
— Christopher Schwarz
To read previous entries in the gift guide, click here.
The U.K.’s Classic Hand Tools (CHT) has organized an auction of David Charlesworth’s hand tools – 100 of the best tools he amassed and used in his storied and half-century woodworking and teaching career. The auction proceeds will benefit David’s wife, Pat.
The tools – each professionally photographed and properly described – are available for preview viewing now, and are arranged by tool type – planes, saws, chisels etc. CHT notes that more information about each tool, and a price guide, will be added as/if that information becomes available. Online bidding begins on November 24 and ends on December 1 at 4 p.m. GMT. These are tools that David actually used, and as such are in excellent condition and ready to put to work.
This is a “best offer” sale – the person who submits the highest bid in the closed auction will be the winner. CHT will ship the items at cost. For more on how to bid and how it works, take a look at any of the items on the CHT pages – at the bottom of each is a link for bidding information. Here again is the link for the main auction page.
– Fitz
p.s. You can read more about David in this post by Christopher Schwarz. Or by simply Googling him. He was a woodworking giant, and is greatly missed.
A bench brush is essential gear for getting chips and shavings into the compost bin or garbage bag. But if you saddle chair seats or do a lot of traversing with a jack plane, you might have noticed that most bench brushes do a crap job in brushing off your work.
I don’t know exactly why the problem occurs, but the fine brush hair doesn’t seem to have the oomph to move heavy and hairy chips.
The solution is simple, inexpensive and delightful: a corn whisk broom. These small handheld bundles of broom corn are stiff enough to move huge quantities of heavy chips off the bench.
I received a fancy, multicolor one made by students at Berea College as a gift. It definitely doesn’t disappear into the field of brown chips and shavings on my bench. And the handle is beautifully wrapped.
That fanciness comes at a price. If you don’t want to spend $45 on a broom, then you can find simpler ones that are handmade and equally effective. The best place to look (if you don’t have a local broom merchant) is etsy.
This link will take you a huge selection of these brooms at a variety of price points. And the colors!
Y’all know that I keep the shop tidy. These stiff brushes make it a little more enjoyable.
— Christopher Schwarz
To read previous entries in the gift guide, click here.
