Today may you find the love Dick Proenneke did, alone but not, 39 years ago today. A journal entry, written by Dick, excerpted from “The Handcrafted Life of Dick Proenneke.”
December 25, 1982:
Partly Cloudy, Calm & 21°
A real nice morning for that special day. A few nights ago I was reminded of Christmas. It was -6° calm and very frosty. By lantern light every busy and spruce sparkled – a million tiny candles winking on and off as I went to the woodshed … On the stump out front I had nailed a big strip of gut fat. I hollered for the birds and it was some minutes before they arrived … Boy oh boy! what a Christmas present. They would work like beavers – get tired and rest for a while and then back at it again. If I called them, they would quit and come to the door for hotcakes.
Everything in order I started to open parcels. Nine in all – excuse me – one in the cache makes it ten. Ten plus small gifts from Glen and Patty, Laddy & Glenda which turned out to be candy and cookies.
Before I got involved I remembered my little turkey bird in the cache. It would be frozen solid and I had better get it thawing …
What a batch of stuff – everything from soup to nuts. Two packages of Beef stick that is very good and will keep well into spring. Two gallons of chopped dried onions. I had ordered one and please write the price on the can so I could pay. Two came and as a gift. Any more I wanted I could pay for. Fruitcake, candy, nuts, a new Taylor thermometer which is a nice one – a tube case with a clip so one can pack it to the mt. top. Dish towels and some material to cover my aluminum foil of the fireplace cover. I find the foil is of benefit in keeping the cabin warm. Heat is reflected back into the living area from it. The excess that I cut off stands against the wall behind my stool next to the stove. Sit there and I can feel the heat reflected from the foil. Items too numerous to mention. Even genuine imported Millet Spray bird feed for caged birds and wild birds. Be interested to learn if I have any birds that will sample it.
Cinnamon drops and lemon drops, dish towels and pot holders and on and on. Nectarines a batch, semisweet chocolate, lentils and white beans and a note “Is there anything we can do for you?” And I suppose the next plane in will have more. I should hang out a sign “Twin Lakes general store.” With the flag flying my cabin has already been mistaken for a Post Office. I do appreciate everything and wish there was some way I could repay everyone for everything for I feel in debt. If only they had all gotten together and sent in a 25 lb. sack of rolled oats from “Nature Kitchen” I would have been “happy as a clam”. It would be evening before I pawed through the boxes again and find Christmas wrapped gifts that I missed first time around. I hate to disturb the contents because I often end up with more than the box will hold when I try to put it back.
Everything neatly stacked in a corner, I did more work on my ice creepers. An uncommon amount of creeper ice this winter. Straps wear and heel claws need replacing.
“It was only a matter of time before Lost Art Press found itself publishing a beautiful book that is not about woodworking,” he wrote.
“I have long admired Nancy Hiller as a craftsperson and a writer” – the admiration is mutual – “so I am thrilled to the marrow at this examination of her life through the lens of relationships with animals she has known. Here you hold the richly penned, fantastic memoir of a plucky and clever woodworker, kitchen designer and writer, who honestly describes her ascension on the path of wisdom, with a special focus on the stumbles. Among the signposts and guides she has been lucky enough to encounter, she counts a parade of charismatic creatures and the charming directions they lent to her life’s decisions.”
While I personally make no claim to wisdom, I have learned a lot from the animals who have shared my household at different times, as well as from wildlife, stray domestic animals (including a goat) and a select few (among them, buffalo) raised on farms. These and more fill the tales in this volume, the entirety of which is true.*
But while the book honors animals who have been my companions, teachers, entertainers and occasional bêtes noirs, it is at heart, as with all books published by Lost Art Press, about learning and teaching. In this case, the learning isn’t about how to sharpen tools or build a chest, but about finding ways to survive devastating loss, or realizing that most of us are capable of facing far scarier slang for fecal matter turns of events than we might otherwise imagine. In the same vein, the teaching is not about how to build a chair or harvest hickory bark, but about the reality that bad things don’t just happen to “other people,” and few, if any of us, live the kind of picture-perfect life that sells everything from refrigerators to potato chips. It also seeks to raise awareness of at least one dangerous common practice and a challenging-to-diagnose cause of canine paralysis.
If there is any wisdom in this book, it’s consistent with many exhortations from Mr. Offerman himself, as those who have attended his performances in person will know: Be kind. Think of others, as well as yourself. Open your eyes; don’t let the years slide by while you wait for just the right moment to live. This earth is a place of wonders; savor them in ways that will leave them in good shape – ideally, better shape – for those who come after us. And it’s OK to have the occasional belch or fart among friends.
Big thanks to Nick Offerman for even cracking the cover of “Shop Tails,” let alone reading, and for sending this supportive fistbump.
The sliding bevel factory has been cranking out these tools as fast as possible. We got two more batches in this week. You can purchase one here. If they sell out, don’t worry. We will have more next week.
Editor’s note: We get asked all the time about ordering from overseas. We don’t ship outside the United States, so we typically send people to one of the international specialty stores that carry our books and tools. But maybe you want something that they don’t carry, or won’t have for some time; there’s a solution. We asked our friend and long-time overseas customer Mattias to write about it. — Fitz
I’m in Belgium. I’m also a multiple return customer with Lost Art Press and Crucible Tool. And while all the LAP retailers in my neck of the woods are shops that I frequent, well, frequently, they don’t stock every LAP item. Some are not available to them for good reasons. Others they chose not to carry, again for good reasons. And sometimes I just can’t wait the month or so that it usually takes for a new item to get over here after it is released in the U.S. So I buy directly from LAP.
How is that possible, when LAP don’t do international shipping? Through a re-shipper or forwarding service or whatever you want to call it! This is a company in the States that, when you sign up with them, provides you with a valid postal address **in the U.S.**. You then give this as your delivery address when you order from LAP, and your goods are sent there. On arrival, your things are checked, declared for customs and forwarded to your home address. That’s it in a nutshell. Now for some more details.
First I should perhaps say that the forwarding company I use is one in Florida called MyUS. When I first decided to try this way of buying from Chris & Co., I asked around a bit – Klaus Skrudland, who should be familiar to readers of this blog, said he’d used them with success – and also did some general research with the help of Google. Based on this I decided to try MyUS, signed up with them, and put in my first order. It worked an absolute treat, and has continued to do so every time since, so for my part I’ve seen no need to look elsewhere. As they say, though, other options are available. So should you want to explore this possibility, you might want to spend some time with Google too, and shop around to see what would suit you, your wallet and your final destination the best. For my part I have been so happy with what I first went with that I’ve seen no need to check out the competition.
And just to be totally clear: My only affiliation with MyUS is as a contented customer. No sponsoring. No discount. No nothing. Nor, for that matter, from LAP, for writing this. And the only reason I mention MyUS by name is that they are what I know about from experience.
Back to our regular programming. Are there no drawbacks, then? Well, yes. It is usually more expensive than buying from your local LAP retailer, and tends to take a bit longer, too.
The first reason that it is more expensive is that you pay postage twice, once from the LAP fulfillment center to the forwarding company, and again from them to you. The second reason is that in most places of the world, and certainly here in Europe, you will also be hit by customs clearance fees, customs and import duties, local sales tax (VAT) etc. (the latter often calculated not only on the value of the goods but also on the postage and duties too).
How much more expensive? Well, it varies of course. Here’s an example. Last year, I bought a Crucible Card Scraper, a Lump Hammer and two Iron Holdfasts. Costs for the goods was $240, and postage with UPS to Florida came in at $63.30 (the package weighed 14 lbs after all). I then paid MyUS $85.99 for shipping to Belgium with DHL Express and also $2.99 for insurance. On arrival, I was charged a further €82,75 ≈ $99 in fees, duties and taxes. Total cost: $491.28.
As for time, I put the above order in on February 25th 2020, it shipped on the 27th, arrived in Florida March 3rd, was turned around by MyUS the same day and finally delivered to me here in Belgium on March 5th 2020. And those timings are pretty typical in my experience.
If I were to buy the exact same things today from Rubank Verktygs AB in Stockholm, I would pay SEK 4095 ≈ $448 plus postage but no further fees or taxes, and I would expect to get my items in one or two days.
Depending on destination, MyUS offers a fairly large selection of different courier and freight companies for the onward delivery. I believe (although I cannot say for sure, as I have no real way to compare) that as large customers, they get very good rates with them. For my part I have always opted for DHL Express, as that company is fast and reliable to where I am, but there are less expensive options, and you might also want to consider which couriers have a good reputation where you live.
The MyUS basic service level, which is what I use, is free, but additional services are available for a monthly fee. I don’t use the service enough, though, to have found it worth the extra cost. But all of that one can find in full detail on their website, same as for their competitors. Google, and ye shall find! Read, and ye shall know!
It should also be noted that MyUS (and I assume the same will be true for the competition) will **always** open your package when it arrives at their premises in Florida. This is to make sure that the goods are OK, both to be exported from the U.S. *and* imported into your country, and to prepare the customs declaration. Again, all details are on the website. In any case, since last year, I have had a total of 29 packages from the U.S. forwarded to me through MyUS. Not all of them from LAP, mind, but in every case they have all been handled with due care and speed, opened and repackaged carefully and correctly, with turnaround times varying between 12 hours and three days, and postage between $36.98 and $92.37.
In conclusion, buying from your local retailers will (almost) always be the better deal, and they’re worth supporting too. But when the itch for the latest Lost Art Press or Crucible Tool offering becomes too much to bear, and you can’t get it locally (yet), well, as you now know, there **is** a way to have it scratched!
There was a lot of stupid macho bullcrap in the shops where I worked, likely because of the stupid macho woodworkers who worked there. (Hiya, Meatfart! Remember me?)
The basic flavor of the crap: “If you can’t do this operation as well as I can, you ain’t a real woodworker.”
Sadly, we see a lot of students here who torture themselves when they plane up boards or chop dovetails. They want their parts to look like they came off the cover of a book or a video on YouTube – even though that level of perfection won’t affect the look of the assembled piece.
This blog post seeks to help you forget a few things – parlor tricks, mostly – that aren’t important. And perhaps it will help you enjoy the work a little more.
Sharpening
We all know there’s a sharpening cult that preaches that your edges should slice newspaper or shave your arm hair (I think the cult’s goal is keep us hairless and uninformed, like mushrooms). I honestly never have tested my edges with these methods. Instead, I just go to work.
If the tool does its job, then it is sharp.
Just remember the mantra of Tony Konovaloff: “Grind, hone, get back to work.” Sharpen and work. Sharpen and work. Do both, and you will get better at both.
Last week I watched two carpenters repair old double-sash windows at Larry’s, our local dive bar. One of the carpenters ground the bevel of his chisel on the pavement and then polished it off on the granite step of the bar with the help of a loogie. Then he went back to work, doing a nice job.
Inspecting the Garbage
When you cook a fine meal, do you judge your success by the quality of the scraps of food in the sink and compost pile? Nope. Neither should you judge your woodworking by the thinness of the shavings from your handplane. Instead, focus on the work, not the waste. Take the thickest shaving you can manage while still having the wood’s surface look good.
Thin shavings are for occasional situations where the wood won’t behave with any other treatment.
Want to work five times faster? Shoot for a .005”-thick shaving instead of a lacy, lighter-than-an-angel-fart .001”.
Inside, I’m a Wreck
I have never understood why people get so worked up about a little torn end grain inside a dovetail joint. The inside of a joint is a personal matter between you and the furniture conservator 300 years in the future.
When you chop out waste, and some of it is unsupported, you’ll get some torn-off chunks. It happens to me all the time. Sure, I could pare and pare and pare to get my insides looking as good as my outsides. But it’s pointless.
Knock out the waste, assemble the joint and spend all the time you saved making the show surfaces look nice.
Shimmering Meaninglessness
When you get a little skill with a handplane, it frequently becomes a game to make your boards look perfect right from the plane. Sometimes, the wood behaves, and this is an easy task. But most of the time, wood demands the following regimen, which has been practiced for hundreds of years.
Plane the surface until you cannot make it look any better.
Scrape any surfaces that need help because of tear-out.
Briefly sand all surfaces with a fine abrasive to blend the planed and scraped surfaces.
Yes, planed surfaces look beautiful without finish. But after you put a finish on, things change. A well-sanded surface looks indistinguishable from a planed one.
I love my handplanes – they are faster than sanding in most cases. But I have no desire to plane a tabletop for two hours. That’s madness. Plane, scrape, sand and move on.
Piston-fit Nothing
This is perhaps the king of the parlor tricks: piston-fit drawers, lids and trays. People get goofy-eyed when you close one drawer and another drawer is forced out by the movement of air.
Quite frankly, I have found that this is usually an indicator that the drawers are fit too tightly and will stick when the humidity level rises. Drawers should move smoothly, but there are many ways to avoid the piston-fitting nonsense.
French Polished Drawer Bottoms
I don’t finish the insides of most case pieces that are hidden during use. The inside carcase of a chest of drawers doesn’t have to be finished. Heck, it doesn’t even have to be sanded. Put all of your effort into the surfaces that will be seen and touched by the user. The remaining surfaces can be left pretty rough – right from the jack plane or the electric planer.
The Caveat
I know that some woodworkers will object to this blog entry because they are doing woodworking for pure enjoyment or therapy. So they are happy to sharpen to 10,000 grit, treat every surface like a show surface and generally go overboard.
And that’s great. Please go right ahead. Godspeed, even.
But a lot of us have limited time in the shop. You might have children or grandchildren. Plus a difficult job. And you still want to get that dining table built by Christmas. In that case, the above “shortcuts” are perfectly acceptable in my shop and in the shops of many fine professionals.
Do the best work you can – just don’t make a clock out of everything.