Happy Ending (Not the Massage Kind, Andrew)
My bank was open today – an oddity for President’s Day – so I took out as much cash as I dared and ventured to Midwest Woodworking in Norwood, Ohio.
The goal was to get some teak for the drawer fronts of my next campaign chest, plus some clear sugar pine for the drawers.
(Yes, I know that many campaign chests used no secondary wood. But many did, especially the ones that were intended for domestic service, according to a couple dealers I’ve interviewed.)
Buried in a stack of teak that was about 10’ off the ground, I uncovered the one teak board I needed. It was like the tree had grown this way to become the most perfect drawer fronts for my chest. It was 8” wide x 175” long, the cathedral was perfectly centered on the board and the two pin knots in the board were exactly 38” apart from one another. Perfect for drawer spacing.
Also, we dug up some old teak “rippers” that Frank David of Midwest sold me at a considerable discount. “Rippers” are the 2”- to 3”-wide stuff that falls off from a rip cut. These rippers are quartered or rift and perfect for web frames. So I grabbed three of these.
I brought my daughter Katy along and Megan Fitzpatrick – their presence skyrocketed the estrogen content of Midwest, and they helped me pull the lumber from the stacks and break it down to fit into Megan’s Subaru.
Today I also pulled out the hardware for this chest. If this next part sounds like a gloat, it is.
All the brasses for this project are cast vintage pieces of original hardware that were never used. The cast pulls are still wrapped in their original papers. The brackets and corner guards are cast (not stamped) and are the perfect color and vintage.
I found them all on eBay and paid only $100 for enough hardware for two chests.
Yes, I suck.
— Christopher Schwarz
Read more about Midwest on my blog at Popular Woodworking Magazine, or on Andy Brownell’s site.
Reminder on Free Shipping & Changes to the Blog
Wednesday, Feb. 20, is the last day you will be able to order Christian Becksvoort’s “With the Grain: A Craftsman’s Guide to Understanding Wood” with free domestic shipping. After Wednesday, shipping will be $7.
The book will be in our “warehouse” soon and shipped out before the end of the month.
We are currently working on creating both iPad- and Kindle-friendly versions of “With the Grain,” which we will sell through our site and will be DRM-free, as always. That process usually takes four to six weeks, so stay tuned.
Additions to the Blog
Look at the right-hand rail of the blog, and you’ll notice some additions there you might find helpful (or you might ignore).
1. We’ve reorganized the categories and now show how many blog posts are in each category, that number is in (parentheses).
2. A section called “Upcoming Events.” This shows where I’m teaching in the coming months, plus woodworking shows where Lost Art Press will have a booth. Even if you never leave your cave, this can be useful to you. When you send me an e-mail and you wonder why I’m not replying, and then you send me 10 more frantic crazy-sounding follow-ups, you might check the calendar and say: “Oh, he’s overseas.”
3. A section called “Current.” This is more for fun, especially if you like books, music or beer. I’ll be updating this section to let you know what book I’m currently editing or writing. Plus, it will list the books I’m reading – it will usually be a woodworking book. (Right now, however, I’m reading mindless zombie fiction, “World War Z,” which is the only known antidote for editing 18th-century French translations.) Plus, you can find what I’m listening to, building and drinking (though not all at the same time).
— Christopher Schwarz
Teak Campaign Chest: Begin the Begin
When I break down rough stock, I almost always use three sawbenches, a framing square and a handsaw.
Even when I had access to a monster radical-harm saw, I stuck to my handsaw because the process gave me loads of information that is lost in the roar of an electric tool.
The biggest advantage to using a handsaw is it makes you consider your cuts with care. I am less likely to make a mistake when I have a handsaw and a line. It might just be a personal problem, but fast machines encourage me to work at a faster pace, which makes me more prone to mistakes.
When I’m handsawing, I tend to repeat a quote I heard from an instructor at Lee Valley Tools: “Go slower. It’s faster.”
Also, the handsaw gives me buckets of information about the wood it’s chewing through. The saw tells me which boards are wet, which are dry. It reports back if there is a lot of internal tension in a board. Dense boards and lightweight boards are easy to pick out.
Plus you can sense when something has gone horribly wrong. Like tonight, when I was breaking down the rough-sawn 20th-century teak for my next campaign chest.
I cut down all the major parts of the carcases with no problem. But when I started cutting out the drawer fronts, the saw had this to report back: Dude, this ain’t teak.
Under 40 or 50 years of crud and dust and splinters, the saw found a very hard and dry mahogany. This first cut saved me from making a terrible set of mistakes when cutting out my drawer fronts.
That’s the good news. The bad news is I need some more teak for the drawer fronts.
Time to donate some plasma.
— Christopher Schwarz
Addition (2-18-13): I dug up from my notes the source of the quote. His name was Ian (don’t have his last name) from the Lee Valley store in Winnipeg.
Toothing Your Benchtop (for Bench Nerds)
Over at PopularWoodworking.com I have a new post on how (any why) I tooth my benchtop.
If you are a bench nerd, I think you’ll like this post.
— Christopher Schwarz