Lost Art Press

In addition to the campaign trunk with the clocked screws, my dad and I saw some other good examples of campaign furniture in the shops in Charleston, S.C., on Thursday.

Oh, we also found some poopy examples – stuff from the 1970s where the hardware was all applied to the surfaces – not flush like most of the well-made vintage stuff. I didn’t take photos of those. They hurt my eyes like the time the lady next to me in airport security had to lift up her fat folds for the guards to reveal a forgotten fanny pack.

The highlight was a fairly early mahogany chest we found at the 17 South antiques store. Priced at less than $4,000, I wanted to take it home with me to study.

The hardware was beautifully inset, and the skeletonized hardware suggested it was a fairly early chest – before 1830. Upon inspecting the inside, I found lots of overcuts that pointed out the dovetail layout for the full-blind dovetails that attached the top to the sides.

With this particular example, the tails were on the ends of the chest and the pins were on the tops and bottoms. That’s not always the case.

Also cool: a dovetail liquor box and an Anglo-Indian Campaign secretary found at a shop on King Street.

Collectors differentiate between items made in England and those made in the colonies. Piece like this could have been made anywhere in the world, from the Indies to India to China. Usually the construction isn’t as good as with the British pieces, but sometimes it is just as good.

This piece had some weirdness to it, but I really liked the way the writing slope folded out of the center drawer.

Today I leave Charleston (which always depresses me a bit) to teach at The Woodwright’s School in Pittsboro, N.C., for a few days. Then it’s back home to continue work on a campaign trunk I started earlier this week.

— Christopher Schwarz

The following is a composite of letters I’ve received about my personal problem of clocking screws. Note that I don’t think you should clock your screws. in fact, I don’t think you should even think about clocking screws. Think instead about screws with slots at all random angles.

— Christopher Schwarz

Dear Mr. Swartz,

I just read your article about clocking screws and I don’t know where you get the idea that professional cabinetmakers ever clocked their screws. Clocking screws means the screws are either over-tightened or under-tightened, so it is a mark of a poor craftsman with a mental problem.

I bet you line up all your pencils on your desk. Or lick light switches.

Woodworkers wouldn’t have taken the time to clock screws anyway.

I’ll bet you got all your little Communist flags all lined up in your caviar bowls when you have your little anarchist friends over to talk about your anarchosyndicate communes. And you line up your pita crisps, too.

Oh, and good woodworkers never overcut their baselines when dovetailing, either. That – like clocking screws – is just sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.

God Bless America, you Red Overcutting Screw Clocker.

— Lord Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftsbury