In digging through the inventory I found a large plastic trash bag full of shirts. We are already looking at a new design due out for Woodworking in America, but before we have anything else enter my domain we need to blow out the current blockage. In other words I have no more space. To see the shirts click here. All the shirts except the Anarchist Tool Chest editions, are American Apparel stock. The prices have been reduced and include shipping. We are limited in some sizes which you will see when you get to the order page.
When I started teaching woodworking about 10 years ago, it felt like I was spending more time flattening the sharpening stones than I was teaching.
It’s a common problem in hand-tool classes and shops: As soon as a woodworker finishes up an edge, he or she is so eager to get back to the bench that the stone is left hollow. A few years ago I started making this threat: “Leave my stones hollow and you will be fined one beer.”
That worked. Now I drink too much beer.
Turns out this was a solution in traditional shops as well. Here’s a great quote dug up by the always-digging Jeff Burks.
When the edge requires grinding and whetting, in the former of these operations, viz. the grinding, is performed on a flat rub-stone, similar to what carpenters sharpen their plane-irons on, with the application of water. This stone is about six inches broad, and eighteen long, and so careful are they to keep its surface flat, that it is a regulation in the work-shops, for every workman, after using the stone, to write his name upon it with a piece of coal; when, if his successor finds it left so uneven, that a halfpenny can be passed underneath the edge of an iron, straight-edged, laid upon it, the former workman is subjected to a fine for his carelessness.
One of the great unsung heroes of the hand-tool movement is Mike Siemsen. If Roy Underhill ever decides to retire, Mike gets my vote to be the new Woodwright. Mike’s whip-smart, has the personality of a carnival barker (in a good way), and has the hand skills to back it all up.
If you’ve attended WIA in past years, you’ve probably been assaulted by Mike in the Marketplace as he tried to goad or guilt you into participating. This year, Mike is a speaker and will be presenting a session called “The Thrifty Woodworker.” Mike told me a bit about it when we attended the Handworks show in May. Don’t miss it.
Sign up for Woodworking in America, Oct. 18-20 – or Mike will build a coffin, throw you in it and parade you around the Marketplace.
As other retailers sign on, we will post that information here.
If you live in the united States, you can order your copy direct from us before Oct. 10 and receive free domestic shipping. To read more about the book, download some sample pages and order your copy, visit our store here.
These men cannot live in regular society. They are too idle, too talkative, too passionate, too prodigal, and too shiftless to acquire either property or character. They are impatient with the restraints of law, religion, and morality; grumble about the taxes by which rulers, ministers, and schoolmasters are supported; and complain incessantly, as well as bitterly, of the extortions of mechanics, farmers, merchants, and physicians to who they are always indebted.
— Timothy Dwight, president of Yale College from 1795 to 1817, on the lumberers of Maine.