Visit the store page of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest: Revised Edition” to get a free copy of the book’s PDF. There are two links to download it in the first paragraph – the paragraph in italics – on the sales page. No need to give us your name, your number or your firstborn. Just click one of the two links.
– Fitz
p.s. If you find any errors, send them my way: fitz@lostartpress.com. (I do have the few already sent following the earlier subscriber PDF from The American Peasant substack and will be making updates before we reprint.)
I hope no on has a heart attack upon reading this…but I will be turning in the completed manuscript for the long-promised Dutch Tool Chest book by the end of this month. This year. In two weeks.
Why is it so late? I am definitely the problem. I’m not great anymore at working 18 hours a day like I used to. And after a full day at work, well, I just want to go home and weed the garden (temperature allowing) – not stare at a screen. Or sit on the couch with my cats and read a book. But…that’s really no excuse. I’ve to some extent made myself busy during the day; Chris would absolutely have let me work less at the office and work more at home on the book. So there is no one to blame but me. I’ve become a lazy git. (See also: My house renovation is not done.) But the shame and pressure are now outweighing the laziness – on the book, not the house.
With that mea culpa out of the way:
I’m including a gallery of pictures from other makers that shows as many different interesting and effective layouts as possible of the interior. Cool adaptations for a specific set of tools. Cool adaptations for a non-specific set of tools. Interesting use of the spaces in the bay (or bays). Clever rolling bases. Wacky oversized (or undersized) chests. Mind-blowing uses of the back of the fall front and or/underside of the lid. You know – anything that is nifty and sets it apart from the basic interior shown below.
(Mind you, the basic interior works quite well. I like its flexibility, because my tool needs change depending on the class I’m teaching (this chest travels with me if I’m driving). In theory, anyway; 90 percent of my time on the road, I’m teaching either the ATC or DTC.
Never forget to pack your hair clip.
All images used in the book will, of course, be properly credited – and I’d love to include a sentence or two about your inspiration, and/or why you did what you did. I need high-resolution (at minimum, 300 dpi at 5″ x 7″), non-blurry, decently lit images. It would be great to have an overall shot of your chest open and closed, and detail shots of the clever bits. Please also include your name (as you wish it to appear) and your phone number, in case I am in desperate need of contacting you (though I’ll use email first…who talks on the phone anymore?!). The deadline for your submissions is June 7.
Here’s an excellent example of a clever idea…though a bad photo, hurriedly snapped by me during a class in our shop (it’s too close up, and without the context of more background, it’s a little hard to immediately understand that you’re looking at the side wall of the chest, outfitted with storage for large-diameter tools (how is it attached?!) and a clever pencil box. (Olivia, if you’re reading this and have time to send me better pictures…)
Please send pictures to me at fitz@lostartpress.com. (If the file sizes are too large to email, I can send you a WeTransfer or Dropbox invite – whatever you prefer.)
Detail shot of cleverness inside Olivia Bradley’s tool chest.
And thank you to those who’ve already sent submissions – I do still have them!
You are all so very kind – thank you! We have more offers now than we need now for tools, so we’re set there. And for those of you who are interested in donating a dollar or two toward a few unpaiud bills with this class, we have this link set up: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=QHGYHGZMS5EY6
– Fitz
Jerome Bias is teaching a scholarship class here next month. Most of these students are new to hand tool woodworking, so we are gathering tools to give them or loan them during the week.
I’ve got the saws and block planes and hammers we need. But if y’all have some excess user tools that have followed you home at one time or another that you could donate, read on.
Jack Planes I’m hoping to hand each student a sharp and functioning metallic jack plane they can take home and use. Nothing fancy. Just a Stanley No. 5 or equivalent. I don’t care about what “type” it is, just that it doesn’t need restoration (I don’t have time to do that, I’m afraid). I can easily grind and sharpen the iron.
12” Combination Square Likewise, I’d like to give them a 12” combination square to take home. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but it would be nice if it were better than the plastic ones at the big box stores.
Hand Drill The students are going to be boring a lot of pilot holes for nails. If you have a functioning hand drill that could use a good home, let us know.
If you have any of these tools you could send, email Megan at fitz@lostartpress.com and let her know. She’ll give you shipping instructions (and let you know if we have already collected enough tools).
Thanks in advance for helping these six new woodworkers.
One of the six tasks I’m juggling now is a refresh of the Lost Art Press website. It mostly will make the site easier to search. And it will categorize our products to help new customers make sense of the things we make (we make more than 100 things).
One of the recommendations from our consultants is to add what is stupidly called “social proof” to our site. “Social proof” is basically kind words about the company from customers.
My inclination has always been to let the products sell themselves through word of mouth. But the consultants have reams of data that show that new customers need and want social proof before they’ll make a first purchase.
So I relented.
This is me wearing out the knees in a pair of jeans (i.e. I’m on my knees). If you are so inclined, could you write up two or three sentences (no more, there’s not a lot of space for this) about Lost Art Press or Crucible and what you like about us (writer cringes; feels dirty)? It helps if we can use your name, too.
In the background of the stock for my next ATC class is the half-done chest I started in the last class. Mocking me.
I don’t always build a chest alongside with my Anarchist’s Tool Chest classes – after all, I already have two full-size tool chests (one at the Lost Art Press shop and one at home), and there are only so many I can sell. But during my early December class, I decided to make one…partially at least. I always end up having to cede my bench and/or tools to students. Plus once the skirts are on, I spend a lot more time walking around than cutting my own joints. I’m terrified someone is going to send a flesh-cut flush-cut saw into a hand as they trim off protruding pins on the angled bits of the skirts. (The joints are cut before the bevel, so once the skirts are glued on, the “ears” get cut off.) I’ve cut into my own thenar eminence (that fleshy mound at the base of the thumb) more than once during this very operation. (I don’t mind my own blood, but I certainly don’t want to see student blood!)
A not-great picture of an “ear,” waiting to be to trimmed.
So, I have sitting on my bench right now a glued-up carcase with the rest of the bits stacked on top. Once I finish the chest exterior (hopefully this week), we’re going to film kitting out the interior with what we consider the standard tills and racks:
• three dovetailed tills and their runners • hole-y rack for thin pointy tools (chisels, screwdrivers and the like) – both with and without a rack behind it for hanging backsaws • saw till on the floor for panel saws and longer handsaws • moulding plane cubby
We might also show installing the hardware…if time allows and if I can stomach being on screen for that much longer.
I expect we’ll have the video available sometime in February.
Yes, I need to clean out my chest bottom and tills – but yes, I know where things are, thank you very much.
Also, I’ll have a full-sized ATC for sale soon-ish – shoot me an email if you’re interested. (I’m thinking of painting it blue.)
