Lost Art Press

On Drinking & Woodworking

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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It’s no secret that I like beer. So I get asked by students occasionally: Do you drink while you are in the shop? The answer?

Absolutely, yes.

Now, before you read another word, know that I am not an uptight or judgmental person by nature. Plus, I want to live a long life with all my natural-born fingers attached to my hands – not sitting in mason jars on the mantlepiece.

Now the “correct” answer is to never ever touch a woodworking tool if you have even seen a beer commercial on television. Jamais! Nicht! Etc.! Historically, we know this teetotaler approach is new. Craftsmen of all trades drank all the time in the shop. There are so many accounts of drinking in shops from the 18th until the early 20th centuries that it’s weird to find an early account of a shop where people didn’t drink.

The drink was likely lower in alcohol than what we consume today. But judging from the quantities listed in historical accounts, we are all on the same historical Breathalyzer.

So what is a reasonable approach? Can you have a beer in the shop in Saturday afternoon?

Here’s my thinking, which has been developed during the last 20 years by doing stupid things (a bottle of wine and a lathe do not mix) and finding my limits.

If I have had any alcohol in the last few hours, I won’t turn on machinery. OK, I might turn on a shop vacuum. But I’m not going to mess with cutting tools.

If I have had one beer, all hand-tool operations are go. I’ll saw, plane and chisel to my heart’s content. By the way, I don’t feel anything after one beer, but I’m 6’3” and 180 pounds.

If I have had two beers or less, I’ll do donkey work. That means I’ll do some handplaning, maybe some rough sawing. But I won’t cut joinery and I definitely avoid the chisels, which are the single-most dangerous hand tools in the shop.

After three beers, I’ll clean the shop – there are very few broom injuries reported to the federal government. I put away tools. I oil stuff. Or I’ll stare at my work in progress and make notes. As a writer, I appreciate the effect that alcohol has on the creative process – do not discount it. Alcohol removes inhibitions, and sometimes that’s what I need when I stare at a work in progress. I need to decide: This stinks. Or, this needs radical surgery.

I rarely drink more than three beers in a night, unless things are going really well or really poorly. Then I sit down with the laptop and write a blog entry, which may or may not get published the next day.

So that’s the truth. You might disagree with my approach, but all I can do is repeat the following quote from one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century: “Lighten up, Francis.”

— Christopher Schwarz

‘A Bad Influence’

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Every time I teach at Roy Underhill’s “The Woodwright’s School,” he gives me a rash of crap for two things: my waterstones and my plastic, pressurized plant sprayer that I use to moisten my stones.

He now begrudgingly ignores my waterstones, perhaps after I offered data that many early sharpening stones in the Western tradition were also lubricated with water. But the plastic plant sprayer just won’t cut it in the 1930s-era environment that Roy cultivates in his school.

And so this week I bought an old(ish) brass plant mister so that I can avoid the conversation about plastic this year. The mister isn’t particularly old, but it was cheap and works just fine. You can dispense water by tipping the mister forward (like a watering can) or press the top plunger to get some mist from the nozzle.

I’m mentioning this because I am indeed teaching a class in 2015 at The Woodwright’s School. Roy released the 2015 schedule last week and my name wasn’t on it. I got a few messages along the lines of: Did Roy catch you sleeping with his dog?

The answer is no, he did not catch me.

We haven’t set a date for the class yet because Roy is trying to coordinate it with shooting a couple of episodes of “The Woodwright’s Shop.” When we do settle on a date, I’ll announce it here. At this point, I think the class is going to be on how to make the collapsible bookshelves from “Campaign Furniture.” A fun project.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. The headline of this blog entry is in tribute to Megan Fitzpatrick (who also is supposed to be teaching at Roy’s in 2015). A reader complained to Megan’s boss that I was a “bad influence” on her. If you know Megan, you know how funny that is.

6 Tools for Sale ALL SOLD

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To keep this sale civil and smooth, please, please, please read this with care before sending me a note about buying any tools.

If you subscribe to our blog via e-mail, click through to the page to see if the tool you want has been sold. As soon as the tool is sold, I will mark it as such here on the blog.

All prices include domestic shipping. I apologize for this, but I don’t have time now to wait in the line at USPS for 30 minutes per order to ship international packages. If you have a U.S. address, we’re golden.

Ask me all the questions you like about an item. But the first one to say “I’ll take it” gets it. After I receive your your payment, I will ship the tool to you. If I don’t get your payment within two weeks, the piece goes back up for sale.

To buy an item, send an e-mail to chris@lostartpress.com and in the subject line please put the name of the item you want. If you say “I’ll take it,” and I don’t know what item you want, confusion ensues.

Whew. I hate rules. But here we go.

All the tools sold.

Thank You ‘Book of Plates’

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Whether or not you purchase “l’Art du Menuisier: The Book of Plates” makes no difference to me personally. I have my copy, and it is making my woodworking life more interesting.

Today I finished up the first edit of the final bit of our forthcoming translation of A.J. Roubo’s writings on furniture and tools. (Don’t get too excited, it still has to travel a long way to arrive at the end of the goose – look for it in early summer.)

Today was devoted to plate 265, which describes “Autre Secretarie mobile Pupitre, et Petite Table a Ecrie.” AKA, an incredible unfolding, mechanical secretarie that I am hopelessly in love with. It is one part simple Creole-style side table, one part Transformer and two parts Jere Osgood’s Shell Desk.

As I edited the translated text, the words alone weren’t clear as to how the desk’s pigeonhole section pivots up. I had some detail drawings, but those weren’t enough to make the mechanism clear. Only when I opened “The Book of Plates” and took in the entire plate in full size did the scales fall from eyes. I immediately “got it” – like a Zen koan.

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After that, the editing was a snap. I knew how the desk worked and could build it myself. My copy of “The Book of Plates” just paid for itself.

By the way, reader response to “The Book of Plates” has been incredibly positive (custom wooden box issues aside). It was a financial gamble that just might pay off. You can still get one before Christmas if you order it by Dec. 19 – all books are now shipping Priority mail, which will arrive in three business days.

Though it’s only 3:30 p.m., finishing plate 265 (and the other 87 plates) calls for a beer.

— Christopher Schwarz

Let’s Purge Our Tools Together

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Because of the traveling and writing I do, I end up with tools I do not want or need. It makes me a little nuts.

Some of this is people who give me excess tools and say: “Find a needy student who could use this.” Others are tools that I purchase to write reviews, or because I need a tool while on the road, or to help someone out of a jam.

Many of these tools I’ll be giving away to students at my Hand Tool Immersion class at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking in 2015. But some of these tools are too specialized or exotic to put in the hands of a newbie.

And so I’m going to sell them off here on the blog starting tomorrow. I’ll post the mechanism for purchasing the tools tomorrow. Please do not e-mail me asking for a list of tools I’ll be selling (I don’t have time for that) or special treatment (that will only annoy me). Prices will be more than fair.

In the meantime, think about any excess tools that you own that could be doing good work in the hands of another woodworker. Whenever I visit tool collectors who have racks of user-grade tools, all I can think of is the unused potential gathering dust before me. To be sure, rare and oddball stuff is better off in a collection. But garden-variety bench planes should be on a bench somewhere (in my opinion).

If you want to purge your tools, consider selling them on one of the swap-n-sell areas on the woodworking discussion forums. Or there’s always eBay.

Once you pare your tools down to a good, basic set, you will find that taking care of your tools is easier because you have fewer. You will have a little extra money for wood, glue and finishing supplies. And the tools you sold will have a new home where they are used and appreciated.

— Christopher Schwarz