An almost-done stick chair in elm. And an LAP Waist Apron that could use a visit to the laundry.
I’m afraid you’re on your own this weekend for woodworking questions. Chris has set aside his apron for a few days, and is busy for the next few days shooting pictures for Matt Cianci‘s forthcoming book on saw sharpening. And depending on when you read this, I’m either showing Elia Bizzarri around our shop and the new building (Elia is busy working on his Windsor chair book) , or driving Derek Jones up to Marc Adams where he’s teaching next week, after sending six new cricket table makers into the world from our Covington shop (Derek’s cricket table book is thisclosetobeingdone!).
We are awaiting a revised edition of “The Stick Chair Book,” which should arrive in early September. So we are closing out the remaining copies of the first edition of this book for $24 each (it was $51).
The forthcoming revised edition is about 10 percent smaller. It has the exact same content as the current edition, but I rewrote the text this summer to tighten it up to my satisfaction. Every sentence and almost page of the book has been streamlined as a result. Other changes to the revised edition include a new cover cloth (it will be black, of course) and better interior paper. The first edition of the book was printed during the supply chain crisis, and we were lucky we got any paper for this book.
Most publishers would simply pulp the remaining copies of the first edition. But we decided to offer them at a discount. It’s our hope that some readers who couldn’t afford the $51 price might be able to swing $24. Or perhaps some readers might want to pick up a copy as a gift for someone. Or a book collector might like a sealed first edition.
We have about 200 copies. All are sealed and are in mint condition. These are not factory seconds or returns.
We have a small batch of Warrington-pattern hammers in stock and ready to ship. The heads are made in Nicholasville, Kentucky by Craig Jackson’s crew at Machine Time. The oiled hickory handles are made in Tennessee. The hammers are hand assembled, wedged and glued.
They are $97 each. You can read all about the hammer in our store, including what the hammer’s cross-peen is used for.
Spend a weekend in October cutting dovetails with me (Megan Fitzpatrick) in gorgeous central Kentucky at the Woodworking School at Pine Croft (with luck, the trees surrounding the school will be a riot of fall color by then!).
It’s a two-day class – Oct. 14 & 15 – in making a classic Shaker silverware tray, with gently arced ends, handholds and, of course, dovetails. And speaking of Shakers – if you’re in the area, why not also plan a day at Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill.
In the class, you’ll learn:
Dovetail layout with dividers
How to cut the joints, aiming to “fit off the saw”
How to wield a coping or fret saw
How to pare and chop to a line with a chisel
Strategies for transferring the tails to the pin board
Techniques for fitting the joint
How to lay out then cut and fair the handles (both the hand holds and the curved top edge)
How to smooth-plane your surfaces
How to use cut nails (to secure the bottom board…if you wish – but there’s an argument for leaving it loose)
And of course, how to put it all together (and why I recommend liquid hide glue).
– Fitz
These make great handmade gifts – above is a stack of last-minute gifts I made in 2022 from pieces in our scrap bin.
We have a handful of “cosmetic seconds” available of our Type 2 Crucible Dividers. There are minor blemishes caused by the tumbling process, and perhaps a few small spots of rust. All are 100 percent functional and have been reinspected.
We’ve stamped all of them with a No. 2, (indicating a second) which is the biggest blemish or mark on the tools. We’ve included photos of some of the cosmetic marks, and we picked the worst-case ones.
These tools are normally $126. We are selling the blemished ones for $90. That’s about a 29 percent discount.
