This Friday and Saturday, Midwest Woodworking will be holding what is likely its last wood sale – plus veneers and most of the machinery on the shop floor.
The sale is 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. both days. Midwest is located at 4019 Montgomery Road in Cincinnati, Ohio. Here’s a Google Map.
Both Andy Brownell and I have spilled so many ones and zeros on Midwest, I hope I don’t have to repeat myself. It will be worth the drive. Yes, the wood is well-priced. But what is more important is that it is primo. Much of it is decades old, dry, stable and mild. And it has been stored flat.
Stuff from modern lumberyards (at least the ones around here) just does not compare.
You can now download “By Hand & Eye” by George R. Walker and Jim Tolpin for your computer or mobile device.
The price is $16 and can be downloaded directly from our store here. International customers can purchase the file via PayPal by sending $16 U.S. to John Hoffman’s PayPal account at john@lostartpress.com. You will then receive a link to download the file.
Because of the graphics-intense nature of the book, we are offering it in pdf format only and at an unusually high resolution. The file is more than 100mb and is free of all DRM (digital rights management) or other electronic locks.
The book is augmented by a series of electronic animations, which can be downloaded here.
About the Book “By Hand & Eye” is a deep dive into the world of history, architecture and design. And the authors have emerged with armloads of pearls for readers.
Instead of serving up a list of formulas with magical names (i.e. the Golden Section, the Rule of Thirds) that will transform the mundane into perfection, George R. Walker and Jim Tolpin show how much of the world is governed by simple proportions, noting how ratios such as 1:2; 3:5 and 4:5 were ubiquitous in the designs of pre-industrial artisans. And the tool that helps us explore this world, then as now, are dividers.
The key to good design is to master these basic “notes” – much like learning to sing “do, re, mi.” How to do this is the subject of the first three-quarters of the book. It offers exercises, examples and encouragement in opening your inner eye, propping it up with toothpicks and learning the simple geometry that will help you improve your design.
The last quarter of “By Hand & Eye” takes these principles and puts them into practice by designing nine projects that are decidedly contemporary – proof positive that design isn’t reserved for highboys and 18th-century Philadelphia side chairs. The projects show all of the book’s design principles in full flower, and yet the projects are small enough and simple enough (for the most part) that you can use them as a way to explore the book’s concepts without risking a lot of wood or time in the process.
“By Hand & Eye” is not, however, a recipe book for better design. The principles of good design are learned through exercise and repetition, and the authors offer the critical exercises in every chapter. Reading about good design is not enough to be able to master it. You have to practice it until it becomes second nature and your hand and your eye work together as one.
“By Hand & Eye” is 200 pages long with full-color illustrations.
Several readers have asked how far the students in my tool chest class at the Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking got on Friday afternoon.
Everyone got their lids complete. About four or five people got the dust seal on. Honestly, I think every student could have finished both the lid and the dust seal, but everyone was tired and ready to crack open a beer or try a shot of Connecticut moonshine (that is not a typo).
So we spent the last hour just yacking it up.
As for me, I had Carl “Mr. Wonderful” Bilderback assisting me this week, so I was able to finish the entire shell of the chest and get three coats of milk paint on the carcase.
At one point I asked Carl, a retired union carpenter, to give me a hand with the painting. He readily and cheerfully agreed. But then he noted that during his career he always told people he’d “rather have a rat in my mouth than paint something.”
After seven days of teaching and 1,400 miles of driving, I arrived home last night. I kissed my family, ate dinner with them and (when they weren’t looking) slinked down to the shop to work on the leg vise of my French oak workbench.
My leg vise is patterned as closely as possible to the one shown in A.-J. Roubo’s plate 11. That means no fancy curves (just one curve), no parallel guide and no garter. This makes the leg vise simple to make, but there are still some significant details to execute.
1. Relieve the clamping face of the chop. Roubo writes: “You also close the piece of the press “n” a bit hollowed on its length [canted inward at its top], so that in being closed, it can still pinch at the end.” This detail is also shown on plate 11. I relieved the rear of the jaw to make it look as much as it does on plate 11 by using a stop-cut on my powered jointer.
While I was working on the chop, I also sawed and rasped the 2”-radius curve on the top of the chop. This is not just for looks. It allows you to clamp stuff close to the bench and work it with tools at a steep angle (such as rasps and chisels). It’s a very smart detail in my opinion.
2. Add a ring of iron to the hub of the vise screw. Roubo writes: “This screw is normally of wood, across the head of which passes an iron bar “r,” with which you tighten and untighten according to your need, and you supplement the edge of the head of the screw with an iron ring for fear that it will split.” I turned down a rabbet on the end of the hub until I could drive on the iron ring, which was made by blacksmith Peter Ross. As per plate 11, I will drill and countersink a hole through the ring so I can screw the ring to the hub.
I was going to wait until winter to turn down the hub so that the wooden screw will be at its minimum diameter. But I was eager to get it done. We’ll see if I get snake-bit.
Now I just have to clean up the chop a bit, and I’ll be ready to mount the vise.
Tomorrow, I’m working on the planing stop, a 3” x 3” x 12” piece of oak I need to mortise into the benchtop. I’ll make the mortise with the help of WoodOwl bits, which Jameel Abraham turned me onto. These relatively inexpensive bits are going to change the way I build benches in the future.
The real challenge in teaching a class on “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” is this: How can I make woodworkers cut dovetails as fast (and accurate) as possible?
When I first began teaching tool chest classes, we weren’t able to glue up the carcases until late, late Wednesday night or Thursday. Then it was a mad rush to get the rest of the chest completed.
Since then I have learned to put away the “encouragement whip” and get out the “punishment whip.” (I wonder why women rarely take my classes?)
Today – the second day of the course at the Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking – we have a third of the 15 chests glued up. The rest will be glued up on the third day before lunch. This is a frickin’ cake walk.
What has changed? Well, to be honest, I am a poor teacher at best. Honest and true. But I have learned a few tricks from some fantastic teachers. Here are two of them.
1. Teach the information is small, manageable bites. Send students back to their benches to perform one operation. Repeat. This is from Trevor Smith, a high school physics teacher in Troy, Mich. The dude is an amazing teacher. I watched him teach for one day and learned more about teaching that day than in any other time period.
2. If you say it will happen, it will happen. Advice from Doug Dale, one of the outstanding assistants and teachers at Marc Adams School of Woodworking. If you set the goal for the day as “you will finish this particular operation,” then – surprise – the students achieve that goal. Weird.
And there is one thing I bring to the table: debasing the dovetail joint.
I do not treat this joint as a holy relic – St. Christopher’s duodenum. It’s a mechanical joint that is easy to cut if you break it down into small bites (thanks again, Trevor). None of the operations in cutting a dovetail is hard. The only thing that is difficult is being consistent with every operation.
With five chests together today, and all of them looking really, really good, I feel justified in drinking a beer.
