Katherine “Soft Wax” Schwarz has spent her free time during the last couple weeks making wax. An insane amount of wax. And she has just put it all up for sale in her etsy store.
As everyone knows, you can’t sell wax without a cute animal photo. Here you see Bean, our three-legged shop cat, who did not want to go along with the program. I hope that despite this, you will consider buying a jar of the wax.
Notes on the finish: This is the finish I use on my chairs. Katherine cooks it up here in the machine room using a waterless process. She then packages it in a tough glass jar with a metal screw-top lid. She applies her hand-designed label to each lid, boxes up the jars and ships them in a durable cardboard mailer. The money she makes from wax helps her make ends meet at college. Instructions for the wax are below.
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.
The home Fisher built signifies his success on the frontier.
The following is excerpted from Joshua A. Klein’s “Hands Employed Aright: The Furniture Making of Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847).” Fisher was the first settled minister of the frontier town of Blue Hill, Maine. Harvard-educated and handy with an axe, Fisher spent his adult life building furniture for his community. Fortunately for us, Fisher recorded every aspect of his life as a woodworker and minister on the frontier.
In this book, Klein, the founder of Mortise & Tenon Magazine, examines what might be the most complete record of the life of an early 19th-century American craftsman. Using Fisher’s papers, his tools and the surviving furniture, Klein paints a picture of a man of remarkable mechanical genius, seemingly boundless energy and the deepest devotion. It is a portrait that is at times both familiar and completely alien to a modern reader – and one that will likely change your view of furniture making in the early days of the United States.
[Jonathan] Fisher didn’t die an active cabinetmaker. About the time he recorded paying off his debt, his shop activity waned. By March 1820, when he wrote “I am free from debt to earthly creditors,” he hadn’t made a chair or a stand for almost a decade. He had reached the ambition of every frontiersman – in the most literal sense, he had built from the ground up a comfortable life for his family and himself in a thriving coastal community. As Richard Bushman has pointed out, “Beyond the physical side of comfort – warmth, good food, restful chairs, and accessible conveniences – comfort implied a moral condition achieved through retirement from the bustle of high life and retreat into wholesome domesticity.” (1)
Being able to take moments of leisure has long been seen as a sign of success. There are few objects that signify this more powerfully than a comfortable chair.
With all the labor he expended to get to this place in life, Fisher appreciated being able to reap the rewards. Not every family was so fortunate, though. On one visit to a struggling family whose father had been recently imprisoned, Fisher sympathized with them when he wrote, “Mrs. David Carter had with her 4 little children, three of them sick with whooping cough. Not a chair in the miserable cottage to sit in and her husband recently gone to prison for shooting some of his neighbor’s cattle and she professed to believe him innocent … Oh when will the benign sway of pure Christianity banish in some good measure from this earth this mess of human misery!” For Fisher, the lack of a chair in the Carter home symbolized the family’s economic, social and spiritual poverty.
For Fisher, though, comfort was not simply about retreat from the “bustle of life” Bushman refers to – it had much more to do with contentment. On a visit he made to the exceptionally fine house of a Mr. Codman, “Mr. Fisher was greatly surprised by its beauty and luxury and exclaimed: Brother Codman, can you have all this and heaven too?” (2) Fisher wrote in his journal on one occasion: “So craving is the disposition of man, that his wants in general increase with his riches. And besides this, his anxiety increases for what he possesses, which is a farther source of unhappiness. If riches conduce not to unhappiness, what then is wanting to make me happy? I tread on as good an earth, as the richest, I survey as fair a landscape. And breathe as pure an air, as they; yes, and may contemplate the same glorious heavens; nothing is wanting to make me happy, as happy as man can be in the world, but a good heart, a heart that delights in virtue.” (3)
To have a house furnished tastefully in a frontier town was no small feat. Rather than achieve this through purchasing articles from established artisans, Fisher built his domestic environment with his hands.
It’s not that Fisher lost interest in creative work. Instead, he fixed his focus on the production of his book, Scripture Animals (4), a compendium of all the animals mentioned in the Bible, complete with his own woodcuts. This project took dedication and more than 10 years of effort to complete. Not only is the volume a fascinating insight into Fisher’s mind, it is an incredible example of the attention to detail of which the man was capable. The homemade engraving tools, though crude and primitive in appearance, were delightfully manipulated to form the finest details of hair, feathers and eyes on the boxwood blanks.
Even though these tools appear crude, they were used to engrave exquisite woodcuts for the books he wrote. – Jonathan Fisher Memorial.
It was only a couple years after the 1834 publishing that Fisher fell into the period of his life known to all as “the long sickness.” The inside of the small cupboard door (Cat#6, p 142) twice records the event by this name, and in his letters to family, the regularity of which the event was discussed suggests it was something akin to a near-death experience. This sickness was disruptive enough that he decided to retire in 1837 at the age of 69. The church agreed to give Fisher $2 per week for one year after his retirement. After this support ran out, Fisher wrote in a letter dated November 1837, “I am now thrown upon the kind hand of God, and the avails of my own industry. I think it probable that for the present I shall work on the farm and at mechanics, and preach now and then a Sabbath and a lecture in Bluehill and vicinity … As respects temporal concerns, I may remark that I have at present a competency. I owe but little, and I have about $200 due to me ….”
The relentless work of his hands afforded Fisher a comfortable life.
The “avails of his own industry” appear to have been sufficient for satisfying his financial needs – he credited manual labor with the restoration of his physical condition: “I am able to perform nearly all the work on my farm, cheerfully and with little weariness. My labor conduces to my health … The ax, the saw, the plane, the shovel, and the hoe may many times add life and vigor to our composition as well as add years to the number of our days.” He was, by 1838, in “almost perfect health.”
“Blue Hill, Maine” by Fitz Henry Lane, circa 1853-1857.
Throughout his furniture-making career, it seems Fisher benefitted from a monopoly in his rural market. Undoubtedly, some Blue Hill residents preferred to order furniture from “the westward” and have it shipped to Blue Hill bay because local options were limited. The only local furniture maker documented to have worked in the first quarter of the 19th century in Blue Hill was Fisher. In R.F. Candage’s Sketches of Blue Hill, he made a mention of the “old Curtis furniture factory” on the stream at the head of the bay. This is, apparently, a reference to Robert T. Osgood (a cabinetmaker) and Ezra Curtis (a wheelwright) who shared a shop there from 1835 to 1842, although no other period resource mentions the “factory.” (5) If Osgood and Curtis were making furniture at the head of the bay, it is probable that Fisher would not have been able to favorably compete with their efficiency in division of labor and waterpower. David Jaffe (6) has shown how the New England “move from craft to industry” began for chairmaking with countless small workshops operating “chair manufactories” on mill streams much like the one in Blue Hill.
Fisher viewed his workshop as a place of meditation and rest. He was not desperate to escape the trade like some of his contemporaries.
Like most artisans, Fisher was driven by complex motivations that must be appreciated if we are to understand the role furniture making played in his life. His devotion to God was the core of all he wrote, did and made. For Fisher, the mere ability to work produced emotional gratitude: “Brisk S. mild and cloudy. Spent most of the day burning brush by the side of new field. While my hands were occupied in needful labor, I was led to exclaim in heart, hands, what a blessing they are when employed aright. The fingers are adapted to such a variety of useful occupations that they give man a great superiority over all other creatures.” This moment of reflection perfectly captures the relationship between Fisher’s manual, spiritual and intellectual activities. His manual labor provided the opportunity to ponder the glories of heaven and marvel at the beauty of the created order. The relationship among the head, heart and hands of Fisher were clearly intertwined and complex.
The permanence of Fisher’s work is a testimony to a life well-lived. The man made a lasting mark on his community.
What was furniture making to Fisher? It was, in one sense, an avenue to indulge the artistic and creative impulse woven through the fiber of his being. In his shop, Fisher was free to design and build functional objects of beauty that still reflect his complex mind to this day. His furniture is distinctive for its perplexing fusion of micro-focus attention to detail and humble pragmatism.
The clock in his hallway illustrates Fisher’s sophistication in its mechanical complexity and his humility in its understated built-in “case.”
Furniture making was also a way for him to make ends meet. With nine children at home, the demands on his pocketbook were real. His modest salary as a preacher was not enough to ensure everyone was fed and educated while continuing to develop his farm. Making furniture was one of the many services Fisher offered to his community. The surveying, book publishing, sign painting, pipe boring and even hat braiding were all important contributors to the flourishing of the Fisher family. The Puritan work ethic to “work with your own hands” forbid wasting time in idleness, and Fisher seems to have taken this seriously. His hands were ever employed aright.
1. Bushman, Richard L., The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities, Knopf, 1992, p 268. 2. Candage, Rufus George Frederick, Memoir of Jonathan Fisher, of Blue Hill, Maine (1889), Kessinger Publishing, 2009, p 224. 3. Smith, Raoul N. The Life of Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847) Volume 1 (From His Birth Through the Year 1798), self-published, 2006, p 42-43. 4. Fisher, Jonathan, Scripture Animals: A Natural History of the Living Creatures Named in the Bible, Pyne Press, 1972. 5. Hinckley, William, “The Weekly Packet,” Oct. 5, 1978. 6. Jaffe, David, A Nation of New Goods: The Material Culture of Early America, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011, p 189.
Though I am done writing books on workbenches (scout’s honor), I am always on the lookout for interesting historical examples and clever features that I can use in the future.
This week I spotted one that was particularly interesting. I’m calling it the “Baby Deadman,” which is the most horrible name I have ever given anything in this world (including the time I tried to name a cat “Kilgore Trout”).
The bench shown above is featured in “The Cabinetmaker’s Art in Ontario: Circa 1850-1900” by Lilly A. Koltun, published in 1979 by the National Museums of Canada. Researcher Suzanne Ellison recently dug it up using her superpowers. Download the pdf here.
The paper is a biography and shop inventory of Francis Jones of Middlesex County, who made furniture (and dealt in farm implements and undertaking) during the second half of the 19th century.
The section on the workbench notes that its top is 21-1/2” x 78” and the bench is 34-1/2” high. Unusually, the bench has a tail vise, but it doesn’t appear to have a series of dog holes on the top. It does have a metal planing stop (barely visible) which is mentioned in the inventory. And a nice holdfast.
I was struck by the two sliding board jacks (sometimes called a “deadman”). The large one is typical. But the small one on top is unusual and ingenious. Here’s why: I built my first board jack in about 2001, and it’s great for holding large panels and residential doors on edge. But most of my work doesn’t need the full capacity of the jack. Mostly, I just want a movable peg that will help support boards as I edge-joint them.
This bench gives you both.
In fact, I might consider adding only the smaller Baby Board Jack (now THAT’s a better name) to one of our existing benches to fool around with it.
When you examine the furniture record in person, you find almost endless examples of pieces of furniture that disobey the rules of wood movement – and yet have survived just fine.
I’m not here to tell you that wood movement does not exist – it does. But I think it’s important to know that you can get away with many minor sins without your furniture tearing itself apart. And the more furniture you study, the bigger the sins you can commit.
This week I got to study a table in Holland that definitely needs some time in the confessional booth. This chopping bench – used for cutting food to size in a kitchen – violates the cardinal rule of cross-grain construction. Yet it is still completely sound and ready for another 100 years of dismemberments.
What’s the sin? If it’s not obvious from the photos, the legs’ tenons pass through dovetailed battens and the benchtop. The benchtop and battens are oriented 90° to each other, and the top is about 22”-24” wide. The top should have split a little (or a lot). But the top is fine – just a little warped.
I have no idea how old the bench is. It has some fairly consistent machine marks on it that suggest it was made in the early 20th century. But this form is old. The earliest illustrated example I know of is from the 11th-century “Tacuinum Sanitatis.” And it can look quite modern – the form was the foundation for the staked worktable in “The Anarchist’s Design Book.”
The cross-grain construction used in this table is also found on thousands (millions?) of Brettstuhl, which are still made today. During the last week I’ve seen at least 100 of these suckers, and none have split.
This particular chopping bench is so charming that I hope to build one just like it for our newish kitchen. I have wanted to build a table for the center of the room, but a typical dining table would be too big. A chopping bench is just the right size for dumping our grocery bags, serving meals to family members and <insert joke about dismembering cats then retract it>.
And thanks to this particular table in Holland, I am ready for some serious sinning.
My chest at home holds my panel saws, a lot of beat-up chisels and block planes, hammers and other stuff I need for building (and destroying) things around the house. I’ll maybe share its contents in the future. I’ve posted it here to show the panel saw storage.
I work out of two Anarchist’s Tool Chests (ATC) of two different ages – but for two different types of work. In 2012, I built the one I have at home in my old second-floor home shop and in Chris’s old basement shop. For a long time, it held an almost-complete second set of hand tools for building furniture. After I left PopWood (PW) in 2017, I sold the majority of my doubles (had to pay the mortgage somehow!), so my chest at home is now mostly for tools I use for working on stuff around the house. It does still have a few of the same tools as at work (I need chisels and a block plane at both places), and it has some stuff I never use but can’t (yet) bear to get rid of. And there are a few similar items in my chest at work. I’m not terribly sentimental…but I’m not nearly as ruthless as Chris when it comes to divesting myself of things I don’t truly need.
My chest at work is almost five years old; it’s the one I built in the first ATC class I taught in our shop after leaving PW (I believe in February 2018).
There are a few items that travel back and forth now, but for the most part, my furniture-making tools are at the Lost Art Press shop. While there’s plenty of room in my newer basement shop and I have two benches there, I’m spoiled by the light coming in the windows at work – so whenever possible, I prefer to work where I can better see…and where I can more readily ask for a hand in lifting heavy stuff (thank you, Chris).
My inventory has mostly remained the same for the last decade, but when I began teaching a lot more (in 2018), I began acquiring extras of stuff that students tend to borrow (either because they don’t own that tool or because they bought theirs where they shouldn’t). Teaching is why my tools have blue dots on them and/or blue gaffer’s tape – for quick identification. As Chris did with his inventory, I’ll work my way down through the tills, then to the racks and chest floor. But my pictured groupings aren’t as particular – to some extent, I just squeezed together what fit on top of my chest. And as with his, some of these are tools that:
• I have had for years and that I am happy with. “It is mine, I tell you. My own. My precious. Yes, my precious.” (No need to try another…unless it is blue or cat-shaped) • Were made by a friend/someone I admire • Were given to me by a friend/someone I admire • I have no idea why I have this particular tool
I also have a few other tools mixed in with the student tools, on the shelves near my desk and on the tool wall. (Ones that simply take up too much room in my chest vs. how often I need them.)
The Top Till
My top till holds the stuff I reach for the most – both in classes and in my own work, along with a few small things that don’t fit elsewhere.
Block Planes & Weird Bollocks The Lie-Nielsen block planes (a No. 60-1/2 and No. 102) finally have their own cubbies as of last week (I’ve been meaning to do that for a while, of course). In the cubby with my No. 102 is where I now keep the straight and Phillips hex tips for my Element’ary driver (because that’s where they fit nicely and won’t get lost). Also in the top till are the Torx tips for the same. I keep my soft-jaw pliers close at hand because I’ve a touch of arthritis in both hands now, so it comes in handy for tightening fences on various tools (and getting things loose). I use the Lie-Nielsen brush to remove sawdust from all my tools before I wipe them with my woobie (which hangs on my bench light) and stow them back in my chest. The (slightly gross – sorry) hearing protection is of course necessary for using power tools, but also while six students are chopping dovetails (hand-tool woodworking isn’t always quiet). The Working Hands cream gets dipped into at least four to five times every day – more in winter (oh, for a better and lasting solution for my dry skin). And I reach for the cat treats even more times than that….
Dovetail Marking/Checking Tools Yes, of course I use marking knives for things other than dovetailing – but I do cut a lot of dovetails. The one on the far left is my long-time favorite – a Blue Spruce spear-point knife made by Dave Jeske. The rest (from left: a Veritas “Workshop Striking Knife,” A Czeck Edge Tools “Kerf Cadet II” and another of Dave’s knives…that I bought because it’s blue) are knives I loan to students. The Lufkin No. 137C is the small square I use to check dovetails and that I’ll let students use. (It is rare that any but the narrow blade is in the tool, though on occasion I’ll use the 2-1/2″ rule. The miter blades came with it, so I’ve kept them (they don’t take up much room in the box). Above the Lufkin square are three dovetail templates. At top is the Woodjoy tools version I’ve had since about 2006, then a Woodjoy that was given to me (I haven’t forgotten I owe the donor a Dutch Tool Chest book when I finish it…just in case he’s reading!) from an updated design with a longer stock (to fit across two 3/4″-thick tailboards for marking gang cuts). At the bottom is the first-one-off-the-production-line Crucible Tools Dovetail Template that is based on the Woodjoy version (with permission and royalties paid to the designer). To the right of those is the R. Murphy Hand Carving and Dental Knife I inherited from my grandfather; I use it most often for relief cuts on the back of tails. At far right is the small square I don’t loan to students for checking dovetails: a Vesper Tools Precision Dovetail Square (and its various rules). I lost a similar Starrett square in a class – I’m pretty sure it was inadvertently swept off a bench into a trash can. So I bought the Lufkin to replace that one. I can’t afford to replace the Vesper. The boxes themselves are basically cubbies to protect and corral their contents – lazy cubbies, but they fit and they work!
Measuring Tools I’ve had both the large and small Starrett combination squares since almost the day I decided to learn how to make furniture. I love the 12″; I need a new old-stock 6″ (mine slips)…but I’ve been saying that for at least five years, so it’ll probably never happen. Then there’s an array of 6″ rules – mostly for loaning out. My favorite is the Starrett at bottom left; it’s the easiest for me to read. The 4″ Starrett at bottom right was just too cute to resist during a long-ago visit to Colonial Homestead. And I have two tape measures because I always seem to be missing one or the other. If they’re both where they ought to be, I typically reach for the red one; its wider blade has better standout.
Pencil (etc.) Corral This far-right cubby is also new, and already I love it. It’s so much easier now to find my .5mm pencils (all those at bottom left). (If you’ve ever taken a dovetailing class with me, you know how I feel about these!) Alongside said pencils is a paper knife given to me by Eric Brown (thank you, Eric!) – I keep trying to find the perfect woodworking use for it. I haven’t yet, but in the meantime, it doesn’t take up much space. At top left is dental floss (used for working glue into splits, or into miscuts while dovetailing to hide the mistake…I’d like to claim it’s only needed for students). My most-used safety equipment is that hair clip. I catch a lot of crap for having my hair down in pictures – but I promise you that if I’m using any tool or machine that poses a danger of scalping (or worse) my hair is up. I have two lumber-marking pencils. I ought to find a new home for the blue one (I much prefer my “Unturned Pencil“); under those is shopmark stamp from Infinity Stamps. Under them is my paint can opener; I use a lot of paint. In the middle is a planing stop that fits into a 3/4” dog hole. Adam Cherubini left it on a bench at Woodworking in America, circa 2013. I’m waiting for him to walk through the door so I can return it to him. Below that is an M+R pencil sharpener that Chris gave me. (I do have wooden pencils for which to use it; they’re on my desk…which is where this sharpener really should be.) Then there’s my Japanese nail set (at just $12, I think everyone should have this handy tool). Alongside that is a ceramic pencil with white “lead” (and some extra “lead”), and two bits of eraser. I don’t know what that knob goes to (though I think it’s a Veritas knurling pattern), so I’m afraid to pitch it. I also keep a small notebook in that cubby, and my new cat-head tape measure. (I love it…but it’s not so great for woodworking – but it’s great for keeping track of my expanding waistline.)
The Middle Till
The middle holds the tools I use somewhat often – but not quite so often as those in the top till…or that I don’t use often, but just ended up there due to their size and my available space (I’m talking about you, metal spokeshaves).
Hitty Things At far left is a crappy hammer that is terribly uncomfortable. (My good one is at home.) Chris bought this atrocity for me because he was tired of my borrowing his Platonic Ideal Hammer from his tool chest. I still borrow it. (And I put this one in the student chest just after taking this picture.) The ball-peen hammer was left at Woodworking in America by Peter Ross (he kindly told me to keep it). I use it for teaching how to “bishop” proud pins and tails (get the wood wet, then lightly hit it with the domed striking surface to spread the fibers and fill small gaps). The plane-adjusting hammer was made by Raney Nelson of Daed Toolworks; I use the 8-ounce Dunlap for setting small nails…and as a plane hammer when it’s closer than the one Raney made.
Cutting & Cleaving At top are my two flush-cut saws. Only the top one gets loaned. Its blade is replaceable (for when blood makes it rust). I’m not sure why my small router plane is in the middle till; I think I moved it down when I got the No. 60-1/2 block plane; it used to reside where that block plane now sits. The spokehaves get used a lot in my “Dovetailed Shaker Tray” classes, and for the occasional other curve need. The PMV-11 plane blade actually gets used a lot; it’s the one I hand out in ATC classes to mark the skirt baselines off the chest (that sentence will make sense only to those who’ve read the book or taken the class). I bought it to put in my No. 3; someday I’ll actually do that. I use the Bohle hacking knife for making pegs.
Bits Etc. I love this set of fractional brad-point bits, and I need to stop loaning them because it appears this set is no longer available (I prefer to not loan things I can’t replace). I also have a few other bits tucked away in the case, including a broken Insty-bit that I use as a countersink. Underneath is a brand-spanking-new box of tiny bits (thank you, Chris; sorry I kept borrowing yours). That lone countersink doesn’t fit in the index box, so it just rolls around in the till. The saddle square gets used for just about every project – particularly during stock prep (best $14 I ever spent – a decade later and it’s still only $16.50). At top right is my Starrett centerpunch, which gets used on every hardware install (and which I think is great fun to use). Below it are two tools I don’t use often but I love: a 4″ sliding bevel that was a gift from Fred West (it gets used once in a while to mark 30º angles on Dutch tool chests when I don’t have a larger one to hand) and a small square I bought to match it, both from Vesper Tools.
The Bottom Till
This holds the stuff that is either too big/bulky for the smaller middle or top till, and/or tools that I don’t use much. And/or that I got used to hiding a decade ago…a habit that hasn’t completely left me. (I’m overly protective of my paintbrushes…and would dearly love to find some new old-stock Purdys. If you know of a pre-2004 stash, do let me know.)
Brushes & Such Gloves to protect my lily-white hands (to help cut down on the splinters, plus wood sucks what little moisture there is from my hands). That Wooster brush is in bad enough shape now that I’ll loan it. The Purdy is not. The card file is for cleaning my rasps (which are at home – so this is pointless). The cork is a sanding block. Above that is the roll of blue gaffer’s tape for marking my tools (it was in the middle till; I just moved it), topped by the blue nail polish for the same. At the top right is a box of headless brads…because the drawer where they go is full, and I brought these in from home, where I didn’t need them.
Hodgepodge The pinch rods are stashed here because they’re too short for measuring an ATC, and I don’t want students grabbing these by mistake when the glue is wet. (I shortened these for working on my staircase, but I didn’t really need them at home after that, so here they sit.) Oh look – another spokeshave! This wooden one (which I love) was made by Kansas City Tool Works (now out of business). On the left are inexpensive dial calipers; I rarely care about caliper-level of perfection – but sometimes, one has to. The Barr chisel should be in my tool rack, but there’s no room remaining thanks to a recent saw acquisition (I tape a folded business card over the cutting edge to protect it…and to protect my fingers when I reach in the till. The Zona saw comes in handy sometimes, but I should drill a hole in the handle and hang it on the tool wall. I don’t often reach for it. At the bottom center is a heavy toothed blade from Ron Bontz meant for bopping into the corners of half-blind dovetails for easier clean-out. It sounds really useful – and soon I’ll get around to cutting some half-blinds and find out! The last tool, far right, is a pencil gauge that can be used on outside curves (e.g. the back of a stick chair seat) – another gift from Chris. So that I quit borrowing his.
Moulding Plane Corral
I have most of my moulding planes at home (because of a misguided thought of making by hand all the replacement mouldings needed for my house) so I mostly use this area for stuff I want to store upright (and that doesn’t really fit elsewhere without getting in the way.)
Scrapers, Tips & More The two scrapers I actually use are a quite flexible Lie-Nielsen (for getting into corners) and the Crucible curved scraper (which, even with my achy hands, is comfortable to wield); the ones I don’t use are in the leather wallet underneath. The driver tips don’t really belong in my tool chest; I just don’t know where else to put them. The Bevel Monkey gets most used for setting 30º angles, and the set of needle files get used to fix my planes after almost every class (the front edges tend to get dinged up and require filing so as not to leave tracks).
Edge Tools The Lucian Avery scorp and Lie-Nielsen straight drawknife are for all the chairs I might someday make.
Most Students’ Least-favoritesTools I cope out (or fret out) the waste on dovetails; this can be vexing to those new to these saws – but I find it saves a lot of time on waste removal, particularly on the pin boards. These are the only tools my students regularly balk at using. (While I covet Chris’s Blue Spruce Coping Saw – that’s what I’d buy if I were starting from scratch – these two Knew Concepts saws are old friends. NB: The KC fretsaw is available with and without “swivel blade clamps” – make sure if you get one, that it’s “with.”)
Moulding & Rabbet Planes I do store a few wooden moulders in the moulding plane corral: two 1/8″ beading planes (from M.S. Bickford [top] and Philly Tools [middle] that get used on the upper skirts of ATCs and other things); and one straight rabbet plane from M.S. Bickford.
Chest Floor
Mostly Planes There’s a lot of unused real estate on the floor, so I managed to shoehorn it all into one picture. My No. 7 is at the top (another non-loaner) with the rest of my bench planes on the left: a Type 11 No. 5 that Chris had Jen Bower engrave for me (thanks to both!), and three smooth planes (Nos. 4, 3 and 2). I like the bronze because it’s easier to file, and these get files on the leading edge a lot (the smooth planes are remarkably prone to throwing themselves atop holdfasts and other metal bits…). I use the No. 3 in my own work. Above the smooth planes is a medium shoulder plane. To its right is a chisel plane; I find this tool useful for fitting built ins, but not for furniture work. It should go home to my other chest. Under the chisel plane are two Veritas tools: a right-handed skew rabbet plane (wish I’d not sold the left-handed one, but oh well) and an edge-trimming plane. Alongside is my beloved (or a word that is stronger than “beloved”) blue Blue Spruce mallet. If that ever breaks I will be seriously bereft. Above it is a small bottle of jojoba oil that I take on the road; it’s in my chest only so I don’t forget it when I’m packing. Last is one of my large router planes (the other is in the students’ chest). I do love a router plane!
Hanging Racks
You may have noticed way up at the top that I have panel saws hanging on the underside of my chest lid at home. At the LAP shop, I borrow from the tool wall when I’ve a rare panel saw need. So I don’t need a floor till; my backsaws hang behind my chisels and other pointy tools.
Dovetail Saws I swear these spawn in my chest. The two walnut-handled ones are from Bad Axe, and have extra small handles; because I use my DT saws a lot, I prefer they feel comfy…which is how I ended bringing home from Ed’s Tool Store the 19th-century Woodrough & McParlin on the left. The wee handle is a perfect fit; I guess it belonged to a very young apprentice? Of the Bad Axe saws, I prefer my old one, at top; it’s like an old pair of slippers – super comfortable if not as pretty as it once was. I need to spend more time with the new one, and wear away some of its set (I’ve been using the old one for so long that it could double as a flush-cut saw I think!). At the bottom is a Lie-Nielsen progressive-pitch saw that is no longer made, and that I don’t often lend – but I rarely use it. I guess that makes me a collector. Oh dear.
Other Backsaws The “American Kid” tenon saw at top is a hybrid filing with a handle meant for children. It fits me well. The Lie-Nielsen crosscut carcase saw is excellent – and because I don’t use it daily, I don’t mind that the handle is a bit large for me. At the bottom is another collectible, a crosscut carcase saw by Wenzloff & Sons.
Screwdrivers I have an almost-full set of Grace USA straight screwdrivers, a Lie-Nielsen driver “rescued” from a Chris culling (I’ll hang on to it until the next time I clean my chest), a Phillips driver (’cause sometimes I need one, though I almost always use slot screws) and my Element’ary driver with a locking magnetic collar (its tips are in my top till).
Marking Tools You can’t beat the Tite-Mark cutting gauges…and I wish people would quit copying these. Kevin Drake deserves all the $$ for these (you can get them via Lie-Nielsen or Tools for Working Wood). Then there’s my large family of dividers: three Starretts and two Crucibles (these all get loaned out for laying out dovetails). And oh look…another loaner Czeck Edge marking knife (the rubber band is so it doesn’t fall through the 1/2″ hole in the tool rack). Finally there’s my newest favorite pointy tool: a Mathias Fenner birdcage awl (this year’s lovely and much appreciated Christmas gift from Chris).
Chisels I use three of these six Lie-Nielsen bevel-edge chisels regularly (1″, for first-class saw cuts on 3/4″ and 7/8″ tailboard half-pins, and the 3/8″ and 1/4″ for chopping dovetail waste remaining after coping). I use the others when I’ve loaned out the ones I really like to use. The Blue Spruce fishtail chisel is for cleaning out corners in half-blind dovetail pin boards – I don’t need it often, but when I do, I’m awfully glad to have it.
As Chris mentioned in his ATC inventory last week, we get a lot of emails about this chest and the book Chris published in 2011. I have a weird relationship with the book (about which I’ve written before – sorry to repeat myself). As he wrote, it’s the book that allowed him to quit as editor of Popular Woodworking Magazine. If he’d not left, I would never have become editor and content director for the brand…which was professionally rewarding but not the greatest for my mental health. I am nonetheless altogether thankful to have held had that position for five years. I am even more thankful that now I again work with Chris every day in the shop. Every tool chest that I build or help others build reminds me anew of how lucky I’ve been.
