I’m finishing up the corrections today to “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” for the second printing. There are four significant factual errors we’ve corrected, listed below, and three clarifications to the text that might help you through some muddled language on my part.
We also cleaned up about 50 typographical errors. While that’s not terrible for a 120,000-word manuscript, we always strive for zero. Thanks to everyone who helped clean up the text.
Here are the four errors:
Page 122: I discuss how a panel gauge will make a line “perpendicular” to your true edge. It should be “parallel.” (Thanks to Gil Chesbro.)
Page 248: I recommend a 4- or 4.5-point panel saw filed rip. Those don’t really exist. I meant a 7-point panel filed rip. (Thanks to Carl Bilderback.)
Page 270 I discuss a “manmade soft-Arkansas oilstone” that I used to own. It should read “manmade coarse India stone.” (Thanks to Stephen Shepherd.)
Page 430: The drawing shows the dust seal on four sides of the lid; it goes around only three sides. The corrected illustration can be downloaded below. (Thanks to Bob Miller.)
Here are the clarifications:
Page 440: The illustrations of the sawtill show some kerfs as not running all the way through. Yet I clearly ran the kerfs for the sawblades all the way through. You can do it either way. Both are traditional and correct.
Page 446: I describe the bottom till as a little “smaller” than the other tills. This is confusing. It is a little smaller in length but it is a little larger in depth.
Page 404: The illustration shows two battens but I show three in the step photos. Either way is fine. Many of the traditional chests have two. Some have three. I tried three, but I drew two.
Greetings from Lost Art Press. The Elves, Sharon and myself are headed to Duck, N.C., for the week. We are closing during this time and will re-open on Sunday, Aug. 9. We will stay on the email to answer any queries.
We have gotten a number of questions concerning the Chris’s new book “Handplane Essentials.” We are unable to take pre-orders for the book on our site due to technical issues (we are trying to get this feature available). However, Lost Art Press will have the book available in early August. The book will be signed by Chris for our customers and we will have plenty of books.
Thank you for your patronage and we always look forward to hearing from you.
Ok I am getting caught up on some woodworking projects. I have been closing the books for Lost Art Press and getting ready for tax filings…It is surprising how much non-woodworking tasks there are to do in a woodworking business. I digress.
As promised here is a pic of the Veritas Skew Rabbet plane aka moving fillister, in action. A Rabbet is a recess with two open sides that is cut with the grain. A fillister is a cross grain rabbet. Just like a groove is with the grain and a dado is across the grain. The moving fillister has a fence to allow for adjustment of the fillister.
Anyway, the plane works great as you can see. The wood is figured maple and I didn’t even have the nicker (the blade that slices the wood fibers ahead of the blade) in place. It was adjusted out of the way when I put the plane back into the cabinet and forgot to set it when I started planing for this picture.
The next pic is an attachment I made for the shooting board so I could fine tune the miter cuts on some boxes I am making. I took a couple of pieces of a pine 2×12 left over from the trestle table I built. I band sawed them to shape, glued them together and added a fence. Crude but it works. I just clamp it onto the shooting board and have at it. The bar of the clamp is a bit in the way but I will try another clamp or something.
My to do list includes replacing a number of wooden pieces for my brother’s parquet floor, legging up a chair, and trying to get a jewelry box done. I also got called from a friend who wants help framing his basement and build a bar and a co-worker who wants shelves built for her new house. What I want to do is build the Massachusetts Block Front Chest that Glen Huey made. Don’t we all get grabbed when someone finds out we woodwork? Yes, I would like to help out but I still have a lot of painting to do in my house not to mention installing a hardwood floor and winning the super bowl on my Xbox 360. Heck, that doesn’t take into account all the hi-def cable channels and the new blue ray player! But I digress again…Back to work!
No matter how well you typically cut dovetails, sometimes the gods are simply not smiling upon you. I have days when I pick up my dovetail saw, make a few cuts and quickly realize that I should instead rough out lumber, clean out the offcut bin or do something else that doesn’t require precision. And I should drink less (or maybe more) coffee the next morning, then try again. But that isn’t always possible Sometimes, gaps happen.
They are not usually the end of the world, and I often simply ignore small ones. After all, time heals all wounds. Or fills them with dirt, anyway. And rarely have I seen such gappy joints, even from first-timers, that the project won’t stay together (glue is amazing stuff…and glue plus nails more amazing still!). Filling gaps is almost always an aesthetic, not structural, choice. But if I have to fix some gaps (or teach others how to fill gaps) below are a few ways I’ve been known to go about it.
Shims I’ll start with my least favorite, which is gluing in wedges/shims. If your pins and tails aren’t at least a little bit proud (that is, they stick out beyond the mating surface), gluing a shim into the gap is pretty much the best way I know to hide it. And it is always, in my opinion, the best way to hide a gaping maw.
I grab whatever offcuts I can from my stock and cut a handful of shims in various thicknesses, hoping that I’ll end up with at least one of a given size to perfectly fill my gap(s). And I do my best to make sure that my offcut matches the color of the project where the gap is gaping. It does no good to insert a sapwood shim into a heartwood gap – instead of hiding the gap, it will draw attention to the fix. Ditto on the grain. I try hard to select an offcut that exhibits the same grain, so that the fix won’t show.
I would like to pretend I purposely cut gaps, but that would be untrue. I was having a bad day at the bench…but in the middle of a class, there is no choice but to carry on!
Then paint both sides of the shim/wedge (your shape needs may vary) with glue, and gently tap it into the gap. I recommend a small hammer and gentle use thereof; these small piece can easily break. Make sure to let the glue fully dry before flushing to the surface with a flush-cut saw. If you don’t wait, the glue will get into your saw teeth, then it won’t cut! (The hide glue I use is easy to remove when I’m overeager – a little hot water and a scrub with a toothbrush will clean the teeth, then I wipe the blade with an oily rag. For PVA, hot vinegar and more vigorous scrubbing does the trick – but the smell will give you away.)
Note that my fingers are not on the bitey side of the blade. This is important. Flush-cut saws love blood.
Controlled Spelching My usual fix for small gaps is to plane the end grain in the direction of the gap, hoping it will break off enough to fill said gap. Sometimes, it even works! But, you have to have enough material proud of the surface so that you can catch it with the blade to break it. If your joints are already flush, it’s back to the shims above.
Here, you can see the edge of the tail is breaking off a bit (spelching) into the gap, but there wasn’t enough material to plane and break to fill this. For this one, it’s to the shims!
Contravening most planing instruction, here, you do want to plane off the edge, intentionally breaking the grain into the gap.
This is the pin I was planing in the picture above; you see how fibers on the side of the pin broke off to fill the small gap. When I plane the pin flush and clean up the surface, this will disappear under the finish.
Bishoping I do not know the etymology of the term, but “bishoping” is just a fancy word for “mushrooming.” Get the end grain wet with water and let it soak in for a few minutes, then use a ball peen hemmer to tap the fibers and mushroom them to fill a small gap. But again, you have to have enough of a proud joint that your taps don’t cause a dent below the surface of the side.
Here, I crossed my baseline most shamefully…not only with the saw, but when I was chopping out the baseline with a chisel. A little water and a few taps takes care of the baseline gap. Then I plane or flush-cut the joint flush. The overcuts? Well, for that, I’ll need time and dirt. (Or I can glue in a toothpick, but only if I’m going to paint the project.)
What about glue and sawdust? Or wood filler? Like the toothpick mentioned in the caption above, those works only if the project will be painted. Glue will never take a finish, and no matter what the marketing says, neither will wood filler. At least not any that I’ve found.
– Fitz
p.s. Most of the gaps I’ve shown above in closeup likely wouldn’t show enough in the finished work to be worth fussing over. But some people like to fuss. This is for them.
My class from 2024 – great fun was had by all…I hope!
The 2025 London International Woodworking Festival (IWF) is fast approaching! Classes (for which you can still register) run Oct. 20-23, then the marketplace is open to all on Friday, Oct. 24 from noon-6 p.m. and Saturday, Oct. 25 from 9:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m.
While Chris and I won’t be there this year due to teaching elsewhere, we’ve already blocked off our calendars for 2026. I quite like teaching while looking out over the Thames. And I always enjoy a visit to see Hodge the Cat. And toffee.
Hodge, who is mentioned (and not kindly – Boswell did not like cats – in Boswell’s “Life of Samuel Johnson.”
Lost Art Press books and many of our Crucible tools will be there though! Classic Hand Tools, which carries pretty much our full line, will be in the marketplace, as will folks from Lie-Nielsen, Veritas, Philly Planes, Windsor Workshops, Oscar Rush, Nigel Melfi, Richard Arnold and more! “From immersive courses and expert-led workshops to inspiring talks and a bustling marketplace, the Festival is a celebration of woodworking skill, tradition, and community.” You can check out the full lineup and get more info on the London IWF website.
And we’ll see you there in 2026 – sorry to miss this year.
