I recently learned my finishing mentor – likely he was yours, too – and friend Bob Flexner died at home on December 29, 2024 (read his obituary here). Bob was perhaps best-known for the book “Understanding Wood Finishing,” recognized by many as the bible of all things finishing, and as the long-time finishing columnist for Popular Woodworking Magazine.
That’s how I met him, when I was hired as managing editor for PWM in 2005. I was assigned his column to edit, and was warned that he was persnickety about every change; he was every bit as meticulous about his writing as he was with his finishing research and experimentation.
At first I was a little scared of Bob – but then I called to ask a few questions about his December 2005 column on spray gun maintenance, and we got into a somewhat spirited discussion about comma splices, misplaced modifiers and the like. After that, he trusted me to make minor grammatical and syntactical changes without his approval – but I usually sought his input and OK anyway, simply because I enjoyed talking with him.
When I was working on my first house, Bob was always delighted to wax prolific when answering my (probably) boneheaded questions about floor finishes, the best paint strippers, what kind of brush to use on this type of surface…. He’s why I know about blotching, bleeding and fish eye, and why I’m now pretty good at painting and brushing on shellac. And why I never trust a manufacturer’s application instructions (he’d want me to reiterate that neither should you).
After I left PWM in 2017, I’d email or call Bob every so often to check in and see how he was doing. Then in late 2020, I was hired to copy edit the third revised edition of “Understanding Wood Finishing” and the second edition of “Wood Finishing 101” (Fox Chapel). It was a joy to once again work with him.
If you hate oversharing, close this page now and go on your merry way.
Always match your boot to your cat; the hair stuck in the Velcro won’t show as much.
Still here? OK – you’re about to read about what a wuss I am, because with just one weekend’s exception (and it was probably a mistake), my woodworking has been limited to reading, writing and editing about it. Oh – and this weekend, I’ll get to talk about it a lot (I’m guessing).
As you likely know by now if you follow this blog, our substacks, my Insta, the Lost Art Press Insta etc., I slipped on ice and broke my right ankle in three places on January 14 (1 out of 10, do not recommend). On January 21, after the swelling had subsided enough, I had surgery to insert a long cannulated (good word, that!) screw into my fibula, and to have a plate screwed to my tibia. (No, the screws are not slot heads. No, the screws are not clocked. Yes, I wish they were. Yes, I will likely set off airport metal detectors.)
The soonest I will be able to drive (and it’s iffy) is April 16. So I’ve been mostly working from my couch with my right foot elevated above heart level. This is comfortable only for my cats, who like having a constant lap handy for naps.
This picture was taken in real time, as I wrote this post. Toby does not make it easy to type! (And I hope my doctor doesn’t see this…pretty sure I’m supposed to keep the boot on.)
I knew most of my work would be of the sedentary type (good thing I have lots of it!) – but I had SUCH BIG PLANS to scoot down to the basement on my butt (the easiest way to navigate stairs) to work at my bench down there for at least an hour or two most days. Heck – I even borrowed an ATS (all-terrain scooter) from my buddy Aaron for that purpose, one with large tires that can navigate the horse mat in front of my bench, and easily roll over sawdust.
The view from the bottom stair: What an embarrassing mess. I should at the very least try to clean off my bench enough that I _could_ do some woodworking on it…
But you know what happens to plans – we make them and the gods laugh.
The only other time I’ve broken a bone was more than 25 years ago, and it did not require invasive surgery – just a closed reduction and a few months in a cast. Healing this time around has been much harder work – and it is requiring more naps than I’ve taken since pre-school. (Most things are more difficult at 56 than at 30, even without a broken ankle…and I have finally been forced to accept it.)
The only “woodworking” I’ve done since my accident was demonstrating a few operations (and not terribly gracefully!) in a February 7-9 Dutch tool chest class. It is difficult to maintain the proper sawing stance while balancing on one foot…oh wait…that is not a proper sawing stance. If my friend Jake hadn’t come to town to help out – and do most of the work, as well as drive me back and forth to the shop – there is no way I could have taught that class. And being upright (even in a wheelchair) for three days straight likely set me back as far as healing. Still, it was worth it. I was so happy to make even a few shavings and a small pile of sawdust.
But apparently not happy enough to do it at home.
Jake is on the far right. Thank you again, Jake! And thanks to everyone else for putting up with the weirdness.
So here I sit on my couch, foot in the air, marveling at those who every day overcome physical challenges, challenges that don’t stop them from picking up a woodworking tool, from modifying a workbench to accommodate a wheelchair, from lowering a table saw to a safe working level, and myriad other modifications that simply allow them to make things. I feel rather ashamed when I think of folks like Michael Rogen, who hasn’t let a degenerative disease keep him down. Or Steve, aka Wheelchair Woodworker, whose spinal cord injury can’t keep him away from the lathe. Or John Furniss, aka The Blind Woodsman, who uses a full complement of power tools.
There are so many woodworkers who don’t have it as easy as me; I do know how lucky I am. I will heal. I will be back working in the shop before too much longer – and without needing to modify anything. In the meantime, I can afford to be lazy. I can afford to be a wuss. And I am thankful beyond measure that I can afford – in every sense of the word – to be so.
But I am at least thinking about woodworking; I’ve come up with a long list of projects to get 90-percent done, per my usual MO.
Well it took longer than I expected, but we now have all four volumes of “The Woodworker” back in stock and ready to ship. If you order before April 30, you can get all four volumes for $100 with free domestic shipping. That’s $39 off. Plus the free shipping.
Here’s the link to the page. The books are also available for sale individually.
These four books are the backbone of a complete education in handwork. A team of six people (including some extra helpers) worked for eight years to read, organize, scan, design and produce these four books from the articles written and edited by Charles H. Hayward.
As editor of The Woodworker magazine from 1939 to 1967, Hayward oversaw the transformation of the craft from one that was almost entirely hand-tool based to a time where machines were common, inexpensive and had displaced the handplanes, chisels and backsaws of Hayward’s training and youth.
Our massive project distilled the thousands of articles Hayward published in The Woodworker. This is information that hasn’t been seen or read in decades. No matter where you are in the craft, from a complete novice to a professional, you will find information here you cannot get anywhere else.
The books have 1,492 pages total, with thousands of hand drawings and photos. The books are printed in the USA and are designed to last decades. The sewn bindings will lay flat on your bench. The uncoated paper is easy on your eyes.
For more information on the project, including a complete list of all the articles in the books, click here.
From 2-4 p.m. on March 9 (the Sunday after the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event at our Willard Street location), we’ll throw open the doors to the public (perhaps literally, if the weather allows!) to welcome you into our new warehouse, storefront and editorial offices at 407 Madison Ave., Covington Kentucky, 41011.
Join us for tours, book and tool sales (including blemished tools and books at reduced prices) and just to hang out with woodworking friends for a few hours.
Hope to see you there, and at the Lie-Nielsen event on the Friday and Saturday before!
You might recall Chris took a sabbatical of sorts in December to work on a new book – and it’s almost ready to go to press. It might seem like this book, “Build a Chair from Bulls%$t,” came out of nowhere, and awfully quickly. But Chris has been thinking about the chair in this book since working on “The Anarchist’s Design Book” more than a decade ago. He’d planned to include a chair in ADB that was built from home-center materials, but chickened out.
Now that he’s a little older and at peace with what others think of him and his work, he located his eggs.
The chairs shown above, the design in this book, are made entirely from home center materials and easy to find, inexpensive tools. In other words, two of the biggest barriers to getting started in chairmaking – the wood and the tools – are removed.
The chair is built entirely without jigs using a method called “sandwich drilling” – shown above.
You’ll notice the seat is not scooped out (seat-scooping tools are among the harder to find and use), yet the chair is comfortable thanks to a wide seat, combined with the geometry of the backrest and the seat tilt. (And if you need a little cushion, add a sheepskin or…a cushion.)
The overall look of the chair, which is “broadly British,” with a touch of American-Windsor lightness, is intended to appeal to contemporary and traditional tastes. Its silhouette evokes antiques, but the lines are simple enough to fit in a contemporary design. The number of sticks gives it a formal air, but that’s balanced by the lightness of the parts.
But will it last? Yes. The joints in this chair are better than in any manufactured chair we’ve seen, with tight mortises and tenons, wedges, pegs, glue and natural tension that adds strength. And though the parts are from the home center instead of the lumberyard, they are carefully selected for maximum strength and longevity. There are no construction compromises.
There will also be no compromises in the construction of the book. It will be a hardcover 112-page black-and-white volume in our 6-1/2″ x 4″ “pocketbook” format, with sewn and taped signatures. Printed, of course, in the United States. The price should be about $22 for the printed book. But like Chris’ other books, the pdf and full-size plans will be free for everyone to download.
The illustrations are by R. Keith Mitchell, who also drew select images for Jim Tolpin and George Walker’s “Euclid’s Door” and “Good Eye,” and all the drawings in Dr. Jeffrey Hill’s “Workshop Wound Care.“
We should be sending the book to press in early March.
Bonus Video Along with the book, we’ll offer a free video on building the “Bullsh%$t” chair by apprentice Kale Vogt and Bridgid Meyer (Dinkles Woodshop).
Look for “Build a Chair from Bulls%$t” – both the book and video – in April.
