Good news: We now have 500 pristine-perfect GoDrillas in our warehouse, and we’re shipping them out as fast as you can order them.
Today ends our six-month saga with manufacturing difficulties with this tool. If you care about sob stories involving aluminum extrusions and custom lathe tooling, then this is the bedtime tale for you.
Earlier this year we received a batch of GoDrillas that would not accept a hex-shank drill bit. Things were just too tight. The manufacturer said they were in spec. We ate the cost of that run. We ordered a replacement batch. It was better, but still on the tight side. We could get hex-shank tooling in with a little effort. After a few go-rounds using these GoDrillas, things loosened up and the GoDrillas worked normally. Still, we were grumpy.
So we sold that batch at a deep discount.
Now we finally have GoDrillas that are perfect. We had to buy a $2,000 tool and add a step to the process to get here, but it was worth it. We all spent all day today packaging up GoDrillas and hex rods and instruction books, and they are ready to go.
If you have been waiting for these in-spec GoDrillas, the wait is over. You can order one here.
Thanks to Josh Cook, the mechanical designer for this tool, for figuring out the problem and getting a solution.
The following is excerpted from Dr. Jeffery Hill’s “Workshop Wound Care.” The book delves right to the heart of what you need to know when faced with common workshop injuries, from lacerations, to puncture wounds to material in the eye. Dr. Hill is an emergency room physician and an active woodworker. So he knows exactly the information a woodworker needs to know when it comes to injuries. And he presents information in a way that a non-medical professional can easily understand it.
There are a number of diseases that, due to their being very uncommonly encountered in the modern world, seem like quaint relics of antiquity. Diphtheria? Rubella? Mumps? Rabies? What even are those? There are a few diseases that have been completely eradicated (smallpox) or nearly completely eradicated (polio) thanks to sustained vaccination efforts. Tetanus, however, is here to stay on this earth through all of eternity regardless of our efforts at vaccination.
Why? Spores, that’s why
What is Tetanus?
Tetanus is a clinical condition caused by the tetanus toxin which produced by the bacteria Clostridium tetani. Clostridium tetani possesses the relatively uncommon ability to form spores (examples of other spore-forming bacteria include Clostridium botulinum, a.k.a. botulism, and Bacillus anthracis, a.k.a. anthrax).
Spores are exceptionally hardy bits of microbiology. Composed of a hard shell and just enough reproductive matter, they are typically produced when the bacteria run into rough times. A lack of nutrients, which would typically just kill off less fastidious bacteria, triggers C. tetani to produce these spores that can survive a lack of water, nutrients, presence of high amounts of radiation, freezing weather, boiling temps and even chemical disinfectants. Spores can remain viable in inhospitable environments for tens of thousands of years. C. tetani spores are most commonly found in soil, dust and manure, but can be found anywhere in the environment.
When tetanus spores find their way back to a hospitable environment they come alive and start to replicate, along the way producing tetanus toxin (awesomely named tetanospasmin). The tetanus toxin is taken up by the nervous system, ultimately ending up in the spinal cord and brain where it acts to block inhibitory signaling pathways. Because two negatives make a positive, the end result of this action is an excess of electrical transmission from the central nervous system to the muscles and severe muscle spasms.
These unopposed muscle contractions lead to the characteristic clinical manifestations of tetanus. “Lock jaw” is due to contraction of the jaw muscles. Contraction of the facial muscles results in “risus sardonicus,” a fixed smile/facial expression. And contraction of the back muscles results in severe arching of the back. But the neurotoxin doesn’t limit itself to the motor system; it can also lead to seizures and uncontrolledblood pressure (both high and low) and heart rate (also high and low).
If you have ever had a charley horse where your legs cramp up, you have a little taste of how terrifically painful muscle spasms can be. Now imagine that affecting your entire body. Also, because the tetanus toxin irreversibly binds with nerve cells, the uncontrolled nerve signals and muscle spasms continue until the body can grow new nerve endings (a process that is weeks to months long). Generalized tetanus can lead to broken bones, spasm of the respiratory muscles, and aspiration of stomach contents and food into the lungs. Ten to 20 percent of patients still die of tetanus despite modern medical therapies.
What Wounds are at High Risk for Tetanus Infection?
Tetanus infections don’t just come from rusty nails. In fact, all wounds – cuts, abrasions (both to the skin and eyes) and burns – are susceptible to tetanus infection. There are certain wounds, however, that are more prone to tetanus infection and create an environment where the tetanus bacteria will produce the tetanus toxin. Wounds that are dirty, puncture-type wounds and crush injuries are most at risk.
Logically, the more tetanus bacteria present in a wound, the higher the risk of infection. As such, injuries with significant contamination with soil are more likely to result in infection.
If the tetanus bacteria is pushed deep into the tissue, infection is more likely. Puncture wounds, in general, carry a higher risk of all types of wound infection. The narrow tract of a puncture wound is apt to quickly close over bacteria and other matter pushed deeply into the tissues. And, it is much more difficult to adequately clean at the time of injury, meaning it is much more difficult to use irrigation to decrease the number of bacteria present.
Because tetanus bacteria are more likely to grow and produce toxin in “devitalized” tissue, crush injuries are also highly susceptible to infection.
How does this translate to you, the woodworker? A scratch or minor cut from a chisel or knife is less risky. A injury from an axe or froe while breaking down green wood is more risky. (Though to reiterate: Any break in the skin carries a risk of tetanus infection.)
What About the Tetanus Vaccine?
The tetanus vaccine includes a component of the tetanus toxin called a toxoid. This toxoid is coupled with a diphtheria toxoid (Td) and often an acellular version of pertussis (TdaP).
As a side note, the risks of contracting diphtheria and pertussis in adulthood are sufficient enough that the administration of the whole package of TdaP is recommended by the CDC. Pertussis (whooping cough) can be common in older adults (often presenting as mild illness) and easily spread to incompletely vaccinated infants (often presenting as a severe respiratory illness). For this reason, if you are going to be around a new baby in the family (e.g. new grandparents), you’ll likely be asked to get a “tetanus booster” (though really you are boosting your pertussis immunity). Back to tetanus…
As with other vaccines, introducing the tetanus toxoid gives the body’s immune system a “wanted” poster of what the real toxin looks like, allowing the body to create neutralizing antibodies to the toxin. The typical vaccination schedule is for three doses of the vaccine to be administered at two months, four months, and six months of age, with boosters given around six to 12 months after the third dose, and again before entering kindergarten. Following that, boosters are recommended every 10 years. In the developed world, adherence to the recommended vaccination schedule is (thankfully) high, meaning that most people are “fully vaccinated” for tetanus through their childhood. It is not uncommon, however, for adults to miss out on their regular boosters. As a result of this, most cases of tetanus are reported in patients 50 years of age and older.
We have a large batch of our new Exeter furniture-maker’s hammers for sale in our store now. These hammers are perfectly sized for people who build casework and chairs. They are the ideal weight for driving in 4d and 6d nails, smacking wedges in place and adjusting bench planes.
We’ve spent about three years developing this hammer, which is based on an old British form. The cross-peen is used to start brads and headed nails – the peen slips through your fingers to set the tip of the nail. Then you flip the head around to finish the job.
The octagonal handle feels great in the hand and offers two gripping positions: one for power and one for finesse.
At 9.8 ounces, the Exeter hammer is less fatiguing to use than a 16-ounce carpenter’s hammer, but is heavy enough to sink furniture nails for assembling carcases or planting mouldings.
Like all our tools, the Crucible Exeter hammer is made entirely in the United States. The hickory handle is made in the Carolinas, the head is milled in Nicholasville, Ky., and the tool is hand-assembled in our factory in Covington, Ky.
You can read more about the Exeter hammer here. You can read all about our line of hammers here.
Fun Stuff
We take pride in the work we do here. So each employee now stamps the handle with a touchmark after assembling the hammer. My symbol is a bumblebee. Kale is an “X.” Mark is a shamrock. And Gabe is an arrow. (Megan has yet to choose her mark.)
So you can look at the butt of the handle and know who assembled it. Note that we just started doing this on Sunday (Oct. 13). So hammers shipped out before today don’t have the touchmarks.
Our latest book, “Principles of Design” by William H. Varnum, offers a systematic method to design furniture, plus a series of rules that guide you in the process. Perhaps even more important, “Principles of Design” shows you how to interpret other people’s design. Or how to fix your own designs.
Instead of saying something looks “unbalanced” or “awkward,” Varnum’s rules allow you to voice what you like (or don’t like) about a piece of furniture. “The dominant mass of this piece is placed too high in the composition, so the piece is top-heavy.” Or “The brackets offer little life or variety to the piece because of their too-obvious curve.”
I find most design books to be too idiosyncratic or tied to a particular furniture style (Shaker, Bauhaus, Arts & Crafts etc.). “Principles of Design” (and the books of Jim Tolpin and George Walker) instead offer you systems that work with any style of furniture. Plus ways of understanding the built world.
After reading Varnum’s “Principles of Design” a few times, I wanted a cheat sheet that could quickly guide me to each of Varnum’s rules and the explanation he offers for them. So I made one. And you can download it here:
So if I’m working on designing a border around a panel, my cheat sheet reads:
Rule 6d. Bands and borders should have a consistent lateral, that is, onward movement. (page 105)
I can then quickly turn to page 105 to see both good and bad examples of borders. (One of the best parts of Varnum is that he offers you just as many examples of poor design as good design. It really helps you sharpen your eye.)
Books on design are a hard sell – it’s like pushing water uphill. And re-printing “Principles of Design” to the high level of the original 1916 volume was expensive. Plus we are strapped for space in our warehouse. As a result, we think we can do only one press run of this book (3,000 copies). We’ve sold about 750 so far.
This is just fair warning that this book probably won’t be offered permanently.
Every chair class Chris teaches seems to develop its own gravitational pull. It’s inevitable – if you orbit within 50 feet of a class taught by Chris Schwarz you will get sucked in.
Now getting sucked into a class can mean many different things: Perhaps it means assisting students taper chair legs by hand until your shirt starts sticking to you; or remaking an arm in record time due to a irreparable and untimely break; or sometimes becoming the designated lunch fetcher of the day (this task can quickly make you popular among the students).
I of course am speaking from experience. I’ve completed all of these tasks at least once and am in no way complaining about it. I openly love the infectious energy of a class week – it’s chaotic and exhausting at times and I live for it. I love walking into work unsure of what the day will hold.
While the palpable energy from last week’s class was no different, one of the tasks I was given was new to me.
With how often we use our tools here, on top of student usage, shop maintenance is a constant. Planes and chisels need sharpening, floors need sweeping and carver’s vises need new jaws.
This is nothing against our beloved carver’s vises; we use them daily here. There is, however, one fault we’ve found with most of them – the softwood jaws that come standard on the vises have a tendency to lose their heartiness over time. (The newly recast Grizzly vise comes with hardwood jaws.)
Either the constant use causes the screw holes of the jaws to strip (which is what happened in this case) or the soft pine cracks. Or both (which is what happened in this case). When these things happen, either oak or hickory are what we typically use for new jaws.
After Chris gave me a quick lesson on how to replace the old jaws, I got to work.
Below is a visual step-by-step of how I made this repair.