A new video is available on tool chests (cat not included).
By now, Megan Fitzpatrick has taught more tool chest classes than I ever have (or ever will). And she is Covington’s Queen of Dovetails. So it makes perfect sense that Marc Spagnuolo would ask her to host a long-form video on building a Traveling Anarchist’s Tool Chest.
This is as close as you can get to taking a class with Megan. I was on set during the filming of the video, and Megan goes into the same granular and useful detail she does during a week-long class. The video is broken down into 16 lessons and includes detailed cutting lists and construction drawings.
The reason I’m telling you about this today is that the video is only $49 until April 15. After that, it’s $99.
If you don’t know Marc (surely there’s one person out there who doesn’t), he runs a great business. We have enormous respect for his integrity, high-quality product and the way he treats customers and the people around him. I think the $99 is a good deal (the $49 is a steal).
If you buy the video, you can stream it whenever you like, or you can download it for watching off-line.
I don’t get a cut, or affiliate money or anything for this blog post. I just think this is an excellent companion video to “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” for people who need more detail than is in the book.
Bean the Shop Cat is here to report that Katherine Schwarz spent a few days this week making and packing a fresh batch of soft wax, and it is now available in her Etsy store.
Aw geez…are you using me for marketing again?
Instructions for Soft Wax 2.0
Soft Wax 2.0 is a safe finish for bare wood that is incredibly easy to apply and imparts a beautiful low luster to the wood.
The finish is made by cooking raw, organic linseed oil (from the flax plant) and combining it with cosmetics-grade beeswax and a small amount of a citrus-based solvent. The result is that this finish can be applied without special safety equipment, such as a respirator. The only safety caution is to dry the rags out flat you used to apply before throwing them away. (All linseed oil generates heat as it cures, and there is a small but real chance of the rags catching fire if they are bunched up while wet.)
Soft Wax 2.0 is an ideal finish for pieces that will be touched a lot, such as chairs, turned objects and spoons. The finish does not build a film, so the wood feels like wood – not plastic. Because of this, the wax does not provide a strong barrier against water or alcohol. If you use it on countertops or a kitchen table, you will need to touch it up every once in a while. Simply add a little more Soft Wax to a deteriorated finish and the repair is done – no stripping or additional chemicals needed.
Soft Wax 2.0 is not intended to be used over a film finish (such as lacquer, shellac or varnish). It is best used on bare wood. However, you can apply it over a porous finish, such as milk paint.
APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS (VERY IMPORTANT): Applying Soft Wax 2.0 is so easy if you follow the simple instructions. On bare wood, apply a thin coat of soft wax using a rag, applicator pad, 3M gray pad or steel wool. Allow the finish to soak in about 15 minutes. Then, with a clean rag or towel, wipe the entire surface until it feels dry. Do not leave any excess finish on the surface. If you do leave some behind, the wood will get gummy and sticky.
The finish will be dry enough to use in a couple hours. After a couple weeks, the oil will be fully cured. After that, you can add a second coat (or not). A second coat will add more sheen and a little more protection to the wood.
Soft Wax 2.0 is made in small batches in Kentucky. Each glass jar contains 8 oz. of soft wax, enough for at least two chairs.
After long delays because of shortages of clay and glaze, we now have a fair number of our handmade coffee mugs back in stock and ready to ship.
Made by an artists’ collective in Minnesota, these mugs are outstanding for the workshop, with a wide base that makes them difficult to knock over (our cats have tried….). The generous handle makes them easy to pick up, even if you have gloves on.
Both our coffee mugs and steins are made by Grey Fox Pottery, and are as high-quality as our books and our tools. Because of continued shortages, which are an everyday thing these days, order now to avoid disappointment as we likely will run out of these in short order.
Books Going to Press
After a long dry spell, Megan and I are getting three books to press this month. “Euclid’s Door” by George Walker and Jim Tolpin is at the final proofing stage where we review the pages for problems on press. This book continues George and Jim’s exploration of workshop geometry that they began with “By Hand & Eye.” This book shows you how to put geometry to work to make beautiful and useful workshop tools, everything from a wooden try square to a panel gauge. As always, their work is eye-opening and mind-bending.
This book should be released this fall.
Today I am sending off the final pages of The Stick Chair Journal to pre-press. This annual publication is an obsession-driven personal project. If you are interested in nerdy chair stuff (and the occasional wild folk tale), you might enjoy the Journal. We are doing only one press run of the Journal. If you wish to be notified when it is released this fall, go here.
Finally, Megan is working with John Porritt to finish up work on “The Belligerent FInisher,” an outstanding little book on how to add aged-looking finishes to new pieces. Porritt is a lifelong professional chairmaker and antiques restorer. His methods are simple and surprisingly effective. If all goes to plan, this book will also be out this fall.
More news to come on future books, maybe even a book on Dutch tool chests?
Every time we get questions about our setting jigs, I joke that I’m going to start making them to sell. Had I done it years ago, I could probably now afford that paint job my house needs…or at least afford some fancy cat treats!
The questions have ticked up recently, due to the publication Christopher Schwarz’s book “Sharpen This.” But I still can’t bring myself to make these jigs, ’cause it’s so easy to make your own. But also because different honing guides require different placement of the blocks (it has to do with how far the blade projects)… and I don’t have time to make these for every guide out there. So here’s how to make the one we use, for our Lie-Nielsen honing guides:
Screw two pieces of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMW) to a block of plywood. Done. No magnets. No magic.
OK, OK…here are a few more particulars:
The 1/2″-thick plywood block is 4-1/4″ long x 2-1/8″ wide. (Other sizes would work.) We like plywood because it is unlikely to warp as much as solid wood.
The 1/4″-thick UHWM plastic is left over from another project – but it’s the perfect thing for this. It doesn’t get munged up as easily as a block of wood when you register a blade against it, so it lasts a lot longer. The two little blocks of UHWM are 1″ wide x 1-1/8″ long.
The plastic is screwed in place with brass screws, because they won’t rust.
The 35° block is 7/8″ from the front edge; the 30° block is 1-5/32″ from the front edge.
Those are the only two angles at which we hone/polish 99 percent of our edge tools (and really, we mostly use only the 35°). But if you want a lot of angle choices on your jig, Lie-Nielsen Toolworks has a free download for a fancy one. But we don’t do fancy when it comes to tool sharpening – ’cause making them dull is a lot more fun.
To use it, register the blade against the block, then tighten the jig. Easy, fast, repeatable.
But what if you don’t have a Lie-Nielsen honing guide, or you want different angles? Well, you’ll just have to figure out the proper projection to get the setting block in the right place. Here are two ways to do that.
Put a blade in your guide, then put a Tilt Box on the blade and register the bevel against a flat surface. Adjust the guide until the readout matches your goal angle. Tighten the guide, then measure the distance from the body of the guide to the end of the blade. That’s the distance from the guide’s body the setting block should be secured to the setting jig’s base.
The Tilt Box II in use.
Or put a blade in your guide and register the existing bevel against a flat surface. Put a protractor upright on that same flat surface. Align the business end of the blade with the center of a protractor (make sure the 0° on said protractor is on the edge – they aren’t all). Adjust the guide until the angle matches the one you want.
On the left are shades of blue (surprise!) from Heron Linseed Oil Paint. Stacked in the center are two shades from Allbäck Paint. The small bottle is “blown” linseed oil from Heron; the large bottle is “purified” linseed oil from Heron. At back is the naughty stuff: odorless mineral spirits.
Chris and I have been experimenting with linseed oil paint for about a year now, since he started working on his next book, “The American Peasant,” and we’ve both painted a lot of wooden stuff with it – from large flat surfaces on chests to fiddly roundish bits on stick chairs to decorative curves and pointy things. We’ve used it on ring-porous woods including oak, ash and elm (looks great; it is a pain in the posterior, like all paints on ring-porous woods) and closed-pore woods such as poplar, linden and white pine (looks great, easy to apply). We have not used it on other material, but I’ve read that it will stick to many other building materials (plaster, metal, masonry and more). I’ve even read claims that it will stick to anything. But I know for a fact only that it sticks to wood (and fabric).
What we have not done is tried every color, brand or brush available. And, all of the stuff we’ve painted is indoor stuff. We have no personal experience with this paint on exterior work…though I am hoping to have some in the near future, if I can find someone to use it on my house for less than the going rate for a kidney*.
A hand detail of a red oak stick chair with one brushed coat (plus a few touch-ups) of Allbäck Linseed Oil Paint in Holkham Green.
This is what we know, thus far.
Most linseed oil paint is made from raw linseed oil and ground natural pigments – no added binders, driers, solvent or synthetic emulsifiers – so it’s far more environmentally friendly than most hardware store paints. (Milk paint is also environmentally friendly – my hardware store doesn’t carry it or linseed oil paint.)
Linseed oil paint is more expensive than latex, acrylic or milk paint (the other paints we know well). However, it takes fewer coats for full coverage – so penny for penny, it ends up not so expensive after all (plus it takes less of your active time – and no sanding! – if you’re including the human factor in your price calculations). Depending on the wood, we have found that it takes one coat (closed-pore woods) or one coat plus a touch-up here and there (ring-porous woods) for coverage that fully colors the surface and allows the grain to show through (which is what we want). Neither of us has had to apply two full coats to achieve our desired coverage – though if you want to cover the grain a second coat will do it, in our experience. (The hanging cupboard that is now the Anthe bathroom cupboard has two full coats of paint only because Chris decided he didn’t like the green of the first coat on that project, so it’s topped with one coat of blue – and on that piece, the grain no longer shows through. NB: He likes the green, just not on that project. He’s a mystery.)
Spell carvings in linden, that were painted (with a 4″ shed-resistant woven 1/4″ nap roller) with Allbäck Linseed Oil Paint in Old Blue.
Linseed oil paint is a lot thicker than any other paint we use, and with a good (or at least decent brush), a lot will remain in the bristles, and you should “draw it out” quite a ways from the initial strokes. That is, deposit the paint from the brush onto the project, and make long strokes, pulling the paint with as you go, then go back to the original deposit of paint and draw it out again, overlapping the first stroke. I don’t have to dip the brush back in the paint as often as I do with latex, acrylic or milk paint. But because of its low viscosity, you might find the linseed oil paint more difficult to use at first – or at least different than what you’re used to. Be sure to draw it out a lot and not leave it too thick, or it will drip and/or sag as it dries (and take longer than it ought to dry). It’s kind of like spreading a crumb coat on a cake – you want full coverage, but nothing extra.
Some instructions say to wipe on a coat of washed linseed oil and let it dry before painting, others say to use the paint on bare wood. We’ve done both, and both have worked for us. For what it’s worth, I am now a convert to a base coat of linseed oil. It makes it easier to draw out the paint (much like a second coat of most brushed finishes are easier to apply than the first coat).
At left are very nice brushes given to me by Mattias Hallin, made by Gnesta Penseln. The ones on the right are more readily available: Wooster “Yachtsman.” Both kinds have natural-bristle brushes.
I’ve tried out a number of brushes, and Mattias Hallin, a long-time user of linseed oil paint, says his favorite are the Gnesta Penselns shown above. Hardware store brushes that are decent are the Wooster Yachtsmans. I think you can see from the picture, though, that the brushes on the left will hold a heavier paint load. However…then you have to clean them; they’re too nice to toss. (More on that at the bottom.) Travis at Heron paint recommended to me Escoda Natural Chungking Bristle Brushes, but I’ve not yet tried them (also too expensive to not wash!).
Most of the instructions I’ve read say to use the paint as it comes…but we’re good at disobeying. To make it a little easier to draw out and to make it lay out better with less effort – that is, dry without brush marks (without having to “tip off”) – we sometimes add about 10 percent low-odor mineral spirits and mix it (yes…this makes it less environmentally friendly – and I would not dilute it for exterior work). I cannot stress enough to mix it well…whether or not you add mineral spirits (or turpentine, which the owner of Heron Paint said he uses when he needs to thin the paint a bit). The pigment settles fairly quickly, and you want it to be evenly suspended in the mixture. So, I have made friends with every hardware and paint store between my house and the shop; they are kind enough to shake up the paint as needed in their fancy paint shaker machines. I try not to abuse the privilege…which is why I spread my mixing asks among four locations. (I want a fancy paint shaker machine for our shop – preferably the old kind that clamps top and bottom, and runs the risk of spraying paint everywhere should the top come off the can. The newfangled fully contained ones are no fun – not enough risk. Plus they’re a lot more expensive.)
The poplar top of this stool is painted with one coat in a custom shade of full-test linseed oil paint from Heron Paints. I shook this can by hand, since I was confident it hadn’t been sitting on a shelf for weeks/months/years.
Linseed oil paint takes a lot longer to dry than any other paint we use. So while it takes only one coat, or one coat and some spot touch-ups (either while the first coat is still wet enough to easily work, or after it’s completely dry), it will be dry to the touch after about 24 hours at average room temperature and low to mild humidity – and even then, there will still be some areas where it might have been applied a little too thickly that will transfer to the white shirt you shouldn’t have worn while leaning up against it. We have found it takes two or three days to completely dry (longer in cold and/or humid conditions) to the point where it’s “carveable” without making a small mess (in case you, too, are covering your work in spells). If you have curious pets or curious kids, keep them away from the work for a while. And you do need to be mindful of kicking up dust around a freshly painted piece for 24 or so hours, as it can stick to the wet paint. You can speed up the drying by exposing the work to UV light – but do not put it in direct sunlight to dry (that resulted in a pimply surface when we tried it). Update: This might be due to the thinner; the full-strength stuff dries just fine in the sun, I’m told by several log-time users.
Here, I’m painting an elm coat rack in a custom shade of linseed oil paint from Heron Paints (a close match to Benjamin Moore 2060-30). First, I wiped on a coat of washed linseed oil (as recommended by the paint maker) and let it dry overnight. I then poured some of the paint into a Mason jar, added a splash of low-odor mineral spirits and shook it up by hand for maybe 10 minutes. It was easier to brush than the non-diluted paint I used on the stool, but the color is not as saturated on the surface (that is, more of the wood is showing through, and it will need a touch up in a few places. But also, elm is a ring-porous wood, and doesn’t take paint as well as the poplar. So there are a lot of variables going on. Whatever. We’re happy with the way it looks, and that’s the goal.
About the “easily work” I mentioned above: I’ve found I have about two hours in which I can manipulate the fresh paint and still have it lay out flat as it dries. Any longer, and it’s already dry enough that the brush marks remain where I’ve gone back and retouched an area.
Here, Wally is showing the contrast between velvety black and Allbäck Linseed Oil Paint in Antique Gold (Chris carved through it after it was dry). I added a topcoat of washed linseed oil, which added a little depth to the sheen, and added a bit of protection to the carved (and thus de-painted) areas.
More coats of paint will make the finished item shinier – so if you like shiny (we prefer no more than a soft sheen), consider more than one coat. After the piece is completely dry, you can add a topcoat to adjust the sheen a bit to your liking, and to blend areas where the paint looks more flat and/or more shiny (which I think might be a result of adding mineral spirits…though I haven’t yet done enough “experiments” to back up that statement). We use soft wax or simply a coat of washed linseed oil.
Allbäck Linseed Oil Paint in Old Red (with spells added afterward, obviously), with a topcoat of purified linseed oil.
So what is this “washed” or “refined” or “purified” linseed oil? It’s a purified version of raw linseed oil, and all we know for sure is that it is lighter in weight, lighter in color (and so results in less yellowing) and dries faster than plain ol’ raw linseed oil. There is also “blown” linseed oil, which is another method of purification that involves air, and is even lighter in weight and dries faster still. We hope to have expert information on these processes in the future, and more experience with the various purified/cleaned/washed/blown/magically delicious versions of the stuff. But for now, we can tell you that “purified” dries faster and yellows less.
What about cleanup? Well…here’s where my argument for using this paint falls apart (a little bit). Linseed oil soap is what everyone says to use for cleanup. And it works. But it does not work quickly or easily. I cleaned one brush and it took three intense rounds of soaping, combing and rinsing…and I still wouldn’t call that brush perfectly clean. I’ve read that the easy solution is to simply suspend the brush in linseed oil, and it remains at the ready for the next use! OK…but the number of blues I have alone…I don’t have room for suspending five brushes, and I have cats. So I use the relatively cheap Yachtsman brushes, and throw them away. (Yes, in this I am a bad person.) And because it’s linseed oil, I let the brush dry hard before putting it in the trash (ditto on any rags I’ve used).
So when would I use linseed oil paint vs. acrylic (faux milk paint) vs. actual milk paint? Well, they all result in different looks, so that’s my first consideration.
Linseed oil paint gives it an old-world look, and, after a topcoat of oil, has a low sheen that I like. And it “feels” like the right choice for any project of Scandinavian or Eastern European origin (but that’s probably because we started using it on American Peasant projects). I have yet to try it on a tool chest – and won’t offer it for commission chest builds until I’ve road-tested it (which I will do soon). Plus it’s harder to clean up afterward…so I have to be a lot more careful when using it than I do with “milk paint” or milk paint. That would be factored into the finishing cost (along with the one-use paint brush). But I’d use it on a personal project for which I had ample dry time during which I could keep any cats away (two scenarios that almost never coincide!).
General Finishes “Milk Paint” is my long-time favorite for ease of use, price and cleanup. It dries with an almost-flat finish, cleans up with water, goes on easily, lays out nicely, dries quickly and typically takes two coats. And because it dries quickly, I can recoat late in the day if my first coat was early that morning. Plus it needs no topcoat – so two coats and done, then easy cleanup. I can apply it with a cheap chip brush and toss it, or use then easily clean one of my long-beloved Purdys. (Sherwin-Williams bought Purdy in 2004 – I don’t remember exactly when the brushes changed, but change they did. I haven’t liked any I’ve bought since.) However, last year, General Finishes severely curtailed the color choices, and got rid of my two favorites, Twilight and Blue Moon. (Yes, I know I sound like the old fart that I am.) And no local paint store carries it – so I’d have to buy it one place, then pay another for the privilege of mixing it to a custom color. Boo. (And that’s high on the reasons why I’m planning a road test soon on the linseed oil paint.)
Actual milk paint is a lot of fun to use. But it’s also a bit of fuss. It takes many coats, and while it dries quickly and cleans up easily, it doesn’t always behave as I might expect, and each color I’ve used performs a bit differently. So, there are a lot of test boards and a lot of time involved in getting a good finish (for me) from milk paint. (Peter Galbert and Travis Curtis both produce gorgeous milk paint finishes – and I think they would agree that it’s not a fast process…even when you use it all the time!) Plus most people prefer it with a topcoat (though I love the dead-flat look it imparts), and that can’t be done until the paint is fully cured – and the more layers there are, the longer that takes (after a few bad experiences, I don’t even think about a topcoat until a week has passed after my final paint coat). But there are a lot of gorgeous colors available, and I love the variegated look I can achieve with it. (Plus, kids can chew on it safely. Not that I encourage such behavior.)
And that’s all the topics I can think of for which have answers…but I expect we’ll have more info to come.
Happy painting!
– Fitz
*A bourbon-loving-person-of-Irish-heritage kidney – so, not worth a paint job.
The same stool from above, now with a coat of linseed oil on top of both the painted and unpainted surfaces. Olivia looks good there.
