The Woodworker magazine, Chips from the Chisel: Good Fellowship, 1936
“Old things return with a difference. Nowadays we do not burn Yule logs nor go a-mumming. Our feasting has less of the grand heartiness of the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, Christmas, almost alone of all the great feasts, has retained its essential spirit of universal good will. Christmas opens the heart, sweeps away some of the cobwebs from our darker corners. The feast of the family, it reminds us of the greater family to which we all belong, and a tide of good fellowship flows out at Christmas to the poor and the lonely as at no other time of the year. We should all be poorer without it, for there is a fellowship in rejoicing which remains over when the last crumb of the feast has been swept away, when the last sprig of holly has been burned.
“Among craftsmen, especially, a spirit of good fellowship makes all the difference. Modern conditions do not always make it easy. Wherever there is a feeling of insecurity a man may easily become distrustful of his fellows, guarding his knowledge with the feeling that it is the one thing he has to arm him against the world. But hoarded knowledge can never be as productive as knowledge which is shared. It is not the man who warns off enquirers with a mutter of “trade secrets” and a “please-keep-off-the-grass” expression who will keep abreast of the times, but the man who will readily exchange experiences, discuss, and, when need be, give guidance to others. It is remarkable, when one comes to think of it, the number of ideas which are generated in conversation. A tradesman can easily, in answering the questions of the novice, be brought to consider for the first time the whys and wherefores of using certain processes. Such was the trade custom, but why? Or, swopping experiences with another old hand, he gets to know of other methods as sound, maybe sounder, than his own. But he has to give as well as take. There has to be fellowship, even in the generation of ideas.”
David Savage, author of “The Intelligent Hand,” is in the hospital and not doing well. Before he leaves us, I want to get something off my chest.
I met David in person in 2014, but I had known about him and his work for many years. On this side of the Atlantic Ocean, David’s designs (which are incredible) never get a lot of press. But on occasion his articles about hand tools, business and the craft cross the sea.
His blunt, some would say “pungent,” tone rubs many people the wrong way. He rattles manufacturers when he states his opinion about tool steels (he hates A2), the state of tool manufacturing (fairly sorry) and honing guides (also not a fan).
I loved his columns in The Woodworker and Furniture & Cabinetmaking magazines. While I disagree with him on some points (and who cares about points?), I admire his courage to say what he thinks, which is based on long experience. He doesn’t equivocate. And he does not give a stuff (his words) whether you like it or not.
I was eager to meet him. When the chance arrived in 2014, I was teaching a tool chest class at Warwickshire College. David drove up from London to meet me for an early dinner. When I told the students and instructors my plans with David, they were quick to warn me. The short version: They’d heard through the grapevine that David is difficult, wickedly opinionated, pigheaded, even rude.
I walked to the restaurant and found David outside. We shook hands, and within five minutes I knew he was going to be a friend for life.
No matter what you’ve heard from others, David is a lovely man. Generous to a fault. Self-deprecating (also to a fault). Terribly honest. And has no secrets (that I could find).
While all that is important for you to know, I also want you to know that my relationship with David fixed me (I can’t think of a better word) in many ways as a human being.
Like David, my writing has always attracted strong detractors, ever since my first piece was published in my 8th-grade newspaper (a profile of a bunch of snobby homecoming queen candidates). Throughout my career, I’ve been baffled by the hate letters. It’s one of the big reasons I shut down my public email – I was weary of the steady diet of threats (mostly beatings, but one Klan death warning), threats of lawsuits and people who wished ill on me, my business, my family.
I’ve compared notes with fellow writers. Except for the political columnists, I have a way-above-average hate magnet. To be honest, this criticism eroded and sometimes shredded my psyche. I’m sure this was the intent of the detractors. And I was a loser in the battle.
David was the first writer I ever met who had the same hate magnet. But he was better than me. He did not brood. Instead, he carried on with his life and work. He didn’t back down, compromise his ideals or even mellow (“The Intelligent Hand” is evidence of that).
Having observed David for the last four years, I now have the courage to follow his example. His business and his creative spirit survived bankruptcy and becoming radioactive in his own trade. (Side note: David said that after his bankruptcy, one of the first people to call him with words of encouragement was John Brown.)
After spending 16 days with David in Devon, I rewrote “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” and it became a book with a much sharper edge. A book that was much closer to my thoughts as a woodworker. This summer, as I edited and designed “The Intelligent Hand,” I felt the last of my inhibitions fall away. (Thank you, David.)
Because of him, my next book might be a monster. And now I don’t give a stuff, either.
I don’t have the words to fully state my gratitude. My thanks will be in the form of my next book. I only hope he will be here to read it. Who knows? Crazier things have happened.
Here’s the quick version: We won’t have any new stock on dividers or lump hammers until January at the earliest. We are working hard to build up inventory on these items, here are some details.
On lump hammers, we have moved some of the finishing operations to the shop in Covington, Ky. Brendan Gaffney and Megan Fitzpatrick will be grinding the machined hammer heads, finishing the handles and assembling them. They are working on their first batch now.
This change will speed up production greatly. But changing our manufacturing process (and the holidays) have slowed us down. We had to move equipment, build new jigs and train Megan and Brendan.
On dividers, we have a large batch that is machined but needs to be finished and assembled. These were also snared in the equipment changes. Raney is setting up a new belt grinder in the Lab to complete the dividers and some future tools.
As soon as we have any new information we will post it here and on the Crucible blog. Promise.
We’ve created a poll that will allow you to vote for which stickers we should reprint. The poll is open now and will close at midnight on Dec. 31, 2018.
You can vote for as many stickers as you like. After you have clicked on all your favorites, you must click the “vote” button at the bottom of the page for your vote to be recorded.
These bookcases are similar to a set I built for the June 2011 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine, which has the complete plans with step photos and instruction. You can download a free SketchUp model of the bookcase here.
The Story Behind the Shelves
I’m allowed to quote myself, right? Here, then, is the backstory on these shelves. Read it before I issue myself a cease-and-desist letter.
I like to think of Thomas Jefferson’s personal library as America’s first “Bookmobile.”
When the British burned down the nation’s capitol in 1814, the inferno took with it many of the books owned by the government of our young nation. Lucky for us, Jefferson had a personal library of about 6,700 books – an astonishing accomplishment for the time.
And after some negotiations, Jefferson agreed to cede his entire library at Monticello to Congress for the sum of $23,950. The question was, how to transport 6,700 books from Virginia north to Washington, D.C., with horse-drawn wagons.
Lucky for us, Jefferson was a clever man. He stored his precious library in pine boxes that were designed specifically to travel. While it isn’t known if Jefferson designed the book boxes (or “book presses” as they are sometimes called), they do bear the mark of his cleverness.
For when the day came to transport this massive chunk of knowledge, the process was straightforward. Scrap paper was stuffed among the books to protect them, then a lid was nailed over the front of each unit and it was loaded onto a wagon and carted to Washington.
Jefferson’s collection of books (which continues to make headlines even today) was the foundation for our Library of Congress. His method for organizing his books (memory, reason and imagination) pushed us into a more modern classification system. Until that time it was common to organize books by height or color.
But What About the Boxes?
While a good deal is known about the books in Jefferson’s collection that he sold to Congress, far less is known about the stackable boxes that he used to store his library at Monticello. By examining the written records, officials at Monticello built six bookcases for the museum in 1959 that are a good guess at what would have housed Jefferson’s library (though he could have had as many as 20 of these units, if you do the math).
Since the day I started woodworking, I have been concerned about amassing information on the craft. For me, the written word enhances my personal experience in the shop, and it is a way to stay in touch with the craft while I am on the road, in bed or sitting on the couch.
As my library got out of hand sometime about 2005, I decided I needed to build something to store all my woodworking books. I also wanted something that would allow them to be easily transported when my wife and I leave our house after the kids are off to college, and we launch the next phase of our lives.
And so I became interested in Jefferson’s book boxes. I read the original letters that describe how the books were transported. I used the standard measurements for books of the day to help fill in the blanks when it came to designing the three different case sizes Jefferson describes in his correspondence.
Oh, and what was the joinery on these boxes? Who knows. Perhaps the boxes were nailed together, as there were as many as 150 individual book boxes to hold the nearly 6,700 books.
But I prefer to think that our third president, who was familiar with the principles of joinery, would insist on something more substantial. And so, despite the fact that no surviving examples of these book boxes exist, I built each of these units using through-dovetails with mitered shoulders at the corners. (Here’s a video showing how to do it.) The backs are shiplapped and nailed on to the carcases.
This approach to building a box is typical for the time, and I bet that my modern book boxes would easily survive a wagon journey from Monticello to Washington, D.C.
The bookcase from the back. Here you can see the battens that keep all the components in line.
About This Set of Bookshelves
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more OCD (apologies to poor Brendan and Megan, who suffer my wrath when the shop’s coffee mugs are unwashed). So when faced with making a new set of these shelves, I decided to ratchet up the insanity.
At the customer’s request, all the visible boards are full-width (I hid a couple glue-ups and buried the seams below the tailboards). At my stupid brain’s request, I made the ends of the cases all one single board with the grain matched all the way up the 7’2” case. It took months (and cash) to find the right 14”-wide walnut boards.
To make it harder, I made the dovetails line up all the way up the case sides, a detail I cribbed from Jameel Abraham when he built his version of these bookcases.
Then, because that wasn’t hard enough, I made the backboards match all the way up the case. Yesterday I juggled 30 pine backboards that had to all line up or it would look like crap. Also, the way I staggered the widths of the backboards was a math equation. Let’s just agree that I made this harder than it should be.
The bookshelves are finished with shellac. The backboards are finished with two coats of super blonde shellac. The cases and plinth are finished with three coats of garnet shellac.
And now I just have to build the crate. This sucker has to go on a truck bound for Michigan at 8 a.m. Friday. This weekend, I’ll take it easy and complete a couple small projects for a customer in California. Then, on Monday, I start the most difficult and involved project so far (besides my kids). It’s a massive three-tiered campaign chest with three transit cases that store the disassembled chest components and then stack as a wardrobe.
We’ve created a poll that will allow you to vote for which stickers we should reprint. The poll is open now and will close at midnight on Dec. 31, 2018.
