Marking gauges have all manner of ways for you to lock the head to the beam, but most involve a screw or wedge mechanism. I think the coolest method I've ever seen is a cam-lock on the vintage Star Tools gauge.

The head locks on the beam by twisting the head (or beam). It locks quite well, and without things shifting around like on some cheap gauges. Both the beam and the head look to my eye to have a fairly complex shape to create this interlock.

Boy was I wrong.

This week we're polishing up a story by Jim Crammond on how to make these gauges for the February 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking. I had to draw the gauge in SketchUp using Crammond's instructions. It seemed like a wack-nutty CAD exercise, so I blocked out about four hours to complete the drawings for publication.

It took about 15 minutes.

The shapes are simple and elegant. And once you understand how they work, these gauges are a cinch to make. I can't wait to build a few.

Below is a video that shows how one works. And check out the original patent application and drawings.

— Christopher Schwarz

We've added a wish list function to our store, which allows you to select products you would like to have and share the list without having to drop odd hints, such as leaving photos of author Ron Hock in the bathroom.

And if you fill out a wish list by Nov. 30, you will be entered in a drawing in which we'll select two lucky people who will win everything on their wish lists – up to $500. The winners will be announced in our Weekly Wood News newsletter.

If you want to get started, just click here.

What are woodworkers wishing for this year? Here are the top 10 most-requested items.

1. "Handplane Essentials"
2. Popular Woodworking 2000-2007 on CD
3. "Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use"
4. "The Perfect Edge"
5. "Made By Hand"
6. "The Best of Christopher Schwarz" on CD
7. "The Best of Shops & Workbenches" on CD
8. "Hand Tool Essentials"
9. "The Best of Arts & Crafts" on CD
10. "Turning Basics for Furniture Makers" on DVD

And because we are twisted in the head, here are the 10 least-requested items. Poor chickadee.

1. What's Cookin? Plan
2. Treasure This Plan
3. Woodworking Magazine Issue 14
4. Popular Woodworking October 2007
5. Project: Clips N' Things
6. Project: Box in a Box
7. Project: Chickadee Cottage
8. Popular Woodworking October 2006
9. Project: American Kestral Sanctuary
10. Adirondack Chair and Footstool Woodworking Plan

Be sure to make your list before Nov. 30 to enter our contest.

— Christopher Schwarz

It's deer season here in Northern Kentucky. That means I have to wait in line at the butcher's shop next to camouflaged hunters waiting to get their deer "processed" into deer goetta and deer sausage.

It's also "Meagan Bench" season. Managing Editor Megan Fitzpatrick recently completed her workbench using laminated veneer lumber, which is on the cover of the November 2009 issue of Popular Woodworking. And yesterday, reader Meagan Kilrain sent me photos of her new workbench.

It has several interesting features that are worth discussing and thinking about. Let's take a look.

Materials
Kilrain (or Meagan II, as we will now call her around the office), used Glulam beams left over from a restaurant remodel for the top, and construction lumber for the base. The legs are 4x6s treated construction lumber left over from summer landscaping. The stretchers are untreated 2x6s. The vise chop is scrap from an Amish sawmill.

The Gluelam is some good stuff. It can come in nice widths already glued up for you – one of Kilrain's was 12" wide.

If you choose to use treated lumber in a bench, I think you need to be cautious. There are some nasty chemicals used to make the wood weather-resistant. I'd make my cuts outside, wear a monkey mask and avoid sanding it.

I might be a little overcautious about treated lumber because of personal experience. I visited a lumber treatment plant once, and it was like a big pressure cooker. They put the lumber and chemicals into a huge tube, seal it up and infuse the wood with the stuff. One of the workers at the plant noted that oftentimes small mammals would wander into the tube while the door was open to check it out. And then they never checked out, if you catch my drift.

The Top
Kilrain put one of the Glulam beams at the front and one at the rear. Between the two beams she made a tool tray. Most people know I'm not fond of tool trays (perhaps because I just make a mess in them), but Kilrain definitely scores points for making the bottom of the tray lift off to make it easy to clean and for clamping access.

This is a feature on Bob Lang's 21st-century Workbench, and he quite likes it.

The Base
The base is super-smart. The bottom stretcher is flush to the front of the legs. But the top stretcher is not. Kilrain makes everything work with a dose of cleverness. The deadman hooks onto the top stretcher. This gives her the ability to clamp things at the front of the bench. And it allows the deadman to slide back and forth while keeping its front flush to the front of the legs and bottom stretcher.

Also, points for the little scallop detail below the front stretcher. More curves ahead.

The Leg Vise and End Vise
Kilrain says this angled leg vise came out of her lack of confidence in mortising the leg. The results are pretty hard to argue with. Instead of making a mortise for the parallel guide, she made a dado in the side of the leg. Then she covered that over with a wooden plate. Instant mortise! And it's easy to tweak the joint for a good fit on the guide.

The vise screw is on the other side of the leg. And the swoopy curves of the vise are nice – plus there's a little cherry flash at the bottom of the oak chop.

The end vise uses the Eastern European hardware you can get at most woodworking stores. Kilrain discovered the same thing I did when I installed this vise for the first time about a decade ago:

"The installation learning curve is straight up the first time around." she wrote. "If I ever do this again, I'll opt for a ready-made end vise."

All in all, it's an excellent bench, especially considering the scavenged materials. It's completely functional and looks good to boot.

— Christopher Schwarz

I like corded drills – as long as it's an umbilical cord.

Actually, I do like my Makita corded drill for some things (mixing paint, for example). And I do like to use a battery drill when I have a heap of screws to drill and drive. But for most of my onesie-twosie jobs, I much prefer the meat-powered varieties of drills.

Now some beginning woodworkers get confused about what each boring instrument is used for. And, like people who buy a No. 1 plane all the way up to a No. 8 plane, they think you need all the tools to do good work. Not so.

Here are some of the common pork-powered drills in woodshops and their intended uses. I think you need one solution for small holes and one for big holes – though there is a lot of overlap and oddness ahead.

Gimlets
These little guys are – in their modern form – essentially a piece of wire that has been sharpened at one end and twisted into a handle at the other. Old gimlets were a drill bit mounted in a wooden handle. There are several flavors of gimlets (such as shell and wire-fret gimlets) but the vast majority are what we now call "twist gimlets."

These have a small screw thread at their point that then changes into your typical drill flutes, which are designed to remove waste from the hole. The smallest one I have is 5/64" in diameter, and R.A. Salaman's "Dictionary of Woodworking Tools" says they were available up to 3/8". That's a gutload of gimlet.

I like the little suckers. They're cheap. And they are handy when boring a few scant holes for nails when I'm toenailing the inside of a carcase. Do you want to use them for all your small holes? The answer is Socratic: Does your health insurance cover chronic wrist injuries?

Roy Underhill describes gimlets thusly:

"...(T)hey are a nuisance to sharpen, easily broken, kill your arm, and split the wood. Other than that, they're great."

Awls
Bradawls and birdcage awls are actually boring tools. They are ideal for making small holes in confined spaces. Or where you need a lot of control. I prefer the so-called bircage awl to the bradawl. The square shank of the birdcage awl scrapes a hole. The bradawl seems to mostly push fibers aside.

Hand Drills
These gizmos are what we call "eggbeater" drills and operate by turning a crank, which spins the chuck. After a 100 or so holes with a gimlet, these guys will seem like your best friend. They are, however, greatly limited by what size of bit they can spin. The biggest bit I can spin is about 1/4" – which is good because that is as big as the chuck is on the typical hand drill. The bits get pretty small, the smallest one in my kit is 1/16".

I've written a lot about hand drills, and I use them as much as I use my cordless electric drill. They have infinitely variable speed and torque. You can bore with immense precision by starting very slowly. They make a fun noise.

Look for ones that have a fully functional chuck – many are gummed up or the springs have sprung. And the side handle – sometimes called the "chef's hat"--  is a great place to hang on while you ride.

The hand drill is, to my eye, the more evolved member of the bow-drill family. This primitive form goes back to Egypt (at least). A stringed bow wraps around the shaft of the drill. Move the bow forward and the bit spins. Pull the bow back and it spins backwards. I've used them. There's a good reason that it looks like a Native American way of making fire.

Archimedean Drill

These tools are generally for small holes, sometimes very small holes. the shaft is a spiral. By moving the head up and down, the drill spins. They work, but their job has largely been supplanted by the hand drill. However, the technology lives on in the spiral screwdrivers that old-school carpenters and woodworkers still use – the spiral is just typically hidden by a steel sleeve.

To make bigger holes, there are different tools:

Breast Drills
These are the bigger cousins of the hand drill and work on the same principle. However, instead of being topped with a handle, they have a breastplate. This makes them ideal for drilling big holes while holding the drill horizontally. It's more of a home construction tool. I own one, but it's mostly for the kids to play with. I have yet to find the woodworking job that made me glad I had spent $5 on the tool.

The Brace
This crank-based tool is one of the most widely used boring tools in the woodshop. I've had one since I was a kid. With this tool you can do a remarkable range of work. If Ronco had been around in the 15th century, they would have made one of these tools. Not only do they bore holes – a typical 13-piece set of bits is 1/4" to 1" – but they are good for countersinking and driving screws. You can ream holes with them. Make round tenons. Create plugs. There are even special bits for reaming out the ends of trees so you can join them end-to-end into one giant floating raft.

Typical woodworking sizes of the brace range from a 6" throw (for wussies) up to the 14" throw (for those with gorilla arms). The most typical sizes are the 8" and 10" throw. The bigger the brace, the easier it is to turn the big bits. But you need more clearance. And you need to make sure you don't punch yourself in the liver.

They come in an almost infinite variety. There are all manner of nutty chucks. Crazy pads and handles. Byzantine ratcheting systems. Be sure to hunt down the rare Whimble brace. Not to buy it. But to wonder at it.

There are some jobs that the brace will do that will poop out a cordless drill or cook a corded one. Whenever I bore the dog holes in my workbenches, I use a brace. I think you should get one, too. But don't buy a new one. I've only seen stinky ones (including one with three jaws. Why?).

Do you research at Sanford Moss's site, save up $5 or $10 and go buy one.

Augers
Another old-school way of making big holes was to use an auger, which is essentially an enormous gimlet. There is a big bit with a big wooden T-handle. Many of the handles could accept a variety of bits. Augers work extremely well, though you really have to use them vertically, which isn't always an option in a shop.

I have some augers and break them out occasionally, though I much prefer my brace(es).

I'm sure I've forgotten some ways to make a hole (drips of water plus 10,000 years, pump drills, pillar drills, Passer drills), but these cover most of the tools I've had experience with. I think most woodworkers can get by with one tool for small holes and one tool for large holes. For me, I like the hand drill for small holes and a 10" brace for big ones.

— Christopher Schwarz

Mark Harrell of Bad Axe Tool Works just launched his new website this week. And in addition to pretty pictures of his new Bad Axe saws and details of his saw restoration and sharpening services, Harrell does the hand world a solid by offering free tutorials on how he restores vintage saws.

There are stories on removing rust, unlocking a frozen sawnut, restoring a handle (that one is particularly excellent) and even how to pack a saw to ship it.

We're all big fans of Bad Axe here (just read this review), and in case you are just tuning in to this blog, Harrell also offers speed and reasonable resharpening and restoration services. If you have a rusty saw, start the restoration using Harrell's instructions. Then send it to him for sharpening. A sharp saw is a revelation.

Check out the new site at badaxetoolworks.com.

— Christopher Schwarz

Sometimes I feel a tad guilty for owning tools from Veritas, Lie-Nielsen and Blue Spruce. But then I pick up my very first chisel and I get over it.

I've had that chisel since I graduated from college – it's a 1/2" chisel I bought at WalMart and it's branded Popular Mechanics (is that an example of irony? I can't tell. I'm American).

In any case, I think I have butter knives at home that hold a better edge and are more balanced for dovetailing than this tool. Its blade was probably 5" long when I bought it, and now it's been ground down to 3-3/4". I thought about throwing it away, but I just can't.

So I recently sharpened it up for my 8-year-old daughter and made a nice little blade cover from a business card. She was thrilled with the tool. This weekend she used it for some light chopping and paring. After about 15 minutes, the tool's edge folded over.

If this were an isolated incident, I wouldn't be blogging about it. So many inexpensive modern tools that I've encountered don't even deserve to be in the tool crib of the store. My first miter box saw was American-made and made badly. Same with my first combination square, block plane and even hammer.

Who can mess up a hammer?

I'm sure you're thinking: Why didn't this idiot Arkansan buy vintage tools? Well, I stumbled on old tools all the time at the antiques fair in a tobacco warehouse that my wife and I went to every month. But to my inexperienced eye, all I could see was rust and grime. The tools at WalMart were shiny. And there was no Internet to help guide me.

As I watched my daughter struggle with a dull chisel, I concluded that I was going to stop calling these things "tools." Tools have to work at some baseline. Chisels have to do a certain amount of work before they crap out on you. Saws have to cut wood – crazy, I know. Combination squares should be somewhat square. Anything less is just an object decorating your garage wall.

The new tools that perform these basic functions are what we now call "premium" tools. But no more.

This morning I re-ground and honed that cursed chisel-shaped object and it's sitting on my bench. I should bring home a good tool for Katy and throw this thing away.

Or perhaps we have some paint cans that need opening.

— Christopher Schwarz

At the risk of enraging the powerful pen-turning cabal, I gotta say that I've never been enthralled by making pens or bottle stoppers on my lathe.

Life would be easier if I did embrace my mini-lathe, especially at Christmas. Instead I end up building furniture for the people I love. One year I made cutting boards with a Spirograph-like router design. Other years I've built Shaker boxes (too many to count).

This year I'm enlisting the whole family to make woodblock stamps and custom stationery. I think it's a stroke of genius – sort of like the washcloth dispenser cabinet I invented. (I'm still waiting to make a million off that one.)

So this weekend, my daughter Katy and I headed down to the shop for a couple hours to putz around with my idea. I printed out a sample design on the laser writer – I chose dividers from Joseph Moxon's "Mechanick Exercises." Then I stuck it down to the face grain of some scrap cherry and started carving away at the waste using my grandfather's small-scale carving tools and a couple knives. Katy worked on one, too.

Within 20 minutes I had the stamp shown above. Then we went to Staples and bought 100 blank invitations for about $20 (look for these in the "Shotgun Wedding" department). And a pad of gel ink for $5 that was good for 100,000 impression (yeah, right).

After some experiments, we found we got the best results working with a piece of leather (we used a tool roll) underneath the paper. In about 10 minutes we stamped 20 cards and matching envelopes.

Here's our plan: For each deserving person, I'm going to carve the initial of their last name into a 2" x 2" stamp. The kids will stamp their hearts out and we'll all bundle up the stationery in a ribbon and put them in a box with their wooden stamp and a stamp pad.

Total cost per person: about $12 plus a couple hours of work.

That sounds a lot better than building a few bookcases, a gross of Shaker boxes or eleventy-billion pens.

— Christopher Schwarz

Reader Aaron Cashion writes:

"Watched your DVD about drawboring today after reading your 'Workbenches' book. Really enjoyed both. I had never heard of drawboring, and this will defintely be going into my arsenal. Where can I get a good eggbeater style hand drill? Are there new quality ones being made or should I go the eBay route and look for a vintage one? I prefer to buy quality and not some Asian import for $4.99."

Ah Aaron, I relish opening this can of oligochaetes.

I have yet to encounter a newly manufactured eggbeater drill that I like. That doesn't mean there aren't any. I've always been curious about this drill from Germany. However, I've never seen one boring in the wild.

Most of the eggbeaters – more properly called "hand drills" – that I've used have been from the venerable Millers Falls company. This company made a shocking quantity and variety of these drills, and you can learn all about the different models here at Old Tool Heaven.

In the Midwest and East, you can find these tools at almost any antique store, flea market or garage sale. I typically pick them up for $5 to $15 when they are in good working order. Look for a chuck that has jaws that open and close properly (they can be missing their springs). You want the gear train to move smoothly – through usually a little cleaning and lubrication can fix things up.

Typical hand drills will be missing their removable side handles, so snatch up any that of those that you stumble on.

These drills come up every darn day on eBay, though you cannot tell if the thing is clapped out. Here's a search script that will take you to a page of drills. However, I prefer to take my drills for a spin before spending my American dollars.

The other option is to spend a bit more and get a drill that is better than new.

Wiktor Kuc of New Mexico buys these old drills and rebuilds them so that they look and work better than when they came from the factory. I've had a few of Wiktor's drills pass through my hands, and all I can say is that the man charges far too little for the work he does. If drill restoration is an art form, Wiktor is the Leonardo.

You can purchase these drills from Wiktor at his web site wktools.com. You might have to wait a bit for one, but it's worth it.

— Christopher Schwarz

This year I tried to keep my teaching and traveling schedule fairly light so I could spend more time tinkering with our magazines, assembling books such as "Handplane Essentials" and hanging out with my wife and two girls.

For 2010, my failings as a spouse, parent and diligent editor are your gain.

I've decided to teach a few select classes in 2010. I really missed teaching, the close contact I get with readers and the stuff I learn from them. Teaching helps me with my job at the magazine. I would have never written the book "Workbenches," for example, if I hadn't watched students struggle on sub-par benches.

Here is a quick roundup of my calendar for 2010 in case you want to do a drive-by heckle.

February 26-27: Atlanta Woodcraft in Alpharetta, Ga. I'll be teaching two one-day classes. One day will be on precision sawing. The other class is still up in the air. The classes aren't posted yet on the store's web site. I might also get to see one of my sisters during this trip – she and her family split their time between Atlanta and St. Louis.

March 27-28: Northeastern Woodworkers Association's Showcase in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. I love this woodworking show. It's the perfect blend of education, demonstrations, a gallery and commerce. I've been asked to teach short seminars this year on two topics: "Mastering Joinery Planes," which are the essential planes for cutting and refining joints and how to choose, sharpen and use them. And "Why Ancient Workbenches are Better," which is a slideshow trip through history to understand how many modern workbenches are failures at some important workholding tasks.

April 24-25: Handplane Weekend at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking: I love this class. Essentially, I assist Thomas Lie-Nielsen as we introduce students to the basics of choosing, setting up and using handplanes. Plus we have a few fun planing contests.

Sept. 13-17: Hand Joinery at Dick Gmbh – Fine Tools in Metten, Germany: I don't speak a lick of German (OK, I can order beer), yet, the nice people at Dick, a very large supplier of woodworking supplies, have asked me to come teach a class in basic hand joinery. We'll be building a small cabinet from the Hancock community as part of the class. Also, David Charlesworth will be teaching at Dick that same week. I'm either going to have to bone up on some German or start practicing mime.

Sept. 25-26: Nine Essential Handplanes at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking: This is a new course I developed this year that I'm quite excited about. We're going to take a deep dive into the details of the nine most essential planes of the craft: the jack, jointer, smoother, fillister, plow, shoulder, router, scraper and block planes. Each plane has its own personality and is sharpened, set up and used differently. We're going to take two days to master these tools so you can use them with complete confidence in your shop at home or work.

Oct. 23-24: Hand Tool Boot Camp at Kelly Mehler's School of Woodworking: This is another new course I developed this year. It is, in essence, how to get started in hand tools in a fairly painless way (by that I mean how to do it without spending tons of money). The course focuses on learning the basic skills with a few select tools and then gradually expanding your reach until you have a serious problem and need professional help. We also will build the Hancock cabinet shown above.

My other goal for 2010 is to take a class myself. Since the day I started woodworking I've been hankering to take a Windsor Chair class from Mike Dunbar at The Windsor Institute. I've visited the school on a couple occasions for photo shoots and just love it. And Mike is one of my heroes. A great teacher, a scholar and a funny guy. This is the year.

— Christopher Schwarz

Ever since I saw George Walker's DVD on furniture design and his lecture at Woodworking in America, I've been trying out some of his ideas on pieces of furniture that I know and love. With a pair of dividers (and sometimes a beer) I've been walking around the drawings and thinking about shapes, proportions and punctuation.

This summer I built a simple English chest of drawers for one of my daughters that was based on an 1839 plan. I like everything about this chest (except the way one of the drawers reflects light), so I've been exploring this piece to see what else it has to teach me.

The underlying shape of the chest is a square, which is fairly common for this piece of furniture. So it was no surprise to encounter this simple shape.

First I explored the base and its relationship to the height and width of the case. The base is one-fifth of the height, and each foot is one-fifth of the length of the chest.

Looking closer at the drawer heights, the top drawers are 6" high and the bottom drawer is 9" high. That's a simple 2:3 proportion that Walker points out is used in graduating many parts, such as the width of rails in a frame-and-panel door.

I'm going to poke around this piece some more tonight. If you'd like to read more on this topic, check out some of Walker's latest entries on his blog. And wait until you see his first column in the February 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking (I got to read over the final layout today – neener, neener). I think you'll be hooked.

— Christopher Schwarz

Making a workbench that is both massive and mobile is no small feat. Most of the approaches I have seen have one of the following complications:

1. The mobile base is outboard of the legs. You trip on them. You need new front teeth.
2. The mobile base has "locking" wheels that fail to "lock" completely.
3. The mobile base has spindly wheels that cannot climb a single layer of sawdust.
4. The mobile base is very complicated or expensive.

This week, reader Phil Donehower of North Carolina sent me photos of the mobile base he installed in the legs of his French-style workbench. I think his idea has real merit and might help spark some neurons in your own noggin.

Here's how it works. The hardware lives in a cavity in the bottom of each leg and is raised and lowered by all-thread rod that runs from the casters up to the benchtop.

Donehower began with four 2" swivel-plate casters and attached them to 1-1/2" x 2" rectangular steel tubing that he cut to the same size as the caster plate. (See here for the tubing: http://www.speedymetals.com/s-202-rectangular-tube.aspx).

He attached the 1/2" x 13tpi all-thread rod to the steel tubing using 1/2"x 13tpi hex nuts and washers. The all-thread runs through a 1/2" steel hanger plate attached to each leg (see http://www.duffcompany.com/catalog/hangers.pdf for details).

To raise and lower the casters he uses a screwdriver to turn the all-thread rod through holes in the benchtop.

In my never-ending effort to meddle, I wonder if instead of a screwdriver you could modify the all-thread to accept a nut driver that is chucked in a cordless drill. That would be fast and easy.

In any case, Donehower said the system works great and cost him only about $40 in materials.

— Christopher Schwarz

In the interest of full disclosure, the following book – "The Perfect Edge" – is being published by my parent company, F+W Media. Also, I consider the author, Ron Hock, a good friend. Oh, and once I got on stage and shook it with a belly dancer in Greece after too many grape leaves and shots of ouzo.

OK, now that all that's on the table, I think I can also say I'm a big fan of the two other big sharpening books out there: "The Complete Guide to Sharpening" by Leonard Lee (Taunton) and "Taunton's Complete Illustrated Guide to Sharpening" by Thomas Lie-Nielsen. I've also sharpened a few tools in the last 15 years using everything from a brick to a $1,000 electric-powered record player.

So let's get the most important question out of the way. If you already own the books by Lee or Lie-Nielsen, do you need "The Perfect Edge?" Well, unless you are a sharpening geek, no. All three books are outstanding works, in my opinion. All three will teach you how to sharpen a wide variety of tools. All three will take you from rank amateur to a zero-radius-intersection connoisseur.

If, however, you don't own a book on sharpening, I think "The Perfect Edge" should be at the top of the list, if only for the fact that it covers the latest innovations in sharpening equipment and is written in a very breezy style that makes the technical information easy to digest.

Hock is one of the founding fathers of the hand-tool renaissance that has been blossoming during the last 20 years. He started out supplying plane irons to James Krenov and his students at the College of the Redwoods. From that modest beginning, Hock Tools grew to sell all sorts of blades, tools and even shellac through his company in Northern California. In fact, the term "Hock blade" is almost becoming the generic term for an aftermarket plane iron.

So Hock knows a good deal about woodworking tools, steel and sharpening. And what is remarkable is that this ironmonger also happens to be a fine writer. Reading about sharpening can be, for the lack of a better expression, a real grind. There's a lot to know about abrasives, steel, ergonomics, lubricants and (if you are lucky) common sense.

As a long-time sharpener, I think Hock did a better job of explaining the abrasive side of the sharpening equation than anyone else. "The Perfect Edge" finally made the light bulb go on in my head on the topic of how different abrasives work the steel.

Hock's book also is strong in other areas. While all three books do a fine job of explaining how to sharpen chisels and plane irons, "The Perfect Edge" really does an excellent job with turning tools, knives and saws as well.

Hock also covers all the new powered sharpening equipment and many of the honing guides on the market today. It's quite up-to-date for a book. Plus, I think the photography is great. It's sharp and gets right up on the action – plus Hock offer pages and pages of microscopic images of edges, which are very helpful for anyone trying to understand how steel becomes sharp and then dull again.

One last point of disclosure is in order here. Though I got to read Hock's book in its entirety before it went to the printer, I had absolutely nothing to do with the effort to get it written, photographed, edited and published.

But I wish I had.

"The Perfect Edge" is now available for pre-order in our store for $29.99. The book is scheduled for general release in December, when it will be available from suppliers nationwide. Oh, and here's a little hint: If you want a copy signed by Hock himself, you can order the book through the Hock Tools web site.

During one visit to an art school, I saw a lot of things. But it was the French fry boxes that made my head hurt.

Scattered throughout the school were student works that clearly were furniture (i.e. you could sit upon them). Others clearly were art (they were just for looking at). But there were some pieces of work that defied categorization. In fact, at some point I started asking myself: "Hmmm. Is that thing art or garbage?"

Out by the loading dock was a weathered plank of wood propped up against the wall. It had some pieces of wood rudely attached to its backside. Was this a low bench? An art installation? Or a piece of trash waiting to be taken to the curb?

Out by the school's fountain was a pile of grease-stained White Castle French fry containers.

"Ah," I said. "Clearly this is garbage."

But once I got closer I saw the containers were attached. Was this a White Castle wind sock?

I find that pieces of so-called "studio furniture" can be a challenge to appreciate and enjoy. They challenge our perceptions of form, material and function. Truth be told, I quite like the stuff on the whole. I have several books from The Furniture Society on studio furniture and its makers that I always enjoy reading and browsing through.

But it would be foolish to think that studio furniture is a modern invention.

Though you might disagree with me, I think a piece of studio furniture has the following components. It is a piece of furniture that is both designed and built by an individual. And that person is trying to create a new style of furniture that stands apart from other historical forms.

James Krenov was likely the most famous of these makers. Art Carpenter, George Nakashima and Sam Maloof were all what I would call "studio makers."

And if you look at the history of furniture, you'll find studio furniture makers there such as Charles Rohlfs. Check out the quote from him on this page. How about William Morris? Nope. He wasn't a builder. Thomas Chippendale? I think yes. Thomas Sheraton or George Hepplewhite? Again, I think yes.

That got us to thinking: Who in history would be the earliest known studio furniture maker? We need a name (not just "caveman") and they have to be a known designer and builder.

— Christopher Schwarz