“I sit on a man’s back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by any means possible, except getting off his back.”
— Leo Tolstoy on authority, “Writings on Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence” (1886)
The best thing about leaving the corporate media culture after 22 years was that I restored two words to my lexicon: “yes” and “no.”
During the last two decades, most traditional media slashed production quality – paper size, paper weight, paper coatings, cover stock, binding quality. Think I’m full of crap? Pick up a decent magazine from the 1970s (no, not Nuns & Nazis) and compare it to its stunted and skinny 2013 progeny.
It’s easy to blame the Internet for this, but the real cause is far more nuanced and is not something I like to argue about in the comments of a woodworking blog.
Anyway, back to “yes” and “no.” When we print a book, we spend a lot of time mulling the manufacturing details. Some details you might not notice, but that’s OK. We do. So when our printer says, “That will cost you extra,” our response is almost always, “That’s fine. Do it.”
The cover deboss for Christian Becksvoort’s “With the Grain: A Craftsman’s Guide to Understanding Wood” is a good example. To get a deboss with this level of detail on a cotton cover, we had to invest in a copper die and rounds of experimentation. Most media companies I’ve worked for wouldn’t bother, saying (foolishly) that it wouldn’t help sales.
But we think it makes for a better book. And better books sell for longer than the typical modern 18-month book cycle.
And what about the word “no?” That’s the best part. We can say “no” to publishing books on routers and table saws and birdhouses that will have broader appeal. And we can say “no” to selling our books through home centers and discount booksellers, which choke small bookstores and publishers.
Now that we’ve approved the cover deboss – the bindery can finish the job. The book will be trucked to us shortly. And I hope that when you open your box from Lost Art Press, you will say: “Yes.”
— Christopher Schwarz
For those of you who won’t be able to attend Handworks in May, you can still find yourself a pair of Studley-like calipers for your shop with the help of the always-digging Jeff Burks.
Jeff did a little research on the so-called “register” calipers, which is the name that some manufacturers (but not all) used for this tool. Below are a good number of links that will help you search for the different brands.
The best link? The last one. It’s to a Japanese company that still makes this tool. Stainless steel. Several sizes. Hardened tips.
And metric.
The good news on the manufacturing front is that we are hopeful that a modern toolmaker will produce these for sale. The company borrowed our prototype and all our photos and measurements from the Studley version. So keep your fingers crossed.
I’ve been using our prototype in the shop for many months and find it to be a useful apron tool for handwork.
For the most part, I use it as an “adjustable mullet” – there’s a thumbscrew on the back of the tool that locks in a particular thickness. So when I’m raising a panel by hand, I lock the caliper at the groove’s width and use the caliper to determine when I’m finished.
I use the same basic procedure when cutting rabbets and surfacing stock by hand.
You can, of course, use a locking dial caliper to do the same job. Or a block of wood. This is just another way to do it.
— Christopher Schwarz
Links from Jeff Burks:
Illustrated Price-List of W.C. Duyckinck, 1877
Illustrated Catalogue of General Machinery and Supplies – Cooke and Co., 1883
A book of tools: Chas. A. Strelinger & Company, 1896
1890 Seeger and Guernsey’s Cyclopaedia of the Manufactures and Products of
the United States has a listing for all the caliper manufacturers in the
U.S. (Scroll to bottom) One of these companies likely made the Studley
register caliper.
Using that list I found an auction for a register caliper on Worthpoint. The style matches the Studley caliper, though it appears to be one of the larger versions. This one was stamped with the name Wm. Johnson Newark NJ. This company was founded in 1834 and operated from a building complex called the Hedenberg Works.
1898 G.W. Davis patent register caliper that piggybacks the earlier design.
1899 Seeger and Guernsey’s added a category for register calipers with one company: Kraeuter Co. Newark, NJ – founded 1860 and also operated from the Hedenberg
Works.
Several books printed after 1900 contain illustrations of the register caliper:
1906 Henley’s Encyclopaedia of Practical Engineering.
1913 The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia: Volume 2
Niigata Seiki of Japan currently manufactures a stainless steel version of the register caliper under the SK brand name. They are available in multiple sizes with metric graduations and hardened tips.
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.
