We’re eager to ship out copies of the deluxe “Roubo on Furniture Making,” but are still waiting for the custom boxes to be delivered to our warehouse.
Note: When I write “custom boxes” I am referring to cardboard shipping containers, not hand-dovetailed wooden boxes (as one customer thought and then complained about).
Why didn’t we have the boxes made beforehand? We didn’t know the exact size and weight of the book. The boxes are designed to cradle this book so it cannot move in shipment. Even with modern manufacturing methods, we didn’t dare have the boxes made until we had the actual book in our hands.
As soon as the boxes arrive and they start packing them up, I’ll post an update here.
The darkest corner of Pépère’s shop both fascinates and frightens me. It is full of spiderwebs and dust. It is there that Pépère keeps the tools he doesn’t use anymore.
It’s also the place he keeps the odds and ends of things he calls his “couldcomeinhandy’s.”
He says it would be a terrible idea to clean the corner, because the elves would be furious. Grandma says he should be ashamed it is such a mess, and that he could easily clean up that shambles. Pépère just chuckles.
Today I came in earlier than usual. I brought a flashlight to look through the jumble of things in the corner while Pépère had gone to break his bread. I discovered a big blue chest. When Pépère came back into the shop, I tugged on his sleeve and asked him what it was.
— It’s Pépé Clothaire’s tool chest, he said, tapping his finger on the chest.
— Tool Chest?!?
— Pépé Clothaire’s chest was handed down from his grandfather, and certainly from the grandfather of his grandfather!
Pépère wrinkles his nose a bit, and he tugs on his mustache.
— Wow! It must be incredibly old! Open it! Show me what is inside!
Pépère goes to the keyboard on the wall and picks up a little key among the many hanging on nails there, and he makes a little space around the chest. He turns on the light and with a broom sweeps the dust off the top of the chest. The key goes cric-crac in the lock.
When he opens the chest, Pépère’s eyes shine. He shows me the underside of the top where the big English saw had been stored. Then he pulls out the tools and arranges them on the floor of the shop, and he teaches me the names of them all:
— Wow, Pépère, they are a little rusty…
— Yes, and they are covered with dust that tickles your nose. You see, here are almost all of your Pépé Clothaire’s tools, all that he needed to build the roof structures of churches, of castles, and of houses. But there is one missing…Wait a second, I think that it is over here, it was too long to fit in the chest.
He wipes his nose and rummages around in the corner of the woodshop. He returns, peeling oily rags off a long, strange tool.
— Is is the besaiguë of Pépé Clothaire, Pépère tells me before I can ask him what it is. The ends of the tool are protected by leather sheaths. He takes them off to show me:
— On one end you have a big chisel, like a slick, and on the other a mortise chisel. To cut a mortise, the carpenter would drill a series of holes into a beam , and then use the besaiguë to finish the square hole in the wood. He also used it to shape the pegs used to pin the joints, and when he wanted to show off, he would even use it to sharpen his pencil!
Pépère shows me how he can use the besaiguë to shape a peg from a scrap of oak.
— Pépère, who did the besaiguë belong to, before Pépé Clothaire?
Pépère’s face falls a little, and he says he will tell me about that later. Because he needs to put the tools away, because he has some work to do, and he isn’t going to do it alone. I help him put Clothaire’s tools back away in the chest. Pépère takes the angel’s head and looks at it, frowning, and stuffs it down deep into the chest.
Next Saturday, Sept. 9, is our regularly scheduled open day for Lost Art Press. We’ll have our complete line of books plus a good number of slightly damaged books at 50 percent of retail (cash only). And T-shirts. Coffee. Stickers.
I also have been informed that we will have a handful of Crucible dividers there that are cosmetic seconds (100 percent fully bang-on functional). Those also will be 50 percent of retail (cash only).
It’s ‘Sharpenday’ To reinforce the “Sharpen This” series of blog posts, I will offer free sharpening lessons all day. If you want to learn basic sharpening or get into more advanced topics, come on down. I don’t know everything about sharpening, but I’ll be happy to share what I do know.
(Note: Let’s not make this day about me rehabbing your old or damaged tools. If you’d like to bring in a tool to discuss, great. I’ll show you how to sharpen it, but you will do the grinding and honing. One guy brought in a box of old planes for me to fix for him once – that service is $60/hour plus materials.)
If you struggle with any aspect of sharpening, put your ego aside and come ask for guidance. If you don’t know how to sharpen curved blades (travishers or scorps), we can cover that. Scrapers? Yup. Grinding V-tools? Nope (those drive me nuts).
This past weekend I had the good fortune to accompany Roy Underhill and Peter Ross on a visit to a chair exhibit at the North Carolina History Center in New Bern, N.C. It is a collection of 75 turned “common” chairs from northeastern North Carolina. The guest curators, Mark Wenger and Hiram Perkinson, did a wonderful job of gathering and documenting the chairs for the exhibit.
The angled rungs on this chair are original, made to lean back. The chair is from the Hertford County, N.C., courthouse.This walnut chair from Northhampton County, N.C., was my favorite. It’s appeal might be because the over bore on the right front leg reminds me of something I would do.
The exhibit runs thru Sept. 17, and is free to the public. Tryon Palace is a couple blocks away from the history center and well worth checking out, too.
During the summer, tool manufacturers crank up the factories to create new products for the big selling season: September through Christmas. The manufacturers also hold media junkets to ply journalists and bloggers with free travel, meals and tools.
This blog entry is a warning from someone who covered the tool industry for 16 years and was sent (against my better judgment) on a few of these junkets when our tool reviewers couldn’t.
Here’s How it Works A tool company invites you to a city to see the new products they have planned for a fall release. They pay for your plane ticket, your hotel and usually all your meals. Usually you get a tour of the factory (the best part – I love factory tours). They show you the new tools, you get to play with them and then they send you (for free) the ones you like when they are released.
Some companies are more ethical about it – they loan you the tools and they ask you to pay your way to the press event. Others are less ethical about it – they take you on a beach vacation, pay for family to come and send you home with anything you like from their catalog. One editor brought home a cabinet saw – for himself.
Rather than shaming bloggers, YouTubers and journalists by delving into the details further (one story involves a strip club; another involves an escort service), I’d like to tell you how to protect yourself as a consumer.
Don’t Buy Newly Released Tools Just like with cars, there is a shakeout period with manufacturing tools. The first ones off the line and into the stores are more likely to have problems, such as manufacturing errors. Or they are likely to suffer a design defect that the designers couldn’t foresee (such as a switch that is prone to dust contamination).
New technology – like new software – is buggy.
I know it’s tempting to want the latest gadget, but you are better off buying the gadget that has been in the stores for a few years and has all its bugs worked out. Plus, you can ignore the social media spooge-fest that occurs when someone puts a laser on a scratch awl.
Check a Blogger’s Disclosure Believe it or not, bloggers and social media people have to disclose to you if they received an item free or were paid to promote it. The Federal Trade Commission covers this in Title 16 part 255 of the federal regulations of electronic commerce. Read the section here. A plain-spoken guide is here. Lost Art Press’s disclosure is here.
Some bloggers are really transparent and ethical. A good example of this is Paul Sellers, probably the hand tool woodworker with the most eyeballs. His disclaimer is linked to right from his home page and is completely clear. Bravo Mr. Sellers.
Other writers are ignorant or simply ignore the law. If someone doesn’t have a disclaimer or disclosure statement, I assume they are taking free stuff.
I know there are some of you who don’t believe that giving people free tools affects what a person writes. This post is not for you. For the rest of us, I advise being a little more wary of what you see on Instagram, blogs, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter during the coming months. You might just end up a part of someone’s brilliant marketing plan.
