[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)
The author has spent his entire life as a professional woodworker and has dedicated himself to researching the technical details of wood in great depth, this material being the woodworker’s most important resource. The result is this book, in which Richard explores every aspect of the tree and its wood, from how it grows to how it is then cut, dried and delivered to your workshop.
Richard explores many of the things that can go right or wrong in the delicate process of felling trees, converting them into boards, and drying those boards ready to make fine furniture and other wooden structures. He helps you identify problems you might be having with your lumber and – when possible – the ways to fix the problem or avoid it in the future.
“Cut & Dried” is a massive text that covers the big picture (is forestry good?) and the tiniest details (what is that fungus attacking my stock?). And Richard offers precise descriptions throughout that demanding woodworkers need to know in order to do demanding work.
In order to design successful structures we furniture makers and other woodworkers need to develop some understanding of wood’s strength. It is common knowledge amongst experienced woodworkers that some woods are stronger than others; we quickly learn both European oak or American white oak are stronger than balsa wood, or ash is a better material for hammer shafts than European red pine, i.e., Scots pine. But the question to pose is, “What determines the strength of wood?” The answer lies in the material’s ability to resist stress, and the strain or deformation resulting from the stress along with the material’s ability, or inability, to recover its original form when, or if, the stress is removed. Both stress and strain are definable and measurable.
Stress, more precisely described as unit force, is the amount of force acting on a defined area; strength is the ability of a material to resist unit force. Stronger materials resist unit force better. It’s relatively easy to work out the unit force a bookshelf must resist. To do so, weigh the books carried by a shelf to establish the load (L) and calculate the shelf’s surface area (A). The numbers for the following sample calculations came from a convenient load of books on a shelf in my home.
• 42 books weighed on domestic scales = 32 kg (or 71 lbs). Shelf dimensions: 870 mm x 295 mm = 0.26 M² (or 34.25″ x 11.61″ = 2.76 ft²). • To calculate the unit force (UF) applied to the shelf, divide the load (L) by the area (A) thus: L / A: therefore 32 kg / 0.26 sq m = 123.01 kg per sq m UF. • Working in pounds and feet calculate: L / A: therefore 71 lb / 2.76 sq ft = 25.72 lb per sq ft UF. This can be converted to pounds per square inch (PSI) thus: 25.72 / 144 sq in = 0.18 PSI.
Engineers and scientists seek greater accuracy than the methodology used here of weighing with bathroom scales and rounding results to two decimal places, but the methodology and values used illustrate the principle. Additional calculations using the source data shows the shelf carries approximately 11.04 kg per 300 mm length, or approximately 24.69 lb per foot length. My experience is these numbers are typical; for many years I have used 25 lb per foot length or 11 kg per 300 mm length as standard bookshelf loading. There are exceptions furniture makers have to design for, but those exceptions are generally readily spotted, e.g., a request to create shelving for a collection of large-format art books immediately triggers a reaction that the shelving should be stronger. For example, you might use 18 mm thick solid oak instead of 18 mm thick oak veneered MDF, or extra reinforcement is necessary, or the shelf span should be shortened, or a combination of all three measures may the right solution.
It is possible, where necessary, to calculate the load beams are likely to experience in use, then to design for and build in enough strength for the intended load, plus an additional safety margin. Situations where woodworkers are most likely to recognise the necessity for such calculations are in the building or construction industry, e.g., safe loading of wooden floors and roof truss design. Indeed, there are calculations, formulae and standard load tables used by structural engineers to account for the load-bearing requirements of such structures.
Posts, such as music stands, easels, benches and table legs, chair legs, parasols and umbrellas, cabinet sides etc., all experience loads or stress. In many cases each individual leg in a chair is more than strong enough to carry the weight of a person; the design challenge for a one-legged pedestal chair is finding a way of supporting the pedestal so it doesn’t fall over when applying a downward load and, further, making it strong enough to cope with any torsional (twisting or rotational stress) and horizontal forces a pedestal chair leg must endure.
Stressed parts, i.e., loaded parts, experience strain and strained parts deform; strain is defined as unit deformation. If you lightly tap the surface of a piece of 50 mm- (2″-) thick wood with a hammer the wood directly under the hammer head compresses, i.e., the thickness reduces and this illustrates unit deformation. After a very gentle tap with a hammer, the wood will regain its original shape and form showing the wood is elastic and it can recover if not unduly stressed. Without controlled laboratory conditions it is hard to measure the amount of compression but under a light load as just described let us assume, for the purpose of an example, the unit deformation is 0.2 mm (0.00787 inches).
Calculating the unit deformation caused by the impact of the hammer head requires the sum: Dimensional Change / Original Dimension
Using the figures given in the hammer-tapping example, i.e., original plank thickness = 50 mm and the amount of compression = 0.2 mm the calculation is: 0.2 mm / 50 mm = 0.004 millimetre per millimetre (mm/mm). The end result is expressed here as millimetre per millimetre, meaning 0.004 millimetre (unit deformation) per millimetre (of thickness), the same proportion as 0.2 / 50. In reality the expression “millimetre per millimetre” is not necessary from an engineer’s perspective because the proportion of deformation, i.e., 0.004 to the original thickness of the piece of wood is the key information. The same rule applies when you work in any other unit of measure as long as the same units are used on both sides of the equation, e.g., inches divided by inches, metres divided by metres, miles divided by miles etc. The following sum uses inches but note the end result is still 0.004.
After converting the metric measurements used in the previous paragraph to three decimal places in inches, the sum and the result are: 0.008 in / 2 in = 0.004 inches per inch (in/in). Dimensional change is 0.004 inch per inch. Returning now to hitting the wood with a hammer, tapping the surface of the wood harder and harder with the hammer will eventually lead to one of those blows leaving a noticeable and permanent dent in the wood. This rough and ready experiment demonstrates Hooke’s Law.
“Hooke’s Law states that the strain is proportional to the stress” (Kollman and Côté Jr., 1968, p 292). Further clarification of Hooke’s Law leads to saying in wood, in common with other materials, stress and strain are proportional up to a particular point. Specifically, that point is the proportional limit. Beyond the proportional limit of the material, increased stress leads to disproportionate strain, i.e., greater deformation, until the material reaches a stage where further stress leads to failure.
Another way of describing this phenomenon is, up to its proportional limit, a material exhibits elastic properties whereby applying a load causes it to deform, and on removing the load the material completely recovers. Beyond the proportional limit of a material, adding bigger loads causes the material to become plastic rather than elastic, and it cannot recover completely after removing the stress and eventually additional load causes the material to fail.
Figure 14.19. The elasticity of two types of wood, one stiff wood represented by blue lines, and a more flexible one represented by red lines. Generally, stiffer materials are stronger than more flexible ones. Up to the proportional limit, increasing stress (X axis) results in a proportionate increase in strain (Y axis) from which each of the two pieces of wood in this illustration can recover. The slope of the straight-line portion of the graph represents the modulus of elasticity. A steeper line indicates a higher modulus. Stresses above the proportional limit result in greater proportional strain, permanent deformation of the material and permanent set. For instance, a bookshelf loaded beyond its proportional limit takes on a permanent bend. Beyond the proportional limit, the greater the load, the greater is the permanent distortion until the point of failure. In most wood species the proportional limit is generally between 50 percent and 65 percent of load leading to complete failure.
Within the elastic range of a material (up to its proportional limit) the ratio between applied stress and the resultant strain is a constant with this ratio being the modulus of elasticity (MOE), also known as Young’s Modulus. “[It] is a measure of … stiffness or rigidity. For a beam, the modulus of elasticity is a measure of its resistance to deflection” (Forest Products Laboratory, 1955, p 68). Figures 14.18 and 14.19 illustrate the proportional nature of strain in response to added stress where incrementally greater loads act on the centre point of a shelf. This kind of load is a static load.
Figure 14.23. A stress/strain graph derived from readings taken during the experiment shown in figures 14.20, 14.21 and 14.22.
A rubber band is another item illustrating Hooke’s Law. The law, in the following description, is demonstrated visually rather than measured scientifically. If you hold a rubber band between your fingers and stretch it gently followed by releasing the stress, it will recover its original shape. Successively increasing the strain stretches the band further, and a common visual sign the band is approaching its recoverable limit is increased whitening of the stretched rubber. As the band has to cope with increasing stress it loses the ability to recover and return to its original shape, and further stretching eventually causes the band to break. The elastic band experienced a tension force that stretched it whereas the previous example, a plank of wood, experienced a compression force through being hit with a hammer head. In both cases the important point is the material experienced a stress (loading) resulting in strain. And in both cases the stress and strain are proportional up to a specific point; beyond that point increased stress leads to greater strain. Stress is a force that can act in more than one direction – stress may in fact occur in multiple directions at the same time, e.g., a part could simultaneously experience compression, tension, and shear stresses (see figure 14.24).
The strength of a material determines its ability to resist stress: an 18 mm- (3/4″-) thick oak book shelf 610 mm (24″) long is significantly stiffer than an MDF shelf of exactly the same dimensions. As a consequence, when both shelves are stressed by loading the same weight at their midpoint, the oak shelf exhibits less strain indicated by less deformation, i.e., it does not bend as much. In addition, the oak shelf is able to carry significantly more weight than the MDF shelf before it fails completely.
A simple static bending load experiment to demonstrate Hooke’s Law. Static bending occurs under a constant load or when a load gradually increases. The set-up is a rudimentary partially fixed end beam with a knot-free softwood fence paling (picket) screwed down at both ends to span between the two sawhorses. The distance between the bottom of the paling and the ground was measured and noted. Concrete blocks, each weighing approximately 10 kg, were loaded onto the paling, and the distance between the paling and the ground measured. This was followed by removing the blocks, and a note of the distance between the ground and the paling taken again. The sequence was: Add one block, measure, remove the block and measure again; next, load two blocks, measure, remove the blocks, measure again, etc. The paling recovered to its original condition up to the point where adding and subsequently removing 9 blocks (~90 kg); this was the “proportional limit” of the material. Loading additional blocks led to greater bending of the paling under the load, and ever greater permanent distortion (permanent set) of the paling after removing the load. Complete failure of the paling occurred with a load of 13 blocks (~130 kg). This experiment did not represent true scientific testing; it is evident, for example, the outermost feet of the sawhorses had lifted off the ground in the middle image, which compromises the accuracy of measurements gathered. However, the accompanying graph, figure 14.23 derived from the experiment, illustrates Hooke’s Law reasonably effectively.
Craig grew up with his mom, dad and three older sisters on a 200-acre cattle farm just south of Owensboro, Kentucky, in Utica. They lived on his Grandpa Gus’s farm, who, semi-retired, was down to 40 head of cattle and a bull. There was a lot to experience, Craig says.
“We cut hay with the tractor and I could remember being so small, driving that Massey Ferguson 135 tractor that when I had to push in on the clutch I had to get both feet on the left side of the tractor to stand on that clutch so I could either do clutch or brake,” he says. “So it helped me make good decisions when I was young, that old survival of the fittest thing. And it was all on a hill. You know the old fold-down sickle bar mowers, these things that hang off the side of the tractor that are great at cutting legs off deer (I mean, I never did that). Just, from a really young age, I remember understanding the physics of things. If you didn’t, you got hurt.”
Poppa Gus’s homestead and cattle farm, Utica, Kentucky.
Craig was always the skinniest kid, so when lifting up bales of hay onto the trailer he would have to figure out ways to leverage his body to his advantage.
Craig on the farm.
“Growing up in all that, and all the conveyer belts and things that want to chop you up and spit you out in smaller pieces, it just gave me an attention to that, to looking at the mechanisms of the old equipment and the new equipment,” he says. “And then I always had a go-cart, four-wheeler, three-wheeler and motorcycle, so I was always riding those things. I didn’t like the feeling of crashing so I learned how to ride safely. But I was just around a lot of mechanical things.”
The day after Craig outgrew his go-cart.
Craig’s dad, a welder, and brother-in-law, a tool and die maker, started a machine shop in the backyard when Craig was 14.
The first location of J & L Welding and Machine, est. 1977, Utica, Kentucky.
“I started working out in the machine shop begrudgingly, you know when you’re 14,” he says. “My first job was sharpening jack hammer bits. A jack hammer bit gets blunted on the end so I stood at our shop-built belt sander and put a four-facet point on it, kind of a four-facet pyramid point on it, and I heated them up in the torch and dunked them in oil. I did that for probably a whole summer.”
They soon got into building weight-lifting equipment. By now it was 1983. Customers would bring in pictures from weight-lifting magazines and ask for four-station machines with pulldowns, bench presses etc.
“And I would just look at the picture and I would measure from my elbow to my shoulder and just build the machine,” Craig says. “I would drill all the holes in weight stack plates, make the benches, I’d do all the spray painting, I’d do all the upholstery, make all the pulleys – I learned to work from minimal information.”
By the time Craig was 18, he bought his dad out and moved J & L Welding and Machine just north to Owensboro, Kentucky. There he made all sorts of things, such as fixtures for furniture companies to glue up chair frames and fixtures to rotate an entire couch while it was being upholstered.
The second location of J & L Welding and Machine, 1022 Oglesby St., Owensboro, Kentucky.
“It was just so awesome to have the trust of customers and to build and deliver what they needed,” he says.
He was working 60 hours a week but he liked the work and he liked working. When Craig was 22, he sold his part of the machine shop and went to work as a machinist for America’s Best Chew tobacco factory in Owensboro (back then it was known as The Pinkerton Tobacco Company; the name changed in January 2022). The 10-acre factory produced about 25,000 pounds of chewing tobacco and about 600,000 cans of snuff a day on three miles worth of conveyor belts.
Craig as a machinist at the tobacco company, 1994.
“I was in heaven,” he says. “All this stuff, cutting and chopping and conveying tobacco, kind of like what I grew up with.”
He found himself remaking the same stuff over and over. “So, I set out to fixing the problems that caused the never-ending use of all these spare parts,” he said. “I would re-engineer and remake the part. I would make a proper shaft once, instead of 15 shafts a year. And that really increased throughput in the factory.”
For about seven years during this time, Craig held several other jobs too. He would work at the tobacco factory from 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., then he’d work his side business, Jackson Contracting, grading and seeding new yards until 6 p.m. Then he’d teach machine tool technology at the local vocational school from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Jackson credits his mom and grandpa for his strong work ethic.
“They didn’t just sit around,” he says. “And they seemed to be the happiest people I knew. My favorite book of the Bible is Ecclesiastics, by King Solomon, maybe the richest, most successful person in the history of the world. All he concluded was, nothing beats a hard day’s work. He had all the gold, all the women, all the power, and he just said, it ain’t doing it for me.”
After about a decade at the tobacco company, Craig was promoted into a management role as continuous improvement manager over the entire factory. Although he was being groomed for Factory Manager, he ended up leaving in 2010 to grow Easy Wood Tools.
A Better Woodturning Tool
Craig stumbled into woodturning in 2007 while shopping with his wife, Donna, in Evansville, Indiana. Donna needed a pair of shoes so while she went into a Shoe Carnival, Craig went next door into a Woodcraft.
“I had never heard of a Woodcraft,” he says. “I went in there and saw a book by Malcolm Tibbetts, on segmented woodturning. I opened that up and I was just amazed. I had no idea anything in woodworking could be this complicated.”
Craig got into making segmented bowls.
“I bought a little Jet mini lathe, put it in my garage, and kept making bigger and bigger bowls, got a big Powermatic lathe, and a trailer, and a 30” chainsaw and it kind of got out of hand,” he says. “But the whole time I was like, what is up with these bowl gouges? This makes no sense! If I had set out to make the most complicated and dangerous cut known to man, I would end up with a bowl gouge.”
So Craig started playing around with carbide inserts. Unable to find anything he liked, he engineered his own replaceable carbide inserts (eliminating the need to constantly resharpen) with crazy angles. He then designed tools with stainless steel to hold the carbide inserts and wooden (mostly maple) handles.
Craig holding Robin’s work of art.
“I was just making the heck out of these bowls with my carbide tools and I thought, maybe I need to show somebody,” he says.
Nick Cook tried Craig’s tool for the first time in 2008. Nick helped Craig land his first retailer.
“Nick Cook has probably done more woodturning than maybe anybody on the earth,” Craig says. “So I handed him the tool and I said, ‘Nick, I made this tool. I got $125 I’ll pay you to just try this tool out.’ He said, ‘Let me see that thing.’ He took a few cuts with it and said, ‘You don’t owe me nothing. You need to get this on the market.’ I said, ‘OK, I’ll do that.’ And then I said, ‘Hang on. How do you take a product to market?’”
Nick told Craig that he’d connect him with some folks at Craft Supplies USA. Craig sent Darrel Nish a sample.
“They were like, ‘Yeah, you need to start making these,’” Craig says.
Craig knew he needed to go into mass production, but he had no idea how to go into mass production. He simply had to figure it out. Craig sold his tool with Craft Supplies USA exclusively for a year. Then Woodcraft called him up. He sent them some tools.
“A week later, they sent me a $75,000 purchase order,” Craig says. “So I called them back and said, ‘Hang on now. This is just me, my wife, and my two sons – they’re 8 and 10 years old – and the baseball coach. So I mean – we’re just – this is not what you think!”
Craig says a couple things set them apart – aside from the product – that likely made them noticeable to a company such as Woodcraft.
“We did pretty good at marketing and presenting of the product,” he says. “No. 1, we loved the customer. Whatever the customer wanted. I didn’t care how ridiculous it was. If you wanted a purple handle, I made you a purple handle.”
Craig told Woodcraft he didn’t have the capital to buy the raw materials to fulfill the purchase order.
“So they said, ‘We’ll send you a check,’” Craig says. “About three days later I got a $75,000 check in my mailbox. They hadn’t met me, they hadn’t shook my hand, they hadn’t seen my face. No contract. I sat there in the driveway and cried. This is, this is, OK.”
Craig then laughs thinking back at this poignant time in his life, when Easy Wood Tools was officially in business.
“All I’ve ever been and all I am still is just a machinist,” he says. “That’s all I’ve ever claimed to be. So we had to figure out packaging, logistics, shipping, mass production, all in the backyard.”
At one point they ordered all the packaging for the tools and it arrived on a pallet. The delivery person left the pallet in the street, and Craig and his family crew were left figuring out how they were going to muscle the pallet and all its contents up a slope to his garage. At one point, everything fell off the pallet, into the street.
“Everything you can imagine going wrong went wrong,” he says. “But we shipped that order, on time, in full, with no rejects,” he says. “I don’t know how we did it.”
The humble beginnings of Easy Wood Tools in Craig and Donna’s small backyard garage.
At first it was a family affair. In the evenings, Craig, Donna and their two sons, Noah and Sam, would package up products Saturday and Sunday nights while watching “America’s Funniest Home Videos” while sitting on the living room floor. Sam would get a cutter and drop it in a bag. Noah would add a screw and Ziploc the bag shut. Donna would fold it and staple it. Craig would box it up.
“It was a little Jackson assembly line and they thought it was just as normal as could be,” Craig says.
Craig, Samuel and Noah Jackson
The company grew and grew with upwards of 20 employees, and moved from Owensboro to Lexington, Kentucky.
Craig designed most of his packaging and branding, with the help of Tim Jones, and did woodturning demos all over the country.
Easy Hollower, patented by Craig.
Easy Chuck, patented by Craig.
Noah and Craig with woodworker Thomas MacDonald (aka Tommy Mac).
Craig and Donna filming “The American Woodshop” with Scott Phillips.
Craig and Scott Phillips.
There are two things Jackson is really proud of when it comes to Easy Wood Tools. First, it was the company’s ability to capture the essence of the power of possibility.
Something Jackson has always found interesting: At woodturning shows, during the auctions at the end of shows, wood blanks would often go for more money than turned pieces of art.
“And what that told me is the value of possibility is much greater than the value of possession,” he says. “I think that’s what I was able to do with Easy Wood Tools. I would give the customer the path to the possibility of making a great bowl because the tools are so simple. We could hand them to 8-year-olds and they would turn pens.”
Second, in the beginning, traditional tool companies would chastise Craig for taking away business. At first, this stung. But in his heart he knew he was not taking away anybody’s income. So he simply asked competing companies to simply give him a chance. He told them he would increase their sales by growing the number of woodturners. And sure enough, he did. Easy Wood Tools produced more woodturners who not only bought Easy Wood Tools, but woodturning tools from every other woodturning tool company as well.
The goal was to make woodturning simple enough for anyone to try.
“And then, by 2013, everybody and their brother was knocking me off and I was about done with it,” Craig says. “I mean, it was like 20 companies. I’d go to a trade show and on each side of me there were companies selling knockoffs, and they weren’t as good.”
This hurt, Craig says. “I built that company best I could not taking nothing from nobody and I just, I don’t know.”
In 2015 Craig sold Easy Wood Tools to Chicago-based Pony Tools Inc., of Jorgensen clamp fame. Within six months Pony Tools went bankrupt, and Craig didn’t get all his money. So he turned to what he knew best – machine work.
(Note, Craig has not had any affiliation, whatsoever, with Easy Wood Tools since 2015.)
Jögge Sundqvist works with hand tools in the self-sufficient Scandinavian slöjd tradition, making stools, chairs, cupboards, knives, spoons and sculptures painted with oil color. “Not uncrafty” is his motto. He’s also a teacher, performer, musician and author of several books. An English translation of his book “Slöjd in Wood” is available from Lost Art Press, and an English translation of his latest book, “Karvsnitt,” is forthcoming. Jögge’s father, Wille Sundqvist (1925-2018), was a prominent figure in the green woodworking movement.
Wille Sundqvist (photo by Mattias Hjalmarsson)
“There was never a word about how I was going to be the one to take care of the tradition,” Jögge says. “Never. My father, I think he just wanted to share the joy, how to form things in a beautiful way, how easy it is to use an axe and use a knife. He was a good teacher and he was very eager to teach. But sometimes, when I was younger, once in a while I’d say, ‘Stop! I want to try myself! Don’t tell me everything!’ He was a trained furniture maker from Carl Malmsten’s Verkstadsskola, so he had his ways. But despite that, he was encouraging.”
Jögge grew up in Luleå, Sweden, where at that time his father was teaching kids in slöjd.
“In Sweden, slöjd is still something that every student has to learn,” Jögge says. “They have to learn how to use materials such as wood and textiles, and the techniques that go with it. Today I wouldn’t call it slöjd because I have another definition of it. But still, it’s a practical way to teach children how to use their hands.”
Otto Salomon (1849-1907), was an advocate of educational slöjd. “He wrote about how important it was for children to learn practical things, to read a drawing with measurements and stuff like that, especially farmer kids and working kids,” Jögge says. “They needed to have that knowledge to be able to be workers in the industrial revolution.”
Jögge has fond memories of his childhood in Luleå, following his father to the school’s workshops, helping him make things and making his own things.
“We had fun,” he says. “And he was eager to do his own things besides teaching and he helped us do our things too. And I loved that. For one thing, it gave me the confidence that everything could be made by hand.”
Around this time Malmsten, who founded two schools, arranged a workshop with teachers in Luleå where they were tasked to create children’s toys made out of wood.
Jögge, 4 years old. (photo by Wille Sundqvist)
“It was meant to be a fun workshop where they invented a lot of ideas around woodwork and children’s toys,” Jögge says. “Years ago I saw some slides when I’m 4 years old and I’m sitting on a crocodile on wheels and it has four pieces that are tied together with yarn so it can roll and sway on the ground a little. I’m sitting on it and it’s very roughly axed and carved with gouges and painted with oil colors and kind of sparkling – vivid colors – and I just loved that. And when I saw this picture, something inside me said, ‘Yeah. This must have been an early triggering point there.’ Because I am very attached to folk art and colors. I love powerful designs and rough carved surfaces. That’s why I am into slöjd much more than furniture work. I think it was somewhere there casting an eye over my shoulder – the inspiration started there for me.”
From the Back of a Dragon to a First Knife Jögge’s childhood was filled with art and slöjd. He remembers his father taking him to a film about Picasso at the age of 10. And he recognizes that the environments he lived in were special.
“My mother was very, very skilled in weaving, felting and nålbindning, which is an old knitting technique,” Jögge says.
His mother was also brilliant with color. Jögge remembers dining room tables filled with color samples and his mother eyeing them all day long, observing them in different light for days on end just to pick the perfect shade of red. It’s something Jögge has found himself doing, mixing and fixing paint for hours, trying to settle on the ideal shade.
Jögge’s childhood apartment, 1962. (photo by Wille Sundqvist)
“She and my father adapted the Carl Malmsten way of having a home, with handmade things, crafted things,” Jögge says. “The things were fancy and well done, but it wasn’t that we were rich or wealthy. But they were very well designed and carefully made. We lived in a workers’ block, very close to the iron and steel mill in Luleå, not very fancy at all. We had three rooms and a kitchen.”
Jögge and one of his two brothers shared a double-stacked bed in a room that also served as their father’s workshop.
Jögge and his brother’s bedroom, which also served as their father’s workshop. (photo by Wille Sundqvist)
Ola, Eric and Jögge in their bedroom/father’s workshop. (photo by Wille Sundqvist)
“In their mind, a home should be something very comfortable, functional and cozy and crafted,” he says. “So my father made the shelves and the beds but it was my mother who was the one who had the overall look for making it a home. My father was very oriented in objects but my mother saw how everything should fit together, from the carpets to the windows.”
Wille Sundqvist, Jögge’s father, grew up in a small village outside Bjurholm, with eight siblings. Wille’s father was a farmer who made a special kind of chair from that part of the country and brooms with a natural bent curve and horsetails on the back. On the weekends Wille and his family went to town and sold chairs and brooms for extra income.
Jögge’s grandfather, Arvid Sundqvist, 1961. (photo by Wille Sundqvist)
A copy of grandfather Arvid’s broom, with a natural bent handle, made by Wille Sundqvist.
“And that is exactly the definition of handicraft in Swedish,” Jögge says. “Because we have the word ‘slöjd’ and then we have the word ‘hemslöjd,’ which is ‘home craft.’ And ‘Hemslöjden’ is the craft movement in Sweden.”
Hemslöjd, Jögge says, is basically a side business for farmers. “When the industrial revolution started you needed money,” he says. “If you were farming you were self-sufficient and you didn’t have any money so you had to make some things in the tradition that you knew. So they made spoons, brooms and baskets and chairs and all kinds of objects in different parts of Sweden and sold it in the cities and they’d buy a steel bucket, for example, because you couldn’t make one yourself but it was obviously much better than a wooden bucket.”
Jögge sitting on his grandfather’s children’s eight-rung chair with older brother Ola and parents. (photo by Wille Sundqvist)
When Jögge was 10 the family moved to Vilhelmina, and his father began working as a craft consultant.
“He was one of three craft consultants in Sweden working for hard materials, wood and metal,” Jögge says. “Before that they had craft consultants for textile work but never before for harder material. So he was kind of a pioneer there, working for the whole county, trying to help mainly farmers who also had a hemslöjd as a side income.”
The craft movement flourished in Sweden in the 1970s and ’80s. As a craft consultant, paid by the government, Wille helped thousands of small farmers get loans from the state, create business plans, design workshops and create sophisticated drawings of everything, from candle holders to cups to butter knives.
Ten-year-old Jögge loved the move to Vilhelmina. “We came from an apartment to a house,” he says. It was 1969 and the town they moved to had about 4,000 people, so everybody knew everybody. As a teenager, Jögge started playing instruments, including the guitar, and he started a band. His life revolved around rock ‘n’ roll and friends.
Jögge’s father was patient. And when Jögge was 15 years old, he asked his father, “Can you show me how to make a knife?”
His father was quietly thrilled.
Wille taught Jögge the importance of finding a good blade, testing several blades out on reindeer antler. The knife was made in parts from reindeer antler and masur, a type of birch, so there’s a special pattern to it. His father showed him how to inlay the silver and sew the sheath.
Jögge’s first knife, 1973.
“It’s great,” Jögge says, holding it while talking. “I use it very, very much. It’s still a favorite.”
The Old Ways of Doing Things
Jögge moved to Umeå in 1978 where he had his own apartment and started to work for the railroad, at Umeå Central Station.
“I started at the tracks,” Jögge says. “When you’re taking apart a train, someone has to stand in between the cars. When the train was disjointed, the cars were pushed off to another train set. When they came in at a speed of up to 20 mph, you had put on the hook when it bumped into the trainset, to put the train together. It’s a very dangerous job. You have to be quick, and you can die if you come between the bumpers.”
Jögge also had a small workshop in a big wardrobe, 3 meters x 2 meters (about 10′ x 6′). Instead of using it for clothes, he built a workbench where he made knives and did some commission work too. In 1982, a friend convinced him to take two years and attend Vindeln, a folk school that specialized in slöjd.
“That totally changed my whole perspective, because we were a group of students who were all dedicated to work in the traditional way,” Jögge says. “We were finding the old ways of doing things by riving wood, splitting wood, following the fiber, using tradition as a woodworking tool. At the time, a lot of people trained in woodworking more like a fine arts craft. But we were dedicated to the old traditional craft, from the 1700s to the 1800s. We had a lot of discussions defining things: Who are we? Why are we doing these things? We had all-night discussions, even arguments. That was the sense of time, and formative to who I am. Beth Moen was in the class above me, and Ramon Persson was another heavy influence. And we were trained in design too – painting, freehand drawing, technical drawing and so on.
Jögge and Beth Moen, 1983.
“As I look upon it now, I found a way of exploring the tradition from a personal point of view, not my father’s point of view. Because I knew how to make a spoon. I knew how to make a knife. That was pretty common for me. But all of a sudden I had people in my age who were dedicated to what they did and I was able to form my own world which wasn’t my father’s world so I finally had my own choices to make.
“I remember I had been there for a week and I called my dad and I said, ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you, I’m at this school.’ And he said, ‘Wow!’ And he was free-minded by that time. He said, ‘When you’re 18, go out in the world and do whatever you want to do. I care about you but you should feel free to do whatever you want to do. You have to form your own life.’”
By this time Jögge’s parents had divorced, and his mother had moved to Vindeln as well. Jögge lived in her house during the week, and they invited classmates for weekends at his mother’s house, where they had “many wonderful parties and laughs.” His mother was very social and loved young people, Jögge says.
Jögge’s classmates from Slöjdlinjen in Vindeln, 1984, with his mother Maxan in a blue dress with a flower wreath.
While attending Vindeln Jögge continued to work for the railroad on the weekends, and once done with school he went back to the railroad full-time. Later he worked as a train dispatcher with an office at the station and a platform outside where he’d waved to the train drivers, indicating if it was OK to go or not. In 1985, he asked to work half-time. By then he had his workshop, was playing in a popular rock ‘n’ roll band and owned a record company, Jakaranda Records, recording local bands and putting out records for them.
Traditional Craft & Rock ‘n’Roll
Jögge’s first band was Rockvattnä, named after a village outside of Vilhelmina, which roughly translates to “rocking water.” When Jögge moved to Umeå, he formed another band called Favoritorkestern and later Kapten Nemo.
Kapten Nemo
“We were more of a serious Swedish pop band, heavily influenced by the Beatles, the Who, bands like that, but lyrics in Swedish. Very ’80s like. We were playing all the time. Stockholm too.”
Jögge, to the right, playing guitar with his band, Favoritorkestern.
The band had two leads. Jögge played guitar and sang, and they had a bass player who also sang. Both Jögge and the bass player wrote all the songs. They made a maxi single with four songs and a long-playing record. They were on the radio. For two to three years, around 1986 and 1987, they were the biggest band in Umeå.
“It was real fun,” Jögge says. “We had a good time there. In 1992 I finally released a solo record, Människa.”
He continued his traditional craft work, and the combination of rock ‘n’ roll and traditional craft fulfilled him.
Jögge teaching a chair class at Nääs, 1991.
“Doing traditional craft on one hand was lovely because the rock ‘n’ roll world is a very on-the-surface world,” he says. “It’s fun! But when I got fed up with the superficial rock ‘n’ roll world I could do craft and make things that lasted forever. But also, playing a gig that exists for a moment in time is exciting, the power and energy which comes out of it. So I had this kind of dialectic relationship with the fluidity of craft and rock ‘n’ roll. And I liked that combination, the interaction between modern life and tradition. I think I am that type of person who wants contrast and a little conflict in order to have balance in my life.”
Although Jögge no longer plays, he’s still, as he says, “totally addicted to good music.” He has more than 5,000 songs on his Spotify playlist, and he always plays music while working.
The rhythm of the music must match the rhythm of his work. When that equivalency occurs, he feels more power while throwing an axe, he says, and experiences more feeling while doing it.
“But when I carved patterns on knives, I tried to play rock ‘n’ roll but it didn’t work,” he says. “So I tried to look for more repetitive music which gave me some kind of fluency while working. And I found Steve Reich. He’s arty, modern, non-vocal, very repetitive. I found music with small patterns, like Philip Glass. And actually, it was Laurie Anderson who brought me there, talking about these people, Talking Heads was very repetitive but still a kind of ambiance. And I did much better working with that kind of music for patterns and chip carving. So a very profound insight was when I realized it must be a connection between music and body and working.”
In 1994, Jögge set up a big multimedia rock concert called Rockhuvud. He acted as producer, project manager, composer and musician. The performance featured a rock ‘n’ roll band, Komeda, and two craftspeople, Beth Moen and Tryggve Persson, live on stage. They toured throughout Sweden, 40 concerts in all.
Rockhuvud live at Hultsfred festival, 1994, with Bet Moen and Tryggve Persson as slöjders, and the band Komeda playing with Jögge. (photos by Mats Pallin)
“All the musicians and the craftspeople worked in rhythm, instructed by a choreographer, through this whole concert,” Jögge says. “So it has been a real thread in my work – the body, the rhythm, and the work. It’s hard to explain, but the performance was a way of expressing the power of slöjd, both the physical character of the work and the beauty of the shapes and colors.”
Here he quotes the beat poet Jack Kerouac: “Because I am Beat, I believe in Beatitude and that God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son to it.”
“I think it has to do with something about flow,” he says. “One of my favorite moments in the workshop is working pretty hard and sweating all over – when form comes naturally and you don’t even think about it. It just comes there, from the tool, from the material, from your skill. It’s a rhythm, a kind of instinct that is created in that moment. And after that you just look at it and say, ‘What have I done?’ I talked with Del Stubbs about this, about the dancing of the hands. Sometimes you can just look at your hands, and they just work themselves. You don’t even think about it. They just work.
Jögge drilling a shrink box with a T-auger. (photo by Henke Olofsson)
“This is still something that’s true to me. I believe real craft comes from a deeper interaction with your mind and body, obviously with a long knowledge of tradition, materials and technical skill with the tools. When all parts connect and work together, real slöjd comes from my hands.”
Jögge says he realizes now the importance of having one leg in traditional craft and one leg in rock ‘n’ roll, and that both legs contribute to his body functioning in a way that allows the magic of Surolle. (And that’s a story still to come, in part two.)
In this shot of Chris Vesper’s shop, you can see three – no, four! – rubbish bins. This helps him keep things tidy.
Kara Gebhart-Uhl, Christopher Schwarz and I have selected a few of our favorites from “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years” – some have already been posted; there are some still to come. Chris wrote about the project that “these columns during the Hayward years are like nothing we’ve ever read in a woodworking magazine. They are filled with poetry, historical characters and observations on nature. And yet they all speak to our work at the bench, providing us a place and a reason to exist in modern society.”
Our hope is that the columns – selected by Kara from among Hayward’s 30 years of “Chips from the Chisel” editor’s notes – will not only entertain you with the storied editor’s deep insight and stellar writing, but make you think about woodworking, your own shop practices and why we are driven to make. When Australian toolmaker Chris Vesper (vespertools.com) read “A Kind of Order” it prompted him to write a few responses – read the first, “Everything in its Place,” here; another is below.
— Fitz
Time Saved is Time Gained
One thing I’ve observed from many years of visiting all types of workshops all over the world: Everyone does it a bit different. There is no right or wrong; it’s what works for you with as little judgement as one can muster. But I have found that certain things can increase shop efficiency and personal enjoyment quite remarkably. Like stepping back once a year for a really good clean up and a think outside the box to re-organise things. Buying or making new storage for your tools (not some latest plastic storage gadget that promises to upend your life with happiness, but genuinely practical ideas like robust drawers, shelving, cupboards, racks etc.). Maybe move the workbench or a couple of machines to suit you better. Chances are if you’ve been thinking for 12 months that you really should move that material rack but haven’t, you probably should have moved it 18 months ago.
One extreme of a workspace is a floor you could eat off during work hours and barely a tool out of place – because everything has a place, and all is organised just so. The other is what appears as mess and utter chaos to the casual observer (hopefully not on the level of compulsive hoarding – that’s not healthy for anyone). But the keeper of said chaos will likely know exactly where everything is, able to reach into the darkness of a dusty corner shelf or bottom drawer and procure quickly any requested item, no matter how obscure. Many people who operate at both extremes (and everything in between) are perfectly capable of producing beautiful work in a reasonable time frame. Some work in an eternal mess; some simply cannot do this. The manners of the brain are an interesting thing.
I prefer the cleaner and more organised end of the shop spectrum – especially working as a one-man business in a very poly-technic workshop (woodworking and metal working, along with a few other tricks like laser marking in house, metrology and some hobby welding, restoring an antique machine). Forget pride or satisfaction – I genuinely find much efficiency is gained from knowing EXACTLY where a certain tool or device is, and being able to lay hands on it immediately – no rummaging through the sedimentary geological layering that sometimes happens.
I ponder my early struggle to separate the precision metal working stuff from the ravages of woodworking dust. Apart from the obvious of using better extraction than in my early toolmaking days, I’ve now overcome this problem completely by simply putting things away and keeping the things that are not like the other separated. This is relevant no matter your shop size. Small shops need to keep ahead on organising lest conditions degrade to the point where one could have difficulty getting in the door due to the goat track having suffered an overnight avalanche (not to mention fire risks and other more serious safety matters). In larger shops it’s also critical as one does not want to waste time walking to the other side of a shop only to realise the item required is somewhere else.
One method I’ve found to be immensely convenient is to have many smallish rubbish bins (trash cans, y’all) placed strategically and unobtrusively around the workshop, sometimes grouped around a specific work area. Nothing fancy. Old paint buckets or similar receptacles mean I am never more than one step – or at best an easy lob – away from a bin. I’ve found it best to have several per area, including one at either end of my benches. So with two benches in my work area and a table in between them, that means I have four bins there alone to cover two benches. Works a treat.
It saves so much time and eliminates double handling when cleaning up your own mess, even in a small workshop.
Another work area, another two bins.
This ethos was hatched one day whilst I was absorbed in a job and needed to chuck something in the bin. I had to walk several steps to chuck it, walk back and make a second trip (and I likely dropped something along the way).
Think on how many steps you walk to throw out a rag, or the packaging of something you just opened. Consider if you can turf it with little care or precision into a bucket probably less than one meter (about one yard, y’all) away from your body, then not give it a thought until you empty all the smaller bins into your main bin (which I do perhaps once a month). Sure that part takes a little time, but is a small investment in your own time compared to what you’ve already gained.
