My current favorite book. Not because of the content necessarily. Just look at that cover! Wow.
When you encounter a person who is an incredibly talented woodworker, designer and teacher, it’s natural to wonder, “Why hasn’t this person written a book and become a famous author?”
I’ve met a lot of these people. I’ve attempted to get some of them to write a book. I’ve succeeded a few times and failed at least 100 times in my efforts. The next time you think, “Why doesn’t this person write a book?” here are some reasons I have encountered in my career.
They are perfectly happy with their life. They are plenty busy. They make enough money. They are not interested in becoming better known. You can’t argue with this. Writing a book can make you and your family miserable for a couple years.
They don’t have the organizational skills, focus and stamina to complete a book. A good book can require two years of work. It’s easy to get distracted or bored by the project. Especially if your day job is already a challenge.
They have no confidence in their writing skills and they fear the book will not find an audience. Basically, fear of failure. A related reason: The person is functionally illiterate. This is more common than you think. The smartest person I’ve met in my life was functionally illiterate. Writing a book will expose this fact to others, which can be embarrassing.
They know they have a problem calling a project “finished.” They will work and work on it, and it will never be good enough to release to the world.
They cannot afford to gamble spending two years on a project that might only pay them pennies on the hour. Many books do not make economic sense. If you do the math, it’s easy to conclude that only successful authors can afford to write books (a paradox).
They aren’t interested in sharing their methods of work with the entire world. Some authors fear their furniture business will be ruined if they share plans and their real methods with the public (John Brown was this way).
They feel like a fraud for some reason, perhaps a valid or invalid reason. Writing a book will expose them.
They distrust publishers. It’s a fair criticism; a lot of them are snakes.
The person is a complete jackass. Publishing a book is a team effort. If the author cannot take constructive criticism or they belittle everyone else in the project, their book is unlikely to be born.
I’m sure there are other reasons I haven’t yet encountered. Bottom line: It takes a special kind of maniacal, well-organized, generous optimist to write a book. Oh, and they have to have some talent, too. Honestly, the process is so fraught, it’s a miracle we have any woodworking books.
An assortment of JP chairs built between 1880 and 1900.
If you’re a vernacular furniture fanatic, or you live in Tasmania, you may already know what a Jimmy Possum chair is. If you’re one of the other 7.4 billion people on earth, buckle up and read on about my journey to Jimmy Possum: an unbroken tradition.
A mob of wallabies on the roadside near the chairmaking class.
With international borders reopened, wanderlust took my wife, Kathy, and me to the farthest reaches of Earth (for us): Tasmania. We landed in Hobart on a dark, rainy December night. After picking up our diesel 4-wheel-drive rental, we set off into the rural part of the main island. Using all my skill and every last ounce milliliter of focus, I narrowly avoided the mobs of wallabies zig-zagging through the country roads.
Chairmaking class started the next morning when Stanley, the shop dog, dragged us out of bed. Jon Grant teaches a number of American Windsor chair classes in Melbourne, but if you ever get the chance, building a chair with him at his home studio in Tassie is a one-of-a-kind experience in one of the most uniquely beautiful places on earth. Being half a world away from the States, Jon and I agreed that it would make more sense for us to build a Tasmanian chair.
Left to right in Jon’s studio: My Peddle chair, me and an original Peddle chair built circa 1900.
The George Peddle chair came to prominence around the same time as the Jimmy Possum (“JP”) chair, but in a different part of Tasmania and for a different purpose. If you looked at the photo above and thought “Hey! That’s not a stick chair,” hold your (shave)horses, we’re almost to that part.
I learned a number of things in Jon’s studio, including (but not limited to):
1. How to turn wood 2. Tasmanian blackwood is beautiful 3. Wallaby patties are delicious 4. There’s an ongoing JP chair exhibit in Launceston.
If someone asked me what a JP chair looks like, I’d say it looks almost like the love child of an Adirondack lounge chair and an Irish stick chair. If someone asked me how to pronounce Launceston, I’d probably just embarrass myself.
If you do an internet search for “Jimmy Possum,” you’ll readily find the legend of the man himself. For the purposes of this post, it’s sufficient to know that:
1. He was not a possum or a professionally trained chairmaker 2. The JP chairmaking tradition is alive and well. In the 35 minutes I had at the exhibit before speeding to the airport, here’s what I saw.
The Legs The defining characteristic of the JP chair is the fancy leg design. The four legs suspend the seat, pass through it, and support the arms to boot. The lack of stretchers, combined with the rake, creates a lot of negative space under the chair, highlighting the smooth, shapely legs. If you’re planning to build one yourself, make sure that leg grain is straight!
Pinned and wedged JP chair built from blue gum circa 1895
The Joinery It’s not obvious at first glance, but this chair has more pins than granny’s sewing kit. Legs meet seat? Pins. Legs meet arms? Pins. Sticks meet seat? Pins. Sticks meet crest? Pins. You get the idea.
Many of the arms and crests are secured with a “belt and suspenders” approach, having both pins and wedges, but the curiosities don’t end there. A number of JP chairs sport through-tenons with just pins, no wedges. The early JP chairmakers lived in or around small farming settlements, so I suspect the chairs were built using techniques the makers knew from their trades.
We all make mistakes! Six legs, doubled arms, and a warped seat. Built circa 1890.
The Seat Many of the seats are a single board, and a lot of them appear to be rived. These days, people rarely build chairs using green wood seats, and you can see why in the photo above. On the other hand, most of these 100-year-old leg-to-seat joints are fantastically tight from the green seat drying and shrinking around the leg.
A massive JP chair displayed next to a JP highchair, both built circa 1895.
Know Your Neighbor It may be difficult to tell from the photos, but the chairs range drastically in size. To me, this suggests that most of these chairs were made for friends, family, the maker themselves, or by commission, rather than as spec chairs. This isn’t surprising, given that the town of Deloraine (where JP chairs are believed to have originated) had a population of 836 as of the 1881 census.
All Rake, No Splay If you hate resultant angles (sorry Chris), this is the chair for you! The nature of the floor-to-arm legs prevents the chair from having any splay. If you’re having trouble visualizing it, draw a JP chair with splayed legs, then try to figure out where you’d sit.
A selection of chairs built circa 1900.
The Similarities Despite being on the other side of the world, parts of these chairs have some similarities to historical vernacular chairs from the northern hemisphere:
• The front edge of many seats is natural, not cut, creating a bevel. • The seats are not saddled. • The arms intersect the outermost back sticks, similar to an Irish stick chair. • They were made from local timber, then (in many cases) painted green.
All coincidence? Unlikely. In 1870, just more than 40 percent of the population of Tasmania was made up of immigrants. Some were gold miners from China and mainland Australia, but the majority were from the U.K. (which at the time included all of Ireland).
I find the JP chairs beautiful, but also meaningful. They began popping up around 1870 (or perhaps a little earlier), only a few decades after colonists settled in Tasmania. Most of the early years were likely spent fighting the native Palawa people, figuring out how to eat the local plants, farming in unfamiliar soil and generally struggling to find a way of life. The early Europeans sent to Tasmania were primarily convicts, but not the murder-y kind. They were guilty of “petty crimes” like stealing bread, committing fraud or sharing political opinions. I like to think of JP chairs as a sign of life improving for the settlers – early evidence of leisure activities.
The JP chair is a form of folk art and has a healthy bit of tradition associated with it. I’ve never spoken directly with any of the families who have been making JP chairs continuously for more than 100 years, but I suspect they’d tell you not to touch a lathe. Historically, a drawknife is used to shape the Tasmanian Blackwood legs and spindles.
There’s a lot to learn from building a traditional form the “right” way, but I also have a habit of doing things my own way, so I’ve decided to build two chairs. I don’t have access to green wood, so I’ll start by setting aside a large chunk of kiln-dried ash to Galbertize*. While that’s marinating, I’ll get to work making an “Amurican” version from walnut using handplanes and a scorp. Maybe I’ll even add stretchers, like the Obnoxious Yank that I am.
Tree ferns surrounding Tasmania’s Russell Falls.
If you have the chance, go check out the JP exhibit before it ends in May. If you can’t get there in time, renew that passport and go to Tasmania anyway. You’ll see, among other things, some incredibly humbling trees.
– Lewis Laskin
* Galbertization: Pete Galbert lays out a method for rehydrating kiln-dried wood to be worked with a drawknife in his “Chairmaker’s Notebook.”
Bonus Content: Before today, this next piece of knowledge was only available to those who live in or road trip through Australia. The local market price of a Bag O’ Poo ranges from $2 to $4 USD, depending on provenance (sheep, horse, or cow), size of the bag, and currency exchange rate.
If you are looking for a travisher, here is another fantastic option: Allan Williams, a chairmaker and toolmaker who makes three kinds of travishers.
Recently I ordered two travishers from Allan, a standard one with a 4-1/2″-radius blade and a tighter-radius tool (3″) for fixing student mistakes and doing some work at the back edge of my seats.
Allan’s are based on the travishers made popular by Claire Minihan and Peter Galbert. Claire and Peter’s tool is the travisher I have used for more than a decade, and I have ridden it to Australia and back. I’m also fond of the travishers made (also on the Minihan/Galbert pattern) by Elia Bizzari and crew. All these travishers usually require quite a wait to get (though they are worth it.)
Now you have a third great option with Allan’s travishers. They are made to a very high standard. They arrive insanely sharp. And they work as well as any travisher I’ve ever used.
If you make regular-head stick chairs, the 4-1/2″-radius tool is all you need. If you want to explore some tight or shallow curves, Allan offers tools for that.
My only slight complaint is that the blades in Allan’s travishers are secured with Allen-head screws (makes sense when you think of it). I prefer slotted screws because I always have a #8 screwdriver on the bench. I will swap those screws out during my next trip to the hardware store. No big deal.
Otherwise, I recommend Allan’s tools with no reservation. They are fantastic tools that will last the rest of your chairmaking life.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. I also recommend the travishers from James Mursell at Windsor Workshops, but those require a separate blog entry to explain fully….
[Monroe Robinson] replaced the two posts that hold the back rest prior to this 2009 photo of Dick’s beach chair because his posts had both rotted beyond use. (Photo by Monroe Robinson)
The following is excerpted from “The Handcrafted Life of Dick Proenneke,” by Monroe Robinson. No one holds a more intimate knowledge of Dick’s handcrafted life than Monroe, and just as Dick shared his life through letters and film, Monroe knew he had a responsibility to share all that he had learned. This book, which includes excerpts from more than 7,000 pages of Dick’s transcribed journals along with hundreds of photos, dozens of illustrations, and Monroe’s thoughtful and detailed commentary, is the result. It’s nonfiction, how-to, adventure and memoir, but at its heart, it’s a guidebook on how to live a life that’s “true,” with materials found and a few simple tools. Appealing to woodworkers, toolmakers, homesteaders, hikers, naturalists, conservationists, survivalists and lovers of Alaska, this book is for those who want to know how one man lived an intentional life, the kind of life many dream of living.
June 27, 1967: What to do today – fog hung low along the mountains I had been wanting to build a short bench using a near half section of log. I knew where there was just the log section to do it – up the Farmer’s property line and past the corner where Fred Cowgill had sawed his boards. I took my pack board and axe and paddled down. It was a heavy chunk and I had a bit of trouble getting on my feet after getting into the shoulder straps of the pack board lashed to the chunk. The surveyors had cut a few small spruce when they brushed out his property lines. These would be just right for legs. I had a good load coming back to the point. I couldn’t split the chunk – too many knots so I would cut it down with axe and adz. I had the adz good and sharp and the chips did fly. It looked as if someone had built a cabin. The chips are the best of kindling. I cut it down better than half – dished it a bit, peeled the bark, sawed the ends square. Augured holes for legs. No bit large enough so I used the 5-inch chisel to enlarge the holes. I sawed and peeled the legs – trimmed them to fit, split the ends and made wedges to tighten them in the holes. Drove the legs in the holes with the adz head. Cut them down to one foot six over all height and she was the finished product. One foot eight and a half-inches long, thirteen-inches wide.
June 29, 1967: I would spend the afternoon building a backrest for my short bench. The end I had cut off was already shaped on the front. I slabbed off the back side and worked it down with the axe, auger some holes and make some pegs to mount it with. By evening it was ready to put on. Weather had turned sour down country and getting that way here.
June 30, 1967: By adding a backrest my short bench became a chair – quite comfortable and very rustic.
With only an axe, saw, chisel, wood auger, adz, pocketknife & rule a man could furnish a cabin and not be ashamed of his furniture. The chair completed and the weather fairing up a bit I would give Hope Creek a try.
Adze. (Photo by Monroe Robinson)
What started out to be a “short bench” turned into a comfortable chair. Dick placed it at the base of a spruce tree on the beach near his cabin. It was a favorite spot for Dick to sit reading, writing or taking in the ever-changing grandeur of “One Man’s Wilderness.”
After looking at Dick’s cabin, visitors frequently gravitate to his beach chair where they are immersed in the raw beauty of Twin Lakes. Visitors have told us that their image of “wilderness” will forever be their time at Dick’s cabin and Twin Lakes.
K. frequently took visitors on a short walk beyond Dick’s woodshed. Within a few yards, Dick’s cabin, cache and woodshed are no longer visible. Visitors can no longer see the floatplane that flew them to Twin Lakes. They can no longer see any overhead power lines, roads or trails. They can only hear the sounds of wilderness. Often visitors would say something like, “Oh, now I can see why Dick moved here.” It is a moment they will remember for as long as they remember Dick’s cabin.
Dick sitting in his beach chair in 1992. (Photo by Dick Proenneke, courtesy of the National Park Service)
August 2, 1968: I need a stool out side to sit things on when opening the door and such. I have a twelve-inch log from the tree I removed to build the cabin. I would saw off a 10-inch length and put the legs on the end. Give them a flare so it wouldn’t tip over if you stepped up onto it.
A thin cut to even it up. The cut looked so nice why not make more thin cuts and plane them smooth and use them for placemats and hot pads to set hot pans on. It would save my plastic tablecloth.
These placemats were “badly soiled by freeloaders” sometime during the winter of 1969-1970. There are photographs of the placemats Dick made to replace the badly soiled ones later in this chapter.
August 10, 1968: Today among other things I would build my butchers block for outside the door. A 10″ length of 11-inch log with three legs. It was finished in short order.
(Above) The bottom of Dick’s water bucket stand. (Photo by Daniel Papke, courtesy of the National Park Service)
The “butcher block” is the “stool” Dick started to build on August 2. The butcher block only resided in front of Dick’s cabin for a short time, until he constructed a pair of spruce burl tables that remain there today. Dick moved the butcher block into the corner of his cabin where it became the stand for his galvanized water bucket and drinking cup. See 1969 photo on Page 181.
Dick moved his butcher block table inside for use as a water bucket stand. (Photo by Monroe Robinson)
How about making a diagonal cut on the same log and slice off a 5/8″ slab or two. I sawed one and it was very even so I planed it that brought the grain and growth rings into view. I cut another not quite as true but real close so I planed it too. They will make nice decorations for wall or mantle. I gave the backside of them a coat of clear shellac and bees wax on the smooth side to keep them from checking. If it will I’m not sure.
I needed more movies of my latest improvements so hauled out the camera gear and hope to have some interesting shots.
This diagonal cut sat on Dick’s fireplace mantle for some time. He later used it as a plaque for a beautiful spoon to hang on the wall with the words, “Twin Lakes Champion – Sourdough Biscuits and Beans.”
“Twin Lakes Champion – Sourdough Biscuits and Beans” plaque. The plaque was made from a slice of the stump Dick removed from his cabin site. (Photo by Harper’s Ferry Center, courtesy of the National Park Service)
March 4, 1969: Time enough to sand Hope’s wooden spoon. A chunk of wood for a seat in the warm sun I sanded it to perfection. I do believe this was the most pleasant day of 1969.
Dick dug out this spruce stump from his cabin site in 1967. (Photo by Monroe Robinson)
The tree stump Dick removed from his cabin site became the wood he used to make his butcher block, placemats and plaque for his sourdough spoon. The seat Dick “sanded to perfection” sits on one of the stump’s roots where it makes a comfortable place to sit with your back against a tree. From there you can see the front of Dick’s cabin.
Here [Monroe Robinson is] sitting at the base of the stump, as Dick would have done. (Photo by K. Schubeck)
We receive almost-weekly requests for a current inventory of my tool chest. Usually, I am too swamped with work to take a complete inventory. Luckily, I had a couple days of downtime last week and took the opportunity to clean out my chest and take stock.
Not much has changed in terms of the chest’s structure since the publication of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” in 2011. I have nailed in a few dividers in order to corral small tools – plus I added a couple tool racks. But that’s about it. The chest continues to age gracefully, and I am just as grateful for it as I was the day I finished it in December 2010.
The tools have changed a bit as I now make more chairs for sale. In 2010, I was making only three or four chairs per year. This year I made almost 20.
This inventory is arranged first by location (the top till, middle till etc.). Then tools in that location are grouped by function (measuring, bashing, reaming, poking, slaying).
My tool chest on Dec. 28, 2022, during the inventory.
I hope this inventory is useful in some small way. I know there will be questions about why I own “particular tool A” instead of “particular tool B.” There are a handful answers to those questions. Let’s get them out of the way.
This is a tool I have had for decades. There might be better/newer ones out there, but I am happy with this one.
This tool was made by someone I have a strong connection to or someone I admire.
We make this tool. Of course I like it.
I have no clue why I own this tool.
It is the ideal tool for the kind of things I build.
The communal tool wall.
My waist apron.
And I know some of you will ask: Why don’t you have a compass or pinch rods or….in your chest? The answer is likely that those tools are hanging on our communal tool wall or in my shop apron (both pictured above). The tool wall is used by me, Megan, instructors and students. In other words, I couldn’t just lock up this chest and sail to the New World to set up shop. I’d need to first throw in a few other tools. But I promise they would fit (along with my underwear).
Let’s start the inventory with the top sliding till of my chest.
The Top Till
These tools have risen to the top of the chest because I use them many times a day. Think about it: A combination square wallowing at the bottom of a chest like a catfish will just slow you down. This till also gets the dirtiest and has suffered more wear than the others. Because of the wear, I added slick plastic “drawer tape” to the sides of the till to keep it from racking.
Marking & Flesh-digging Tools
The right-hand divider contains all my mechanical pencils, my half-pencils (everyone needs them) and my “unturned pencil” for marking out rough cuts. Plus artist’s gum erasers, my M+R pencil sharpener and a Blue Spruce marking knife with a broken finial. The knife is a personal thing. An Arkansas doctor sent me the knife, which is made from a wild burl that one of his patients had dug up. The patient, a long-time reader, asked the doctor to send me the knife before the reader died. I couldn’t say “no” to that. Finally, there are my Tweezerman tweezers, which are fantastic for digging out splinters.
Cutting Tools
I was surprised at how few cutting tools are in the top till. The Ernest Wright scissors are from Sheffield, England, and are of insane quality (thank you, Matt!). The Kershaw pocket knife is inexpensive, made in the USA and damn-near unbreakable. Crucible Curved Card Scrapers – because they are the best (my boss made me write that). A collection of small drill bits in a handy case that I use constantly (get one from Rockler here). My Lie-Nielsen 60-1/2 block plane, because it is the best. And a small flush-cut saw from Lee Valley (choose “single-edge saw” on the drop-down to buy this one).
Beating & Scrubbing Tools
I know, it’s an odd grouping of tools. But here we are. The small hammer (11 oz.) is a no-name hammer that I use for driving pins and adjusting planes (yes, I hit only the metal bits with this hammer). The bigger hammer is a 16 oz. Plumb with an octagonal handle. After trying to reproduce my magical favorite nail hammer, we concluded that we couldn’t beat the old Plumbs in price or value. Get one. Plumb made millions of these suckers.
My 16 oz. Blue Spruce mallet is a long-term survivor. I chop dovetails and hinge mortises with the help of this guy. The polissoir is made by Cate Richards (I love the pink). The Lie-Nielsen brush is an essential and personal favorite for getting shavings and dust out of the mouths of planes. And the fingernail brush is used to clean the teeth of my rasps.
Oh, about the orange gaffer’s tape. I put that on tools that tend to wander during classes. Thanks to the tape, I can spot my tools across the room.
Measuring & Marking Tools
At top is my Starrett 12″ combination square, a faithful companion since 1997. Below that is a Chris Vesper try square, which is the ultimate arbiter of 90° in the shop. Worth every penny. A Starrett 24″ rule fits into the combination square and helps with big layouts. The Crucible brass center square is indispensable for chair work. Yes it marks centers on the ends of sticks. But it also allows you to mark radial lines on curved surfaces. The Crucible dovetail template is a natural fit for my work. The Vesper double square (based on old diemakers’ squares) gets inside joints to check their surfaces.
Below that are two Crucible Sliding Bevels and a larger Vesper Sliding Bevel. Sliding bevels are in constant use. I want good ones that hold their settings in a shop environment. Finally, a beloved Shinwa 12″ rule. Nothing special but immensely readable and useful.
Till Two
This till holds chairmaking tools, plus a bunch of bits, punches and other small items. These are tools I use almost as much as my top-till tools. But it has sort of a “junk drawer” feel at times (such as today).
So Many Bits
At some point in my career, I decided I didn’t want to be a two-bit woodworking celebrity. I wanted to be a 142-bit woodworking celebrity. Hence, this photo. Having all this hex-shank tooling has saved my butt many times. Some of these are ground gunsmith bits. Some are cheap ones that fell into my hands and are great to loan out…. The nut drivers at top mostly get used for machinery maintenance. I once tried to epoxy all these bit holders together, but the epoxy flaked off like skin over a sunburn.
Chairmaking Tools
Here are some dedicated chairmaking tools. At top is a “dummy leg” for checking angles as I ream leg mortises. The three little dowel bits are what we call “Hinderpluggen.” We use them to assist in boring through-mortises in chair legs. And for knocking loose legs that have become stuck in chair seats.
Below that are three tapered reamers. There are three to help supply students during classes. Then a 5/8″ tapered tenon cutter, which has been beat to hell and back. The red line on it indicates the thickness of a typical chair seat. And the 5/8″ Wood Owl augers are used for leg mortises.
Miscellaneous Tools
At top is a hacking knife, made by Tom Latane, which splits small parts out for chairs, mostly short sticks and pegs. Below that is the Crucible Bevel Monkey, which is essential when describing chair angles in plans and books.
At bottom left is the Benchcrafted Skraper, a carbide scraper we use for terrible, horrible things I cannot say words about. And a Tooleypark scriber, perhaps the newest tool in the chest, which is used for scribing chair legs to length.
Punchy & Poky Tools
More “junk drawer” items that see a lot of use. The Starrett centerpunch is a constant companion for installing hardware. To the right of that are some of my “I can’t quite get there from here” stubby screwdrivers. Used mostly in emergencies.
There’s a paint can opener because we love paint in this shop. To the right of that is a Japanese cat’s paw, which helps pull headed nails. And a Japanese nail punch, which is so tough that it gets used for many unpleasant jobs in the nether regions (like the Skraper). Then we have a handful of punches. I modify these for different odd jobs, such as setting cut nails.
Below that are some extra compass points and my feeler gauges, for when I feel fancy like a machinist.
Shaves
My only two spokeshaves are from Veritas (I don’t have a spokeshave problem, unlike some chairmakers). Plus a chair devil from Eleanor Rose, which I adore for its functionality and gorgeousness. Oh, and some safety razors, which get bent to become tiny awesome micro-scrapers.
Till Three
Back in the beginning, this till was for bigger tools, such as a brace (now hanging on the wall as a communal tool) and an eggbeater drill (ditto) and auger bits (now in a tool roll). Today, this till is still for bigger tools, but mostly chairmaking stuff and all the grabby tools.
Chairmaking Tools II
At top is a scorp from blacksmith Lucian Avery, which is shaped perfectly for shallow seat saddles. Below that is a Tilt Box gizmo, which is used to “steal” angles from existing chairs or other furniture. Two travishers. The top one is a tight-radius travisher made by Allan Williams. I use it for the sharp transition at the rims of my seats. His travishers are stunning and work incredibly well. Below that is a travisher from Claire Minihan and Peter Galbert, back when they were making them together. I traded Pete a bunch of books for it and still adore it.
At bottom is a shop-made pencil gauge that is indispensable, especially for chairmaking. It works on flat edges, inside curves and outside curves. I wish we could make these for sale.
The Grabby Things
Most of these tools are obvious. The soft-jaw pliers are for compressing round tenons. The nail pullers are for … pulling nails. And the other tools are for their normal, listed-on-the-box uses.
Machinist Tools & Bits
The Wera tool set is an emergency kit for when things go wrong in the bench room. Or when we need to go fix something on the car or in the house. The Brown & Sharpe dial caliper checks tenon sizes, tolerances when inspecting Crucible products and other machinist-like things.
And the Snappy bits are for when we need to run-and-gun to build a screwed-together something.
Miscellaneous Tools
At top is a thin pry bar (an iron crow), which gets a lot of off-label use. Below that is the hi-viz orange tape for marking tools. A flexible protractor for doing weird angled stuff on curves. Then there’s a Veritas edge plane, an occasional life-saver. And a Lie-Nielsen small router plane, which was in the top till when I wrote “Campaign Furniture” because of all the hundreds of bits of hardware I had to install.
Name & Number Punches
The number punches stamp the year on my work. And they are used to identify parts in a complex glue-up. The other stamps are name stamps and shop stamps for a variety of purposes. Marking my work, tools and other objects that might walk. The three grey stamps are from Infinity Stamps, which does excellent work.
The Moulding Plane Corral
This area is like a little terrarium in the tool chest. It is a bit closed off from the rest of the chest because of the way the sliding tills interact with the tool racks. You have to slide all three tills all the way forward to get the moulding planes. Not a big deal, but it’s rare to go here unless you mean to. I used to have a lot more hollows and rounds. As I’ve gotten older I’ve settled into a few sizes and profiles that I like and use frequently in my work.
Do not take these tool choices as gospel for what you should own. My work varies wildly in style and period. Yours might not.
Straight Rabbet Plus Hollows & Rounds
The 7/8″ straight rabbet plane is from Clark & Williams (now Old Street Tool), which makes rabbets parallel to the grain of boards. These rabbets might be for joinery, or they might be to rough out the shape of a complex moulding.
I now have only two pairs of hollows and rounds in my chest. A pair of 7s and a pair of 9s. Both sets are by M.S. Bickford. Because I don’t make reproductions, I can usually press these two pairs into making what looks good. Also, my work is more on the vernacular side, so enormous stacks of crazy moulding isn’t my thing. I think that stuff is beautiful, but it’s not what I do.
Beading Planes
I do like to use beading planes on my casework. They produce a nice shadow line to separate a face frame from a door or drawer, for example. I have four of them, but I really only should have three. The 1/8″ beading plane is from Caleb James. There are two 3/16″ beaders. One from M.S. Bickford and one from Old Street. The 1/4″ beader is from Caleb James. If I had to own only one beader, it would be a 3/16″, which is a nice size.
Complex Moulders
I use a few profiles over and over again. Call it consistent or call it boring – I do it so that I have fewer tools to sharpen and care for. (I prefer woodworking over tool maintenance.) At top is an A. Mathieson & Son square ovolo. It was made in Glasgow, which is where the Scottish side of my family comes from (or so I’m told by my spit). Below that is a bigger square ovolo by Old Street Tool. Then a thumbnail moulding plane, which is ideal for the edges of lids and chest tops. It was made by what is now Old Street. I could make that moulding with a straight rabbet and a block plane, but this plane is just so sweet, I keep it around. Finally there’s an ogee plane by Caleb James.
Miter Plane
With all the leftover room from trimming back my hollows and rounds, I have room for a long-time companion, a Wayne Anderson miter plane. This plane was stolen at a Philadelphia tool show. But I got it back after the thief had to sell his tool collection after it was wrecked by Hurricane Sandy (karma is a bitch, sir). It’s a long story, and one that I am not allowed to fully tell. This plane is the first infill I owned, and I love it to bits. Works great, too.
The Central Well & Small Tool Racks
This is the largest space in the tool chest, but it contains the fewest number of tools. When I peek into other woodworker’s chests, this area is usually crammed with bench planes (two No. 5s? Is one for formal outings, Biffy?). While the well looks a bit spare, it has been even more empty in past years. I finally succumbed to a shooting board plane. It’s a luxury. But I have the room, and we use it every week.
Bench Planes
No surprises here. I’ve owned these three tools since before I built the chest. There are Lie-Nielsen’s Nos. 3 and 8. And a Stanley No. 5 (Type 11). The No. 3 has the standard frog, plus a Veritas PMV-11 plane iron (my NAFTA plane). The No. 5 is on its third iron. I now have a Lie-Nielsen A2 iron in it (I had to file open the plane’s mouth a bit to make this work). The No. 8 is stock.
Specialty Planes
I have a few other specialty planes packed away because I haven’t used them much (especially my plow and moving fillister; but that’s going to change shortly). Here are the three currently have in the central well: A Lie-Nielsen 073 shoulder plane (I have never needed an additional size than this one). A Lie-Nielsen closed-throat router plane. And a Lie-Nielsen dedicated shooting plane.
Tool Rack Chisels & Stuff
The rack right above the chest’s central well has some important specialty tools. The flush-cut saw, a tool holder from Mattias Fenner in Germany and a Veritas mortise gauge. Next to that we have the Ray Iles mortising chisel (1/4″) and a matching swan-neck chisel for de-crapifying the floors of mortises. Then there’s a massive and beloved Barr bench chisel, which is good for all sorts of nastiness. The steel is ungodly good. Then there’s a Lie-Nielsen 1″ chisel, which didn’t fit in the top rack, and a Lie-Nielsen dovetail chisel with a bog oak handle I turned.
Front Rack & Sawtill
This is a busy area of the tool chest as these tools are pulled out a dozen times a day. As a result, this area gets filthy, especially below the saws. There’s a lot to see.
Screwdrivers
First is a full set of Grace USA straight screwdrivers (why, pray tell, is the No. 6 driver such a weird size? Must be a gunsmith thing). These are the best drivers. Ground tips. Tough as nails. At bottom is an Element’ary driver, which accepts all the hex-shank bits. And it has a locking/magnetic collar. Highly recommended. There’s a Lie-Nielsen screwdriver for tightening split nuts. It’s modified it to work with all our backsaws. And finally a Perfect Handle screwdriver bought for a $1 – perhaps the best $1 I ever spent. It is indestructible. I wish I owned a whole set (no, not the garbage ones that Garrett Wade sells).
Slicing & Poking Tools
The two Tite-Mark gauges see continuous use. I cannot imagine working without them. Next to that are three pairs of vintage dividers and the Crucible dividers. These are used for laying out dovetails, chair spindles, executing olives and other tasks. The little awl was bought at a flea market in Maine (I think it was $3). I adore it. And a Mattias Fenner birdcage awl, the best one I’ve found (if you are awl-curious like me).
Bench Chisels
I’ll be honest: I don’t use all of these chisels. I could probably boil it down to three: the 1/4″, the 1/2″ and the 3/4″. But these guys grew up together and I’d hate to break up a family.
Backsaws
In the sawtill are my personal backsaws. I also have a few on the wall for communal use. Here we have the Lie-Nielsen tenon, carcase and dovetail saws, all with apple handles (a special trade that Tom Lie-Nielsen made for me). And an Eccentric Toolworks dovetail saw by Andrew Lunn – the best saw I’ve ever owned.
Panel Saws
Also in the sawtill are these two vintage panel saws. There’s a Disston D8 filed crosscut with 8 tpi. And a Spear and Jackson filed rip with 7 tpi. The handles are different colors so you can grab the one you need without thinking too much.
Frame Saws
I have a bowsaw packed away (I use a small band saw for big jobs now). But I still use the snot out of my Blue Spruce coping saw and my fretsaw from blacksmith Seth Gould.
Rasps
The rasps and files are tool rolls that stand to the side of the sawtill. Most of these are Auriou, with a couple oddballs thrown in (including a file that sneaked into this tool roll). The Auriou cabinet rasp is a 9 grain. The Auriou modeler’s rasp is grain 15. The Auriou rattail is 13 grain.
Files
I am surprised by how many files there are. They started collecting en masse when I wrote “Campaign Furniture” and I had to file a lot of brass hardware. Then we launched Crucible Tools, and files are helpful when making prototypes. And the needle files are essential for tool maintenance. Files don’t take up much space, so I have allowed them all to stay.
On the lid of my chest is our “Woodworker’s Pocket Book” in a handsome slipcase from Texas Heritage.
The Future
We receive regular messages asking what I would change about my tool chest if I built it today. The answer is: structurally, nothing. It is the right size. Built the strongest way. From an ideal wood (pine). Since building it, Megan Fitzpatrick and I have taught hundreds of others to build this chest, and we have come up with better ways to do some of the construction steps. Some of these are honestly good ideas. Others are simply more efficient ways to work when you have to build seven chests in a week.
We also get asked if I will ever update “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” to build it with a more current tool set. An update is not a priority. Perhaps some day when I run out of new book ideas I’ll revisit ATC. But every time I pick it up and read bits of it, I’m happy with it overall.
Yes, if I were a “guy on the internet” I would take umbrage with a few choices and rationales in the book. But all in all, the book holds up, and we recommend it to new woodworkers without reservation.
We also get messages thanking us for publishing this book. That ATC changed the way they look at tools, woodworking or rampant consumerism. To that, I say: Thank you. The book changed us, as well. After “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” was released in June 2011, it sold well enough that I didn’t have to get a job at Woodcraft or Rockler after leaving Popular Woodworking Magazine (which was my true plan B).
After I left the magazine, I felt the same thing was happening to my career that happens to many other woodworking editors when they quit or are fired. My phone stopped ringing. My email tapered off. People who I thought were friends turned out to be transactional turd birds.
But after this book was released, you were there. And you kept me from diminishing into obscurity by talking about this book. Recommending it to friends. And attending classes I taught.
