One of the bright parts of this year has been working with Aspen Golann and The Chairmaker’s Toolbox to lend a hand to budding toolmakers who are underrepresented in our craft (female, NBG and BIPOC).
My role was tiny: I consulted with Eleanor Rose on developing a fantastic chair devil and a reproduction of the H.O. Studley mallet. Eleanor didn’t need much help from me, but I am happy to shine a light on her work, and I hope we get to work on another project that might become a production tool.
As someone who has handled/fondled/might-have-licked the Studley mallet during photography for “Virtuoso,” I know exactly how the mallet should feel and look, even close up. Eleanor’s version takes a small liberty with the handle material (to save the rosewoods), and she improved an interior structure. I think Studley would be pleased with the result. (I bought two of hers.)
Her chair devil immediately became one of my favorite chairmaking tools. Yes, you can easily make your own, but it won’t look this nice, or have the same nimbleness. Last I heard, Eleanor is still tooling up to make a run of these. You might want to send her a message to let her know you want one. I bought the first sample she sent me.
The below was written by our good friend Mattias Hallin, who lives in Belgium (though he would, I think, want me to let you know he is Swedish). You might recall that he is our non-resident expert in linseed oil paint, from this 2024 post (and he wrote for us about overseas ordering, for those few Lost Art Press items not available through our international stockists).
His tool chest – which we’re calling the Archivist’s Tool Chest because that’s his profession – is a study in meticulous planning of storage (and hardware). We asked him to write about it for the blog, and he kindly delivered.
I’ve posted an goodly excerpt below, with a link to download a pdf of Mattias’ entire write-up.
When I was in Covington for a chair class in 2022, Megan kindly lent me a Dutch Tool Chest (DTC) for temporary storage of all the tools I’d brought, and I found that I really liked working out of it. At the same time, I got a good, close-up look at Chris’ and Megan’s full-size Anarchist’s Tool Chests (ATC), and decided there and then to one day build an ATC myself (and a DTC, but that’s a different story) – except, in my case the A stands for Archivist, as that is what I do for a living, while I have nary an anarchic bone in my body.
And now I have built that chest.
This blog post, though, is not about the chest build as such, which, bar some personal tweaks and touches, is pretty much straight out of ‘the literature’ (The Anarchist’s Tool Chest and its addenda here on the blog and in Megan’s videos on the ATC interior and a traveling ATC). Rather, it is about how I approached designing the tool storage, and the ideas and solutions I came up with in that process, as these offer some ideas not suggested in the ATC book.
The Chest: Some Basic Facts
Before diving into my big box, though, just a few words about its general construction.
It is mainly built out of Pinus strobus, i.e. Eastern White or (as it is usually known over here) Weymouth Pine. Runners and till bottoms are oak (Querqus spp, probably robur). The sliding till walls and tool racks are hard maple (Acer saccharum), and finally there’s some boxwood (Buxus sempervirens) for boxing the lid stay slots, while the block plane cubby is pear (Pyrus communis).
Dovetailed carcase and skirts as per TATC. Through-tenoned lid frame, as per same. Bottom boards nailed on, as per, etc. and so forth.
The hardware (except a set of vintage cast iron casters, bought online) is blacksmith made, designed and forged by the fantastic Tom Latané.
The finish is Ottosson linseed oil paints on the outside, and the company’s oil/wax paste on the tills and racks.
The internal space of the empty shell is 36-11/16″ long, 22-1/8″ wide and 23-15/16″ high. Nothing magical about those oddish numbers: they’re simply what aiming for 36-1/2″ x 22-1/4″ x 24″ ended up as.
Mock ‘em Up!
I barely know my way around SketchUp et al., and while I think I can safely say I’m not bad at figuring stuff out just in my head, for many things I also like to check that thinking by mocking them up. This is particularly true for anything three-dimensional.
Planning for tool storage in my chest began with a considered decision on the dimensions of the basic shell. The larger that shell, the more tool storage potential, so bigger may seem better. That, however, is not the whole story. For starters, a larger chest eats up more space in your shop and becomes more unwieldy to move about. Also, if it is too wide and/or too deep, it becomes hard to reach the bottom or the rear corners. And Chris and Megan warn from experience that the longer the chest, the more likely it is the sliding tills will rack.
So, my initial instinct to throw space at the problem and go large was quickly reined in.
The simplest way forward would have been to just go with the measurements from ATC, but in order not to box myself in too soon, I decided to make the rough panels well over size by some 5″ or so in both length and width. This let me show them to one another and get a much better feel both for how large different sizes of chest would be and how well (or not) I would be able to reach into them.
(Here, by the way, is as good a place as any to say that I mostly don’t work to a cutlist and try to use as few measurements as possible. I do almost all stock prep and dimensioning with hand tools, so usually work to the largest thickness commonly available between a set of parts and make them to fit each other rather than be exactly some pre-defined size.)
Showing the oversized panels to each other already at the rough stage gave me a feel for what might – and mightn’t! – be suitable dimensions and proportions.
Other than overall size and internal reachability, I also knew already at this stage that I wanted:
For the sliding tills to measure at least just over 8″ in internal width (because my woobie box is 8″ long);
to have full access to two sliding tills at a time with no overlap; and
to hang my backsaws between the front wall and the front tool rack.
I did not yet know the exact outer dimensions of the sliding tills, or the thickness of the surface-mounted hinge leaves, nor would I for quite a while, but to get 8-and-a-bit ” internal would likely mean 9″–9-1/2″ external width per till, so 18″–19″ for two tills to open with no overlap.
Add to that at least 2″ for the front rack with room behind for saws, plus a margin for the hinges, and I suspected that the 20-1/8″ internal width in the drawings in ATC would risk being a tad on the tight side.
For final dimensions I therefore decided that all four panels should be 24″ high (same as in the ATC), the front and back 38-1/2″ long (so 1/2″ more than in the book) and the ends 24″ wide (so 2-1/8″ more). Everything else would follow from there.
Thinking Inside the Box: Basic Premises
Lesson learned: when you plan to bevel a dovetail, don’t undercut the middle (cf. lower skirt right-hand corner). Filler and paint are your friends, if you do.
While things followed, and the basic carcase came together, I had plenty of time to think ahead and consider the basic premises for how I would want to organize the tool storage. On the one hand, I have a strong tendency towards a place for everything, everything in its place and the skates go in the fridge. On the other hand, I had no wish to French-fit the interior. To use an extreme comparison: I am in great awe and admiration of the Studley tool cabinet, but I wouldn’t have it if you paid me to.
In daily practice I will most likely put a tool back in more or less the same spot where I picked it up, but over time where that spot is may well move around.
Basic Premise #1: Tool storage should be flexible.
That said, my tool set is by now quite stable. I have acquired most of the tools I need or see a future need of. I have also sold or given away a number of tools that I either upgraded or didn’t expect ever to use (again). By now, I think what I have left are the keepers.
I will not be able to fit every single keeper into this chest, but then I never expected to. There are, however, keeper tools that I am as certain as makes no difference will live in this chest for the rest of my days. Some of those tools may as well have a permanent place specially fitted to them.
Basic Premise #2: There can be duly motivated exceptions to Premise #1.
Notwithstanding tool set stability, I am no exception to the general rule when it comes to mental shopping lists. That is to say, I have one. Mine may be much shorter than before (cf. stable tool set), but there are tools I know I shall want to get in the coming years. If I know that now, and that I shall want to store them in the chest, I might as well plan for that.
Basic Premise #3: Try to think ahead.
Then again, you never know, so racks and tills should be as easy to replace as is commensurate with safe and solid storage while they’re in use.
Basic Premise #4: Don’t over-fix the fixtures – they may have to come out.
Finally, no matter the solution selected for individual tools, they should come out and go back in easily, blocking each others paths as little as possible. The more frequent the use, the easier the access should be. Edges shall be protected, as shall fingers, hands and arms when rummaging through the depths of the chest. Space should not be wasted, though, but a happy medium sought between efficient storage and effective use.
Basic Premise #5: Aspire to conduct a well-balanced tool ballet.
With these premises clear in my mind, I could start to purposefully mockup dummy versions of the fixed racks and tills and put my ideas and these premises to the test.
Front Tool Rack
The first questions to which I sought answers were, what distance should there be between the front wall and the front tool rack to best store my backsaws, and how high should the rack be above the floor?
My longest backsaw is an 18″ tenon saw. It will live in the saw till on the chest floor, but I still wanted to make sure it could also hang behind the front tool rack if needed. On the other hand, that tool rack should not sit any higher than necessary for that to work. In part because some tool handles are rather long, but mostly to make sure there will be room enough above the rack to fit a crab lock to the inside of the front wall.
While it would have been possible to measure the saw handles and plates and calculate the answers, I am wary of that method, as mistakes won’t be caught early. A mockup with some scraps is quickly cobbled together, and this one let me test different distances and heights by adding or removing spacer blocks.
It turned out that 5/8″ was the ideal distance between wall and rack, and that with the top of the rack at 16-1/4″ above the floor my biggest backsaw would fit with 1/8″ to spare. I made a careful note of these figures.
I also wanted to know how wide the tool rack should be, what distance from the outer edge holes would be best for tool holes, and what sizes and shapes of holes would best work for different tools, in particular those that would have a permanent place?
Again, dummy racks made from pine offcuts was the perfect method for me. They were easy to run up from an ample supply of material left over from the panel prep, so I could test as many possibilities as I wanted. The “standard” tool hole suggested in the literature is 1/2″ diameter and is drilled with the center point 1/2″ in from the edge. The latter I found held good, but a 1/2″ hole is too small to hold certain tools as well as I wish. Thus, the socket of a Lie-Nielsen chisel seats perfectly in a 14mm (or 9/16″) hole, while a Blue Spruce chisel needs a 5/8″ (or 16mm) hole for the ferrule to go in deep enough that it won’t wobble in the rack. And for my set of Barr Tools cabinetmaker’s chisels, that have larger sockets, the perfect size hole turned out to be 19mm (3/4″).
(While I mostly work in customary/imperial units these days, I drilled some of these tool holes in the closest metric equivalent if that was the best drill bit for the job I had to hand.)
For my pigsticker mortise chisels, I tested elongated holes in different lengths and widths until I found the particular sizes that would best fit each one of them, taking into account the tapered undersides of the bolsters. And for my two paring chisels I went fully bespoke – but I’ll come back to that in the Photo Gallery below.
I also experimented a fair bit to find the ideal distance between centers but won’t go into any detail on that; suffice to say that, depending on the tools involved, it varied between 1-1/2″ and 2-1/4″.
As for the width of the rack, 1-3/8″ turned out to be right, giving a total width of 2″ including the space for saws. While that does not leave much room between the saw handles and the handles of tools stored in the rack, I tested the setup thoroughly and concluded I would be happy with it. I was in any case anxious not to have the front rack extend more than really needed in order to minimize potential interference with the saw till on the floor below.
Saw Till
Speaking of the saw till, it took a fair bit of experimentation to find the right configuration. For starters, how many saws should it hold? I currently have two handsaws – a 26″ rip and a 24″ crosscut – and as already mentioned, I also wanted to store the 18″ tenon saw in this till. That’s three saws. However, on my shopping list are two short – 18″ or 20″ – handsaws, a rip and a crosscut, so I decided on a five-slot till.
With that made clear, there still remained a number of issues to sort out. The till needed to be roomy enough for ease of operation without gobbling up too much floor space. What would that mean in terms of distance between slots? On testing, I found 3/4″ too tight to allow the easy grab of a saw, 1″ fine but unnecessarily roomy, so 15/16″ turned out to be the Goldilocks number.
And would I want to store stuff below the saws? There’s potential space there, but only accessible by removing the saws, which is not very handy. I first thought it would be a good spot for my roll of saw files, which don’t come out all that often, but found that idea overridden by a more important consideration: the placement of the slotted till uprights should be in function of where the backsaw blades will hang.
The front rack has four spacer blocks to create the 5/8″ slot for backsaws, one at either end and two somewhere in the middle, through which the rack is also screwed to the chest wall. The two middle ones I located to optimize the available room to fit my particular set of backsaws, not forgetting to leave room in the middle for the crab lock.
The saw till uprights were then best placed immediately below the two middle spacer blocks to keep them from obstructing the space available for hanging saws. This turned out to mean an off-center placement, with the two uprights too close together for the file tool roll to fit, even on the diagonal. In the end I decided to leave 2-1/2″ underneath the saws: high enough that e.g. a Trusco box will fit in there if needs be, but not conceived to be a major storage space.
There is still about 1-1/2″ clearance between the top of the saw handles and the underside of the bottom sliding till, so in theory I could have gone an inch or so higher. But that would have had an unwanted effect on the interplay between the innermost slot and the tool rack above. For a saw to come out and go in with full clearance from longer tools in the rack, the slot has to be about 2-1/4″ out from the chest wall. Starting a set of five slots from there, though, would have made the whole till go a full 7″ into the central well.
I bought the 18″ tenon saw for my bench build. It did a great job on the massive tenons involved in that but is not in any way a daily user on furniture-size projects. I am not getting rid of it, but it can certainly be stored in a harder-to-reach spot. Thus, I decided to have the innermost slot at but 1-1/4″ from the wall, in effect between the hanging backsaws and the tools in the rack. To get a saw in or out of there, any long tools must first come out of the rack, but for the very occasional use of the 18″ tenon saw, that’s not a problem. The other four slots have good clearance, and the whole saw till, including the bracing rails, ends at 6-1/8″ into the central well, giving me a full 12″ of width for storing bench planes between the till and the molding plane corral.
The finished saw till, with the uprights in line with two middle spacer blocks behind the front rack above. The top cross brace is much shorter than what’s suggested in the literature, for a reason. Having it go all the way out to the side walls would not make the construction meaningfully stronger, but it would interfere with tool storage in the side racks.
To read more, download Mattias Hallin’s pdf below.
I am not much of one for New Year’s Resolutions, preferring instead to periodically articulate attainable goals for the coming year rather than pie-in-the-sky wishes that will soon evaporate. But this year I was adamant that the pseudo-albatross of “A Period Finishers Manual” would be on that list for the last time. Yes, it has simultaneously been a labor of love while being a weight on my neck for the past few years.
Last week was a momentous one here in the hinterlands: The first installment of the book was sent to the first group of reviewers for their critiques, feedback and guidance. These folks were selected as readers specifically because they were avowedly finishers of limited experience, and could tell me whether or not what I was writing made sense to them. They are the proxies for every woodworker who might eventually pick up the book.
As we began I gave them this charge:
“I wrote the entire manuscript for the Studley book in about six weeks averaging over a thousand words a day. I have been working on this one off-and-on for almost six years, happy sometimes with a couple hundred words at a time. In the former case it was all I could do to wring out a manuscript from what I thought was a paucity of knowledge and yet it flowed like water from a firehose. I am having the exact opposite problem here, trying to cut it down to an easily readable yet beneficially instructive book, a determination you are charged with helping me to achieve.
“My tone is just the way I write, I want the reader to feel as though we are simply conversing.
“Further complicating things on my end is that I do not write in a linear fashion, never have and likely never will. I’m 65 with little desire for any fundamental changes in life. In other words I do not begin at The Beginning and conclude at The End. I write episodically, creating and working on vignettes throughout the manuscript as the spirit moves me (even true when I write fiction) then merging them and backfilling as necessary. It is a Billy Pilgrim sorta thing, I guess, or was it George Orr? That results in the current situation wherein the skeleton of the manuscript is complete but the connective tissues are being grafted in now. That is sometimes much more time consuming than creating the original mass of words.
“My current strategy is to get you the manuscript in a linear fashion, hence this first document is the Introduction, basically the mission statement of the book. Though not at all technical, it should give you some sort of roadmap about the journey we have begun together. Feel free with your comments and edits.”
From this point on, approximately every two weeks, another chapter of the manuscript will be sent to this naïvely valiant group of volunteers. I say “naïve” because by the time we are finished, they, too, will be glad to see it in the rear-view mirror of their lives.
Once a passage has passed from my hand to theirs and back, with the revisions integrated (I may or may not accept their suggestions, but the results thus far indicate we are all on the same page – all the suggestions have been excellent and useful), the sections will be passed on to the second group of reviewers. They are highly experienced finishers with decades of experience, which will allow them to comment on the workbench techniques and technical veracity of my verbiage.
At the moment the manuscript is nine chapters, although a couple of them are quite long-ish and may be subdivided.
It looks like I just might meet my goal of being able to move on to the next Roubo volume by Christmas.
Hey, we never put our books on sale. But we have several hundred T-shirts that were dwelling in our cellar that we need to clear out. These are leftovers from Handworks and are of excellent quality.
The shirts are 100 percent cotton American Apparel shirts. Made in Los Angeles and printed in Kentucky and Indiana. We are selling them for $17 plus $5 shipping anywhere in the United States (sorry these ship only in the U.S.). Basically, these are at cost, plus what it costs to box them and ship them. Quantities are limited, so don’t dawdle.
The fastest way to see the shirts is to go to the Apparel page of our site via this link.
Le maître du trait, Abbaye de la Trinité, Vendôme, France.
The trades of the carpenter, joiner, cabinetmaker and turner, and their tools, have long been an inspiration for artists. Woodworkers and tool historians have, in turn, studied artwork to learn how tools were used in the past and how they have evolved. Some artwork centers around a celebration of just the tools and in some cases tools are arranged as amusements.
Note: If you are a long-time reader of this blog you will see some familiar images.
‘Life of the Infant’ by Hieronymus Wierix (1553-1619), Antwerp. Rijiksmuseum.
This title page for a portfolio of 12 plates about the childhood of Jesus is one of the iconic images in the woodworking world. Wierix used a square cartouche for the title with a surround of tools. The clutter can be overwhelming, however, when all the plates are assembled and each page studied the title page gets easier to figure out.
All of the tools used by Jesus, Joseph and the helper angels, as well as the implements used by Mary, are “summarized” on the title page. Wierix essentially made a tantalizing opening sequence of just the tools, perhaps not surprising as his father was a painter and cabinetmaker.
The construction of Noah’s Ark has been a rich source of information on early woodworking tools and methods.
From ‘Physica Sacra, Volume I’ by Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (1672-1733), Swiss. Internet Archive.
The four volumes of Scheuchzer’s ‘Physica Sacra’ contain numerous engravings illustrating the Old Testament and its natural life. Each engraving is augmented with a tableau which provides a frame for the image. At the top, the spool of the line marker (to the left of center) unwinds, the line wends it way to the right, drops over the side and draws the eye to the bottom set of tools.
Of course, the top and bottom tableaux let us look at the tools in use at the time of Scheuchzer, but not necessarily available to Noah.
Tool Trophies
How better to honor a woodworker than to surround his portrait with his tools?
Hans Bach, 1617, carpenter and fiddler, BnF. Adam Billaut (1602-1662), cabinetmaker and poet, Château Versailles.
Hans Bach is portrayed with his carpentry tools, his fiddle and his favorite beverage (?). The placement of his tools is similar to a trade card. As can be seen in Billaut’s portrait a more formal arrangement is to form the tools into trophies.
A trophy is a celebration of victory and achievment. The items in a trophy are tied in bundles with a line or ribbon and the bundles hang vertically. Trophies often feature weapons and armor (spoils of war) or tools of a trade. Other than a plaque or maybe a mythical being the trophy is all tools. In the Wierix engraving two small trophies hang on either side of the title cartouche. And on the title page to Plumier’s opus on turning (above) two very neat trophies help introduce the tools used in turning.
Jean-Charles Delafosse (1734-1789), dated 1770, Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, New York.
Delafosse crammed in so many extras into his trophies for ‘La charpente et la Menuisier’ that it is hard to see the tools for the flourishes. These trophies are more a tribute to the professions than an attempt to fully display the tools.
Johannes of Lucas van Doetechuk, 1572, Rijksmuseum.
Completed two hundred years before Delafosses’s work, this trophy (one of four on the same paper) gives a clearer view of the tools. It has the surprise of including a workbench with a holdfast. I am convinced the most appropriate method of viewing a trophy is to first drink a glass or two of beer or wine. A relaxed mind is crucial.
A 19th century cabinetmaker’s sign with a spectacular asking price of $18,000.
Two modern versions of a trophy from the delightful ‘Grandpa’s Workshop’ by Maurice Pommier. Maurice fills his book with creative depictions of tools and I urge you to get this book (from Lost Art Press).
Caricatures
There are many books illustrating trades with a small engraving and a short paragraph. The lighter side of this category is the Costumes Grotesques, or Costumes of the Trades in which the tradesman is dressed with the tools of his profession.
Martin Engelbrecht (1684-1756), Wellcome Library. Nicolas de Larmessin (1632-1694), BnF.
While both versions of the menuisier are fascinating, de Larmessin’s is the more creative rendition. He “clothed” his menuisier in finely worked wooden panels. Engelbrecht, on the other hand, provided a legend for the tools and a corresponding female, or wife, of the tradesman. Unfortunately, the wife of the menuisier is not yet available in the public domain.
Martin Engelbrecht, Wellcome Library.
We do have the charming carpenter and the carpenter’s wife with actual hats on their heads instead of glue pots.
Imagerie Dembour et Gangel, 19th century, Bibliothèques-Médiathèques de Metz, France.
Cross a tool trophy with a cariacture of a tradesman and you get a blacksmith and a woodworker composed entirely of tools. If you have visited the Lost Art Press storefront and made a trip to the men’s room (the one with the urinal) you probably have seen the black and white version of this image.
Tool Storage
How tools are stored can also be a work of art.
Portion of the H.O. Studley tool cabinet, private collection. Photo by Narayan Nayar.
Studley used exotic woods and incorporated architectural elements to display his many tools. His artistry is such that the tools and the design elements are in harmony; the gothic arches and chisel handles sit comfortably together and the hand plane is not lost in the arched niche.
Photo by Narayan Nayar.
In the photographer’s own workshop his eye for composition and balance offers another way to store tools in his ‘Tool Triptych.’
The Tool Chest Lid
The woodworker’s tool chest is another canvas for artistic displays of tools.
Joiner’s tool chest, 1790s, Building of Bath Collection.
The Bath joiner, with beer in hand, gives us a warm wecome to his shop and a gander at his most important tools.
Top of the F.W. Ballack tool chest, 1845.
Finch & Co. Auctions in London had a Prussian cabinetmaker’s tool chest up for sale a few years ago. The chest was made in Mewes, now known as Gniew in northern Poland.
Interior lid of the Ballack tool chest with the cabinetmaker and apprentice.
No lock is visible on the front of the chest and how it opens it is a puzzle (see the gallery for the solution).
In 2015 there was a collaboration on this traveling tool chest. Chistopher Schwarz built the chest with bomb-proof joinery. The fancy-pants lid was created by Jameel Abraham.
As long as there have been woodworkers artists have been beside them documenting their tools and work. From orderly arrangements to dizzying aggregations, the artwork of tools gives recognition to the hands that make and use them.
–Suzanne Ellison
In the gallery: 1. the full page of four trophies by van Doetechum (Rijksmuseum); 2. ‘Implements Animated’ by Charles Williams, active 1797-1830 (Met Museum); 3-5. the front, top compartment and hidden lock of the F.W. Ballack chest (Finch & Co.); 6. arranged for sale: French gimlets (Objects of Use) and antique breast augers (Robert Young Antiques); 7. tools from the ‘Book of Plates’.
