I have four sets of screwdrivers. Three for loaning and one for using.

The set I never loan is made up of tools that were made (mostly) by the H.D. Smith & Co. company of Plantsville, Conn. Usually these are referred to as "perfect handle" screwdrivers. They are single drop-forged pieces of steel with a wooden handle that has been riveted into place. And they are tougher and more comfortable than any screwdriver I've used.

I've picked up my set of six drivers through the years since 1996, when I spied my first one at a flea market and picked it up for $5. Since then I've also noticed that the prices for these tools can be ridiculous. I've seen screwdrivers go for $40. I've never paid more than $10, but I've picked up mine at antique fairs.

The reason I was able to get mine so cheaply is that mine look like dogmeat. And they look like dogmeat because they were probably used on the devil's locomotive they are so black and grungy. And they are as tough as hell.

Note that there are counterfeits out there that weren't made by Smith. Some of the tools are stamped "Germany," and some are stamped "Irwin." And some are tools that have been cobbled together by a clever welder. But if you find the real thing, I know you'll be pleased.

I've noticed that Garrett Wade carries a Chinese set that looks like my screwdrivers, but I don't have the heart to test them. Anyone out there have these?

If you'd like to learn more about the line of "perfect handle" tools, here are some good resources:

• A history of H.D. Smith & Co. at "I Like Rust."

• A reprint of the company's catalog from Martin J. Donnelly Auctions.

• A tutorial on repairing a perfect handle from Jim Thompson.
 
• Read a patent for the company's wild adjustable screwdriver. And check out their patent for a chisel handle. Look familiar?

— Christopher Schwarz

I've always been hesitant to get to know my personal heroes because it's usually a disappointment. They almost always turn out to be just like the rest of us. A bit vain. Self-conscious. Insecure. Troubled.

So when Roy Underhill of "The Woodwright's Shop" invited me to stay with him at his converted mill in North Carolina while I taught at his school, I was delighted and dejected.

I mean, who wouldn't want to hang out with Roy for six days? See where he lives? Get to chat about the crazy stuff that he's done, learned and seen while host of his PBS show, which is in its 30th season? Me, I was a tad worried that the Roy Underhill in my head wouldn't be the same guy after I saw him come down the stairs in a bathrobe and mussed (seriously mussed) hair.

After six days with Underhill I can say that my opinion of him has indeed changed. But how it changed was not what I expected.

This evening Underhill invited a bunch of the North Carolina woodworkers to come to his shop, buy me a beer and see some outtakes from the two episodes we shot during the weekend. The turn-out was great (I managed to drink only three beers, which is why I can still type right now).

As we all sat in the City Tap (the sweet bar behind "The Woodwright's School"), Underhill said some things that brought his personality into focus. He told the story of when he was invited to be on a radio program with other guests that was titled "The Past, the Present and the Future."

"They hired me to be the guy representing the past," Underhill said, sounding a bit astonished. "I'm not the past. I'm all about the future. What I do is the future."

That's when the whole week came into focus. His program is not about the past at all. Nor is his school, nor are his books. Sure, they look like they are about the past because he is using vintage tools to make traditional woodwork. But he's not seeking to explain the past so we can understand it. Instead, he is seeking only to influence the future course of human events.

"You don't need to buy things," Underhill said tonight at the bar. "You can make anything you need."

And that is the real lesson Underhill has been trying to teach us for 30 years. And it is something that flows through the way he treats people (even people who don't know Underhill from a hill in the ground). Yes, he looks like the rube on television sometimes, but inside beats the heart of a professor, a historian, a craftsman and an entertainer.

He structures his program so it moves fast – almost like you are being mugged – and is filled with messages that stretch back to the beginnings of civilization and stretch forward beyond our time here.

Will we merely consume the resources around us? Or will we build something that outlasts ourselves and everyone we know?

It is astounding that Underhill has managed to ask this question for 30 years and still remain optimistic, curious about the world and open to new ideas.

And that was the narcissistic revelation of the week – what will happen with my future? Will I become bitter, narrow, inflexible and guarded as I get older? Or will I become like Underhill?

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. For your viewing pleasure, here are some of the pictures I took at Underhill's mill.

So we shot two 25-minute episodes of "The Woodwright's Shop" today. So you are probably wondering what the heck I did with the other 23 hours of my day.

Manicure? Pedicure? Facial? Crystal Meth bender?

Nyet.

I woke up this morning at 6 a.m. at Roy's place – he lives in an old mill, and the guest bedroom sits right on the water. We slugged down some coffee. Roy sat in a rocking chair and quietly looked out over the dam next to his mill. I was poring over one of his books on Virginia shore furniture (I could spend a month here just browsing this man's library).

Then we headed off to the UNC-TV PBS station, which is an awesome facility as far as PBS stations go. Then it was a few hours of getting our microphones attached (they bored holes through my pants), rehearsing and working out all the camera moves for the first episode.

We started actually shooting the first episode (on sawing) sometime before noon and we botched the beginning over and over and over again. After four or five false starts, Roy and I finally got loopy enough to make it through the episode. But I have to say that the 25 minutes of tape felt like a lifetime.
Then we shot a couple short promotional spots for that episode (when you see them please do not make fun of my sawing – it's a long story). Then it was time for fried chicken.

Ask my co-workers – I usually eat an apple for lunch. But when someone dangles the promise of fried chicken and biscuits before my Southern-fried eyeballs, I cannot resist. And sweet tea. Dear me, I miss sweet tea.

The fried chicken, however, turned out to be a technical gastro-intestinal error.

The deliciously greasy fried chicken made Roy and me burp like an overheated Louisiana swamp. As we rehearsed the second episode after lunch, our belches and intestinal discomfort grew.

We burped our way through the second episode, which is about the toolkit of a typical 1839 joiner in England. It's interesting stuff, if you can ignore the occasional eruction from us.

We finished up sometime about 6:30 p.m. (I think). Roy and I are both so tired from the whole day that we drive back to his mill in near silence, with just a few comments about ecology, old cars and our days ahead together.

When we arrived back at the mill, Roy's wife, Jane, was out on the edge of the mill's dam. She's sweeping the duckweed over the edge and into the stream bed below. Roy and I perch ourselves on the edge of the dam and drink some Eagle Rare bourbon I've brought along. We watch Jane work, we breath slowly, and we let the humidity of the North Carolina night soak into our skin.

Jane has made an incredible meal of fried chicken, corn pudding, chicken gravy, broccoli and fresh bread. It's ready for us. So we finish our bourbon in the proper manner (very slowly), stand up and head to the house for a beautiful meal.

Oh, in case you were wondering – yes, I have the best job in the world.

— Christopher Schwarz

All photos are courtesy of Mike Oniffrey

Let's say your table saw's guard is painted black. And you've figured out that if you put a piece of wood under it in a certain way, that usually it comes out cut like you intended. But sometimes not. After all, you can't see what's going on under that guard.

This sounds ridiculous, I know. But that's basically what many woodworkers do when they apply finish to their projects. They don't know how a finish works or why it works (or doesn't). In fact, finishing is still considered by many of us to be a "black art," with secret formulas and the like.

And finish manufacturers only perpetuate this problem because they have so many confusing names for the same product.

Lucky for us, there is Bob Flexner, our long-time finishing columnist.

Flexner started his career as a woodworker, but at some point he became so flummoxed by finishing that he decided to figure out the chemistry. And what he found is that finishing is actually straightforward once you look behind the curtain. Why is it so confusing? Well....

1. Some magazine writers don't understand finishing and continually repeat idiotic myths. (Such as that oil "feeds" a finish. Or that you have to finish both sides of your work to prevent warping. That the inside of a cabinet has to be finished. And on and on.)

2. Manufacturers don't dispel the myths either and tend to feed them with misleading labels and marketing campaigns.

And that is why we hired Flexner as a contributing editor to our magazine more than a decade ago – an honor we have bestowed on very few people.

Flexner has changed the way that hundreds of thousands of people finish their projects. Through his regular column, "Flexner on Finishing," he has busted myth after myth. He has taken manufacturers (and even other writers) to task.

For me, he has made finishing simple to understand and simpler to do with confidence.

So I am pleased to announce that we are releasing Flexner's best columns in a hardbound 224-page edition called "Flexner on Finishing" that will come out in September. You can pre-order it now for $19.99, which saves you $5 off the cover price.

Flexner updated all of his columns, and we redesigned all them for the book (pity our Senior Art Director Linda Watts). But the result will be worth it. Even if you own Flexner's landmark book "Understanding Wood Finishing" you'll find this volume a good companion. Flexner dives deeper into topics relevant to woodworkers – giving you a clearer picture of what happens when the finish hits the board.

I recommend this book without reservation (which is something my company can't pay me to do). I have immense respect for Flexner, his intellectual rigor and his integrity as a woodworking journalist. And if you pick up this new book, I know you'll agree with me.

It's available for pre-order from our store. Click here to order.

— Christopher Schwarz

I know I am going to get flack for this, but I cannot help myself.

Last week we received two copies of a cool new book in the mail – "500 Cabinets: A Showcase of Design & Craftsmanship" (Lark). The book is (though I didn't count the cabinets) a collection of 500 designs from woodworkers all over the world.

Most of the cabinets are contemporary, and almost all of them are fun to look at. All the staff members here have been paging through these books since they arrived. I really like these books because you get to see a wide range of work, and it's usually beautifully presented.

But there is something about these books (and some contemporary furniture in general) that makes me giggle: Why do some woodworkers insist on giving their pieces of furniture artsy and unscrutable names?

When I opened the book, the first cabinet I saw was on page 147. It's a cool piece of work. Well-proportioned. I want to know more about how the maker achieved the surface texture. But here's what he named the cabinet: "Naked Came the Weekend."

I was drinking some coffee at the time and I started laughing so hard that I didn't know if the brown water was going to come out my nose or my pants.

Here's another: "Misery is the River . . . Cabinet."

Here's the scene in my head. My wife and I are in the bathroom one morning and she says: "Honey could you reach over the commode and get me toilet paper from the Misery is the River (pregnant pause) Cabinet?"

Or: "Ceci N'est Pas une Boite a Tiroirs" (This is Not a Box With Drawers). Note to self: Add French for another layer of artistic shellac.

"Leap and the Net Will Appear."

To be fair, most of the cabinets in the book have names that are more along the lines of "Teak Sideboard" or "Chiffonier."

But the funny arty-named ones keep me turning the pages.

So here's the contest: You can win a copy of the book "500 Cabinets" simply by submitting your own artistic and pompous title for a piece of furniture. Submit it by leaving a comment below (be sure to include your e-mail so we can contact you – e-mails addresses are never published, by the way).

The deadline is noon EST, Aug. 6, 2010.

— Christopher Schwarz

Our Best Furniture Books

• "Greene & Greene Furniture: Poems of Wood & Light" by David Mathias. We just received our advance copies of this book and all I can say is wow, wow and wow. It's available for pre-order in our store now. I'll be blogging more about this book when I return from North Carolina.

• "Building 18th-century American Furniture" by Glen D. Huey. Glen sits two cubicles away from me, and even though I talk to the guy every day, I am still in awe of the work he does. This book is a collection of his best pieces.

• "Shop Drawings for Craftsman Furniture" by Robert W. Lang. Bob also works with me here at the magazine, and I am pleased to announce that we now carry his books in our store. Before I knew Bob, I knew his books. His whole series of Arts & Crafts books is excellent.

After five years of whining, someone listened to (or became merely weary of) my complaints about the search function on this blog.

We now have a custom Google search bar at the bottom of every blog post (look below the comments. Little lower. That's right. No. Still lower). I think you will find this searching tool to be far superior to the Dixie cup, string and monkey that we used before. You can now use all the typical boolean and Google search functions. Such as:

• Using quotes to find a specific phrase. By putting "Schwarz lying in a puddle of his own sick" you will find posts with that exact phrase instead of all the posts that have "puddle" in them or "sick."

• You also can exclude words by including the minus sign before them: Schwarz -beer will bring back all the posts where I don't mention beer.

There are lots of other ways to tweak the search. This Google page explains it all.

Thanks to our online staff who made this happen.

— Christopher Schwarz

The dust collection on our shop's cabinet saw sucks. Let me re-phrase that. It doesn't suck. Zero suckage. Two holes. Tons of waiting.

We have a big cyclone dust-collection system. We have our cabinet saw hooked up at its base and in the basket guard. Still the dust tends to build up in the cabinet. (Note: It hasn't ever gotten as bad as when Glen D. Huey turned on his Unisaw and the blade wouldn't move because the dust had collected up to the arbor, stopping the motor.)

Still, all of us are careful to never lose the arbor nut when we change the blade on the saw. If you drop the nut, you can count on about an hour of digging through the cabinet to look for your lost nut.

So today, I lost my nut.

So I opened the bottom of the cabinet saw and laughed out loud. The sawdust had packed up so tight that it looked like a sand sculpture or layers at an archaeological dig.

So I took a photo.

If you look close, you can see all of the projects we've worked on since the last time someone dropped a nut. At the top is mostly maple from Executive Editor Robert Lang's latest project. Below that is Senior Editor Glen D. Huey's lowboy in 200-year-old mahogany. Then you can see the walnut from my White Water Shaker Side Table. And below that is a lot of unidentified light-colored wood that no one will fess up to.

I call that the Early Bob Period.

Almost an hour later, I hadn't found the nut until Managing Editor Megan Fitzpatrick suggested a very big magnet that Huey had. That found the nut in 20 seconds flat.

Somewhere in the Early Bob Period.

— Christopher Schwarz

Ways to Avoid this Dust Collection Problem

• "Setting Up Shop: Completely Revised And Updated" by Sandor Nagyszalanczy

• "The Complete Woodshop Guide" (Popular Woodworking Books)

• "Woodshop Dust Control" (Taunton) by Sandor Nagyszalanczy

My psychological oddities include: A fear of being tackled by females in elf suits and enmity toward all birdhouses.

Perhaps my hostility to birdhouses springs from my days as a Cub Scout where I built too many of them. Heck, I'm also still haunted by visions of milking a plywood cow with an udder made from a rubber glove and learning to wring a chicken's neck. (That is a great-looking merit badge, I tell you what.)

Yet thanks to some enormous sedation, I built a birdhouse during the weekend. Heck, I was inspired and compelled to build this birdhouse using cypress, stainless fasteners and waterproof glue.

The idea for this birdhouse came from an abortive trip to Liberty Tool in Maine in February. Attached to the shop's building was an enormous birdhouse shaped like a jointer plane. Like the start of any great (read: totally obsessive) project, I knew at that instant that I had to build one.

My design is based off a Marples 14" razee jack plane. I scaled the plane up to 35" long so it would look good over the door to my shop at home. It took about three hours of gluing, screwing and nailing.

Plans for this will be featured in the August 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. It might just be the first birdhouse plan we've published on my watch.

I expect to catch some teasing from the editors at our competing magazines. But I also bet they'll secretly wish they had thought of it first.

— Christopher Schwarz

The woodworkers who are restoring the White Water Shaker Village are making significant progress – just in time for the Woodworking in America tour of the village on Oct. 3.

Newly built and authentic windows are going in on the first floor of the Meeting House, which completely changes the appearance of the historic structure, both outside and in. The windows are walnut, just like the originals, and are being built using donations from the public (our magazine has sponsored construction of one of the windows).

Inside the meeting house, the restored wainscot is also changing the feeling of the entire first floor. All in all, the structure is beginning to feel a lot like the Shaker Meeting House at Pleasant Hill, which I visited last week. The open space. The nice woodwork. The windows that look out over a pastoral scene.

This fall, we'll be offering a guided tour of the White Water Shaker Village (which is not open to the public) for attendees of our Woodworking in America conference. We've chartered a bus to take about 50 attendees up to the village on the morning of Sunday, Oct. 3. The additional cost will be $15 – just enough to cover the bus rental.

While at the village, you'll get a guided tour of many of the structures curated by the Friends of White Water Shaker Village, a non-profit group that is devoted to restoring the village outside Cincinnati and opening it to the public. The volunteers are incredibly knowledgeable about Shaker life, construction and furniture – they've taught us a lot during the last year.

If you are attending Woodworking in America and are interested in the tour of White Water, be sure to sign up for it when you register for the conference. Registration for Woodworking in America opens in early May at woodworkinginamerica.com. Space will be limited on this tour. If demand is strong we might charter a second bus, but two buses will be the maximum number of people we can manage on the grounds.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. To read more about the White Water village, visit the organization's web site, or read this free online story I wrote or watch this video tour of the village shot by Drew DePenning.

I thought I had a hammer-collecting problem until I met Scotty Fulton.

Fulton set me straight: 50 hammers is not much of a collection. Try 12,000 hammers – virtually all of them different, all of them carefully cataloged by his wife, Karen, and all of them displayed beautifully in his barn outside Maysville, Ky.

Now that is a hammer problem.

Earlier this month I visited the Fultons on their farm where they grow alfalfa hay and amass what could be the largest collection of unique striking tools on the planet. Scotty took me and a photographer through the collection, which fills several rooms and covers the tools of many crafts, from the cabinetmaker to the blacksmith, farrier, coal miner, plumber and fence builder.

Nearly every profession has a specialized hammer, even bartenders who have a hammer for breaking up ice for cocktails.

After walking in the front door of the barn, I was a bit speechless because of the spectacle. But after taking in the rows and rows of tools I managed to ask the obvious question: "How does something like this begin?"

About 1965, Fulton and his new bride moved to Owensville, Ohio, and Scotty needed some tools. So they went to a farm auction where the auctioneer held up a simple claw hammer. Scotty bid. He won. When he went to claim his lot, he found that he had actually won a bucket of seven or eight hammers. He was fascinated by their shapes.

"I couldn't believe there were this many shapes. I just kept buying them," he said. "I had 1,500. And then it became an obsession."

Nowadays, Scotty's collection grows thanks to eBay and a "hammer huckster" who finds hammers that Scotty doesn't have and sells them to him. His collection also took a big leap when he acquired the hammer collection of the late Ron Baird, who had 1,322 hammers and co-authored "The Hammer: The King of Tools," now sadly out of print and expensive.

As a tribute to Baird, Scotty used dozens of hammers to spell Baird's initials, RB, on one wall of his barn.

The depth of the Fulton's collection is immense and includes some unusual pieces, including a combination tool that has a hammer and a coping saw,  hammers used by nearby bourbon distillers to knock the bung into a barrel and even the very hammer that Scotty's doctor used to install a replacement hip in Scotty in 2004.

Here are a few of the other more unusual pieces we saw during the tour:

• A hammer for knocking the snow off horses
• What Scotty called "the tool of all tools," which had a pipe wrench, pincers, wire cutters, several wrenches and hatchet and – naturally – a hammer
• Tombstone marker's hammer
• A hammer-shaped perfume bottle from Avon
• Musical instrument hammers for taking out dents in brass instruments
• Ice hammers for TWA flight attendants
• A combination putty knife and hammer
• My personal favorite – an ice hammer that had tongs at the end of the handle that resembled chicken feet.

The Fultons are happy to show off their collection to visitors – sometimes a busload of people will arrive. As we finished up our tour three other visitors arrived and Karen was taking them around the collection. (Scotty says that she knows even more about the collection than he does.) Though it's not really a formal museum with hours and admission, there is a gift shop. Scotty keeps one table of hammers that he sells to visitors. These are usually hammers he already has in his collection (yes, I bought a few).

And the Fultons aren't done collecting hammers either.

"There are all kinds of shapes and ones I don't have," Scotty said, looking around his barn. "I'll never run out of shapes to collect."

— Christopher Schwarz

To see a slideshow of photos from the hammer museum taken by Narayan Nayar, visit Flickr through this link.

With Woodworking in America in our backyard this fall, we are going all out to show the attendees a good time in the greater Cincinnati area.

So we've planned several extracurricular activities for the attendees. All of the events below have a limited number of seats available and will be first-come, first-served (except the pub crawl). There will be a small added expense (except for the pub crawl) to cover transportation or food. We're not doing these to make money -- we're doing them because, uh, we really want to do these things during Woodworking in America and thought you might, too.

In the coming weeks I'll discuss some other fun events at the conference, such as the return of the Handtool Olympics, programs for spouses, and our own personal guide to the restaurants and hotels around the Northern Kentucky Convention Center and downtown Cincinnati.

For more details on the Oct. 1-3 conference, visit WoodworkingInAmerica.com. Registration opens in May.

'Toolmakers' Dinner' at the Popular Woodworking Magazine shop
When: The Thursday evening before Woodworking in America
Where: Our offices and workshop in suburban Cincinnati
Details: A lot of toolmakers will be unveiling new products at this conference, so we thought it would be a fun evening to invite all the toolmakers to a dinner at our headquarters plus as many attendees as we can fit. We'll provide dinner that will give you a taste of local food (LaRosa's pizza, Skyline chili, Graeter's ice cream), plus a few local malted beverages for you to try. You'll get to tour the shop, see the newest tools before everyone else and get to chat up the toolmakers.

'The Feast of Andre Roubo' with Roy Underhill and Don Williams
When: Saturday evening
Where: A restaurant near the conference
Details: Don Williams and a team of scholars are in the middle of an historic task: translating A.J. Roubo's 18th-century masterwork "L’Art du Menuisier." Williams will present – for the first time in public – some of the very cool things he's learned about early workshop practice during this project. (And if you saw Williams at the conference last year, you know he's an amazing speaker.) Also, Roy Underhill – who reads Roubo in the original French – will share some of the fascinating details he has unearthed about the man. We're looking to have this at a nearby restaurant and it will be a la carte. So you'll just pay for what you eat and drink.

'Covington Pub Crawl' with the Popular Woodworking Magazine Editors
When: Friday evening (after the keynote dinner)
Where: Covington's Main Strasse
Details: Find out just how well Megan Fitzpatrick holds her liquor (here's a tip: she's tipsy when she starts using big words in a Southern accent). Our editors lead you on a trip down Covington's Main Strasse, a nicely restored 19th-century street just a couple block from the conference. Chat woodworking as you sample beers from some of our favorite German beer gardens and the Cock & Bull English pub (which has the best fish and chips in town). There's no formal program – just a casual evening with a bunch of fellow woodworkers. This will be a free event. You pay for what you drink.

'White Water Shaker Village' – a Personalized Tour
When: Sunday morning
Where: White Water Shaker Village (bus transportation provided)
During the last year, Popular Woodworking Magazine has become involved with the restoration efforts at the White Water Shaker Village, a beautiful group of original buildings still in their original setting. The village isn't open to the public, but we have arranged to get you special access to the village with guides who are restoring the village's Meeting House. Get a close look at Shaker craftsmanship – from the toolmarks to the cut nails. See some of the original furniture pieces in the collection, and get a privileged look at this amazingly untouched gem. We'll probably only be able to take 80 to 100 people on this special trip. So be sure to register early for this one.

— Christopher Schwarz

So I'm mortising this benchtop this morning when I hit a patch of epoxy and bam! My chisel's helve split like a Twix bar. Dang, this epoxy is tough stuff.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. The above is a work of satire. Epoxy has neither the ability nor the ill will to damage your chisels. The Epoxy Institute claims – and I believe them because they advertise – that epoxy can be chiseled, sanded and makes a great addition to a RoTel dip. Go epoxy!

I have some bad news. Yesterday at the Showcase put on by the Northeastern Woodworkers Association, I fell in with the wrong sort of people – again.

I was browsing the booths on the show floor and chuckling at some amusing T-shirts for sale when I came face to face with that person. You know. The one we talked about that night in bed. I know I promised I wouldn't get involved ever again. That I was going to block their e-mails. That I was committed to our marriage – growing old together and enjoying a comfortable retirement.

Now I don't know if that's going to happen. Because, dear wife, I fell into the clutches of Patrick Leach.

And I might as well say this now because you'll eventually find out anyway: It's actually worse than you probably suspect because Tony Murland was there as well.

And I touched his libella.

You might as well change all the credit card numbers before I plunge us into financial ruin during this tryst in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. For I cannot help but be seduced by the curvy brass and the perfectly horned wooden totes on the saws.

I tried to resist. I really did.

Your husband,

— Christopher Schwarz

This October, Woodworking in America will be held in our backyard here in Cincinnati from Oct. 1-3. Registration will open in early May, and we'll start telling you all about the instructors and 80 sessions as soon as we get all the contracts signed.

But there is one aspect of planning this conference that I could use your help with. For this conference, we're planning some extra evening events. And I'd like some advice from you about which ones you think are most interesting. Read these short descriptions then click on the ones you like the best using the polling widget below.

Thanks in advance for your help.

'Toolmakers' Dinner' at the Popular Woodworking Magazine shop
When: The Thursday evening before Woodworking in America
Where: Our offices and workshop in suburban Cincinnati
Details: A lot of toolmakers will be unveiling new products at this conference, so we thought it would be a fun evening to invite all the toolmakers to a dinner at our headquarters plus as many attendees as we could fit. We'd provide dinner that would give you a taste of local food (LaRosa's pizza, Skyline chili, Graeter's ice cream), plus a few local malted beverages for you to try. You'd get to tour the shop, see the newest tools before everyone else and get to chat up the toolmakers.

'The Feast of Andre Roubo' with Roy Underhill and Don Williams
When: Saturday evening
Where: A restaurant near the conference
Details: Don Williams and a team of scholars are in the middle of an historic task: translating A.J. Roubo's 18th-century masterwork "L’Art du Menuisier." Williams will present – for the first time in public – some of the very cool things he's learned about early workshop practice during this project. (And if you saw Williams at the conference last year, you know he's an amazing speaker.) Also, Roy Underhill – who reads Roubo in the original French – will share some of the fascinating details he has unearthed about the man.

'Covington Pub Crawl' with the Popular Woodworking Magazine Editors
When: Friday evening (after the keynote dinner)
Where: Covington's Main Strasse
Details: Find out just how well Megan Fitzpatrick holds her liquor (here's a tip: she's tipsy when she starts using big words in a Southern accent). Our editors lead you on a trip down Covington's Main Strasse, a nicely restored 19th-century street just a couple block from the conference. Chat woodworking as you sample beers from some of our favorite German beer gardens and the Cock & Bull English pub (which has the best fish and chips in town). There's no formal program – just a casual evening with a bunch of fellow woodworkers.

'Make this Tool, Please' – Lunch with Manufacturers
When: Saturday at noon
Where: a room at the conference center
Details: One of the biggest frustrations many woodworkers have is that many tools they want are not made anymore. Who makes a decent folding rule anymore? At this special lunch, you can bring your wish list of tools, which we'll present to many of the leading hand-tool manufacturers around today. They'll let you know why they tool isn't being made (maybe they don't think there is a market, or materials are too expensive, or they never thought of it). And perhaps – just perhaps – you'll inspire them to make the tool of your dreams.

'Woodworking Night at Molly Malone's'
When: Saturday evening
Where: Molly Malone's Irish pub, a block from the conference
Details: We take over a floor of Molly Malone's, an Irish pub and restaurant that's a short walk from the conference. In addition to hanging out with the editors, toolmakers and other attendees, we'll arrange for some traditional woodworking music – yes, you guessed it – musical saws.

'White Water Shaker Village' a Personalized Tour
When: Sunday morning
Where: White Water Shaker Village (bus transportation provided)
During the last year, Popular Woodworking Magazine has become involved with the restoration efforts at the White Water Shaker Village, a beautiful group of original buildings still in their original setting. The village isn't open to the public, but we have arranged to get you special access to the village with guides who are restoring the village's Meeting House. Get a close look at Shaker craftsmanship – from the toolmarks to the cut nails. See some of the original furniture pieces in the collection, and get a privileged look at this amazingly untouched gem.

— Christopher Schwarz

Since we first visited in May 2009, the staff of the magazine has witnessed some amazing progress in the restoration of the Meeting House at the White Water Shaker Village, which is west of our offices in Cincinnati.

As many of you know, we are trying to help a bit here, as well. We've completed reproductions of three furniture projects from the White Water collection, which we have donated to the nonprofit organization that is restoring the village.

And if all goes as planned, we hope to offer attendees at our Woodworking in America conference (Oct. 1-3 here in Cincinnati) a special chance to tour this untouched gem. The village is still in its rural setting and is not yet open to the public. Stay tuned here for more details as they develop.

The volunteers are at the last stages at restoring the wainscotting in the ground floor of the Meeting House, which mostly had been ripped out by previous inhabitants. Even more exciting is the installation of one of the first reproduction windows on the north side of the building.

These custom windows use custom tooling to replicate the delicate mullions and muntins. The glass will be salvaged from rotten sash and then the sills will be incorporated into the interior woodwork. After that, the volunteers will turn their attention to the truss system in the attic.

As one of the volunteers put it, the Meeting House is "transforming into a meeting room that the Shakers would know."

We're excited about being involved with the White Water Village and hope that you get the opportunity to see first-hand what a wonderful place it is becoming. For more information on the village or to join the organization (it takes just a small, tax-deductible donation), visit whitewatershakervillage.org.

— Christopher Schwarz

Photos courtesy of Joe Grittani

Memo to Human Resources
Re: Throwing Axes by the Dumpster

Dear Sir or Madam,

As an employee of F+W Media Inc., I applaud the recent addition of yoga mats and treadmills to our exercise room. The sweet smell of sweat masks the odor of burned microwave popcorn and over-nuked fish from the adjacent cafeteria. And I think we could all use more exercise.

To that end, I propose we set up an axe-throwing range behind the dumpster near the Popular Woodworking Magazine shop. I will be happy to provide, at no charge, double-bitted axes, a stump target and training for the employees.

While F+W Media is not commonly associated with the Viking or Swedish heritage, I think the addition of an axe range would increase employee morale and hand-eye coordination (thereby reducing litter when employees miss the recycling bin as they pitch their empty pop cans).

Additionally, I believe an axe range could help employees settle internal disputes and give editors the upper-body strength needed to lift paperclips, cups of coffee and red editing pens without becoming winded. It also could lead to training our employees to pillage other media companies that we might acquire.

This week I learned to throw axes while at Lie-Nielsen Toolworks (yes, I know you sent me there to do work. This is work. Really.) Thomas Lie-Nielsen, the owner and founder of the company, gave me a short lesson in throwing the axes and had me up and running in five minutes.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. Are metal helmets with horns allowed under the F+W Media dress code? Just curious.

QUESTION: Although I am not in the woodworking trades, my son is. And last year I offered to pay his tuition at Peter Follansbee's workshop in North Carolina on riven-oak wood boxes. I showed him all the purty pictures on Peter's blog chattering all the while about "how cool is this? Boards are split, not sawn, the wood is green, blah blah blah."

He looked at me like I had a third eye in the middle of my head and said, "Are you F!@#$%^ crazy? Why would anyone do all that with hand tools when power tools are available?" I muttered something lame about how learning traditional woodworking could help one in the power tool area, but he wasn't buying it at all.

So the question is: Why is traditional woodworking important?

ANSWER: Wow. This is going to require both a Scottish ale and a separate blog entry.

It's a valid question, inasmuch as I work in a shop with an embarrassing array of power tools and machinery. The stuff we have is expensive, accurate, well-made and all that. Yet I still find myself doing more and more by hand every year. Why?

Senior Editor Glen D. Huey and I have talked about this a lot. He considers himself a power-tool woodworker and posits that most power-tool woodworkers are interested in results (completed projects) whereas the hand-tool people are more interested in process (cutting everything by hand).

I don't disagree. Working by hand is a far more enjoyable process for me. I like every stage of building when it involves my hand tools.

But that doesn't capture it entirely for me. For me, I think the difference between machine and hand woodworking is the hunger for pure skill. Let me explain.

In the summers I drive a 1968 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. Yes, it looks like a sports car, but underneath its steel skin is a flat-four 53-horsepower air-cooled pokey thing. I think that some grocery carts could outrun me on a track.

Yet, while driving that car I am difficult to pass on the interstate, and I regularly smoke Mustangs, Camaros and even a few Porsches (take that, Ferdinand). When driving in congested areas, it's not so much your engine, but understanding the road ahead. You must know your vehicle as intimately as your spouse. And you must look far ahead to see trouble and opportunity in the traffic patterns.

It took me years to become that sort of driver.

Same goes with hand tools. When building one-off projects, I'm not particularly slow compared to the power-tool people I work with. Hand tools let me take short cuts (no jigs or test cuts) that give me an edge (like a manual transmission, really). And hand work is different than power tool work. There is no "sanding stage" where you drop everything and spend a day refining all your surfaces.

With hand tools, if you've done things in the correct order, you're ready to finish as soon as you assemble. And that is very cool.

Most of all, I am proud of the skills I've had to develop to do this. And I'm amazed at how easy they come. The first few skills are a bear to acquire (sharpening, flattening a board, sawing to a line). But after that, the skills tend to feed on each other and you find that nothing – really, nothing – is outside your grasp.

And you don't need to buy a jig to do it. And you don't need to spend a week working up the courage to try making banding or grounding a carving. The next skill is just one little step away.

So are traditional skills important? Yes, to those who understand traditional skill. Because it competes with modern skills, it's a bit hard to demonstrate or explain to the unwashed public. Both traditionalists and modernists can build nice stuff that (to the public) looks about the same.

So for me it just comes down to my favorite quote of all time:

"The things I make may be for others, but how I make them is for me."

Roy Underhill has asked me to appear on "The Woodwright's Shop" during the show's upcoming 30th season. (Note to self: You can now stop squealing like a little girl.)

Between now and the time we tape the show sometime this summer or fall, there's lots I have to do to prepare. Shave my back, attempt to stop looking like a frightened lab animal while appearing on television and – oh yes – decide on something to talk about.

That's where you come in.

Underhill thought it would be fun to have the unwashed (yes, I can smell you from here) readers of this blog help decide on the show's topic. Underhill and I kicked around a few ideas this week. Read them through and then vote for the one you like best using the polling widget below.

I cannot guarantee that the most popular topic will win. I'm still hoping we can do something on hand skills that even the CNC jockeys need (wiping, picking, flicking).

"The Evolution (and De-evolution) of Workbenches"
I'll track the workbench form through history with the help of six cool miniature scale models of my favorite benches, starting with Egypt, moving through Rome and then Paris, with side trips to Scandinavia, England and America!

Then I'll show how civilization reached the summit of workbench design in the 18th century and was then plunged back into the abyss by the Industrial Revolution and the dreaded "Euro-Bench." Plus, details on what's so awesome about ancient workbenches and how you can modify your modern bench to make it work like an old one.

"The 1839 Tool Kit"
We'll take a trip back to explore the toolkit of young Thomas, the hero of the 1839 book "The Joiner and Cabinet Maker." We'll go over his complete tool kit – it's tiny – and show how he was able to stretch this basic kit of tools to build some impressive casework. We'll cut dados, tenons and dovetails using this simple set.

"Sawing With an English Accent"
We explore the "three classes" of sawcuts laid down by English craftsman Robert Wearing. For third-class sawcuts we'll rip wood English-style and compare it to the French and Third-world styles. We'll cut tenon cheeks using the second-class sawcut and show how the chisel is a saw's best friend. And we'll show how to saw your tenon shoulders without using a saw – the tricky first-class sawcut. Plus we'll show how the French cheat on this joint.

— Christopher Schwarz

I swore a blood oath I would never write about the "nib" on a saw – the ornamental protrusion found at the toe of some old saws. And I won't break that oath.

I will, however, attempt to amuse you with some scribbling about a saw's "nipple."

Now I'm not just using the word "nipple" to see what amusing advertisements Google will place around this blog entry. No, I would never use the word "nipple" that lightly. Instead, I will delve deeply into history and quote a 1933 children's book that discusses "the little nipple that we see on top of our saws."

Thomas Hibben gets into nipples in "The Carpenter's Tool Chest" when he discusses Japanese tools in his chapter on tools of the Renaissance (page 202, for those who want to follow along). Tools in Japan, he explains, are used on the pull stroke instead of the push.

It may well be that the little nipple that we see on top of our saws has survived from the days when saws were pulled. Such a mark would serve to catch the carpenter's eye as he pulled back on the saw so that he stopped his pull before the blade came out of the cut.

In short, stop your stroke when you see the nipple.

All puerile prose aside, I am charmed by this suggestion. Could the nib – I mean nipple – have been a visual cue to cease your return stroke and then engage the teeth of a Western saw in your cut? Dang, the little thing is in the right place to do just that. It could just be the greatest hair-brained explanation for the thing that I've heard.

Come morning, I'm going to make some cuts with my nippled saws and see if keeping a sharp eye out for the nipple really works.

— Christopher Schwarz, who is certain he will be hearing from the Human Resources department any minute now.

"A craftsman is one who understands his tools and uses them with skill and honesty. It does not matter whether his tool is a chisel or a planing machine, it is the work that he does with it that counts and you today can be as good a workman in the carpenter's craft as any who ever lived if you will learn to know your tools and to use them well."

— Thomas E. Hibben

When it comes to learning woodworking, sometimes it's nice to treat yourself like a child.

While researching old tool chests for a future project I kept stumbling over a book in people's bibliographies: "The Carpenter's Tool Chest" (J.B. Lippincott) by Thomas Hibben. On a lark, I picked up a copy last week, even though it kept showing up as a piece of non-fiction for juveniles.

The book is indeed for children. The Junior Literary Guild recommended it for boys and girls age 9 to 11 when the book came out in 1933. But as soon as I opened the book I was sucked into it and spent the weekend devouring its contents.

"The Carpenter's Tool Chest" is designed to introduce children to the world of hand work, and Hibben explains exactly what each tool is used for in simple terms. But what really hooked me was the way that Hibben explained the craft and tool development from pre-history to the early 20th century.

The book opens with a series of delightful plates that trace the history of each form of tool from its earliest known forms to the modern day. The simple hand illustrations by Hibben (his father was an artist) are obviously based on photos and illustrations from earlier works. You'll see Andre Roubo's try square in there as well as some familiar pieces that are obviously from Joseph Moxon, plus some that are taken from works of art.

And though there is no bibliography to the book that will allow you to track down all his sources, the plates are still great fun to look at. His two plates on saws show the parallel development of frame saws and our English/Dutch-style saws, and how both Eastern and Western cultures used both forms of saws. The evolution of the hammer and gouge are also particularly interesting.

After illustrating and explaining the functions of all the tools, he takes a stroll through history that starts in the Stone Age and explains the woodworking tools that were in use then. Then he walks through the Bronze Age, Iron Age, Middle Ages and Renaissance. There are hundreds of illustrations and fun facts (such as why the use of adhesives were banned by governments for a time in the Middle Ages).

Woodworking scholars will discount this book because of some of its notable errors – he calls a marking gauge a "measuring gauge," and his drawing of an eggbeater drill shows a tool that would work only in M.C. Escher's dimension. And new scholarship would poke some holes in his timeline.

But still, what a cool book. The original is beautifully printed on nice heavy stock. It's great fun to read. And it puts our craft in a historical perspective that I think a lot of us don't think much about. The history of humanity and wood are as intertwined as the kudzu that tangles the farms of the South.

Hibben himself is an interesting character (read more about him at the Bear Alley blog). Born in Indianapolis, he studied architecture and engineering and had a fascinating life overseas until he was cut down by a heart attack.

I won't say this book is a must-read tome for woodworkers, but if you stumble across a copy in a used bookstore, it's definitely worth picking up. My copy is going into the hands of my 8-year-old daughter.

— Christopher Schwarz

This blog post is long overdue.

Late last year I purchased volumes 1-60 of "The Chronicle" on DVD from the Early American Industries Association, of which I am a card-carrying member. "The Chronicle" is the association's quarterly journal, and if you love traditional tools and history, then this DVD is like a giant black hole of your free time.

All 60 volumes of "The Chronicle" are on the DVD in .pdf format (Update: Now the DVD contains volumes 1-61). They have been professionally scanned and indexed so that you can search the entire DVD by keyword to find anything your tool-grubbing heart desires.

Last night I was digging up information on traditional tool chests, their sizes, joinery and inventories for a future project of mine. After five minutes of searching on this DVD I had an overwhelming wealth of information on the topic, including details on several excellent chests that I was unaware even existed.

You can then print out the pages you want (in high resolution) and do with them what you please.

You also can search though the DVD by year, or browse through an index of articles arranged by author (hey look, it's Jay Gaynor) or by subject (seven articles on adzes). Or you can just look for the book reviews.

This DVD makes hundreds of articles available that most woodworkers would never see, including pictures and details of tools that you'll not find on the Internet. And the price is right: $25 for members of EAIA and $35 for non-members (plus $5 shipping).

The DVD works in any computer with a DVD drive and uses Acrobat Reader 8 and 9 (which are free and are also included with the DVD).

This DVD is an immense resource for woodworkers who like traditional tools. I highly recommend it. Visit the EAIA's web site for more information.

— Christopher Schwarz

Matt Vanderlist, a pioneering blogger, podcaster and advocate for the stretchy pants industry, has launched a new podcast called "The Spoken Wood" that I think deserves some space on your iPod.

Here's the idea: Take one part of the NPR program "This American Life," mix in some of the country's woodworking bloggers and make it free for everyone. Vanderlist has enlisted several woodworking bloggers, including Kari Hultman of The Village Carpenter, Tom Iovino of Tom's Workbench and me to contribute.

The bloggers or Vanderlist himself will be reading some of their best blog entries for the show, which you can download to your computer or iPod to listen to. The first short segment featured Kari Hultman reading one of her classic posts from earlier this year in which she "opens a can of Martha Stewart" onto her shop and gets organized.
 
Vanderlist says he plans to post a couple of these stories a week. It's easy to subscribe to the show via iTunes (so they will be downloaded to your computer or iPod automatically). Or you can listen to individual shows here.

These are great fun to listen to during the drive to work and might just introduce you to some new woodworking personalities. I definitely recommend you check it out. It's free and it's easy.

— Christopher Schwarz

Lots of readers have asked what the new magazine will look like when it hits the newsstands in April 2010. Art director Linda Watts has been working hard on the design, and we have been tweaking our project selection.

We think you'll be pleased.

Earlier I posted some thumbnails of some of the layouts, such as the one above, but now we're ready to take the veil off our cover project for the next issue. Download the pdf below to take a gander.

— Christopher Schwarz

Shooting the photo for the cover of a magazine is as unpredictable as my second girlfriend, Kym Harper.

Sometimes it's impossibly fast. You put the project down, take a photo of it and you're just about done. The sun comes streaming through a window. Little cherubs sprinkle shavings exactly where you want them.

Other times, I'd rather be getting a root canal without the benefit of anesthetic. It takes forever. The image fights you. It refuses to look decent.

This morning we headed out to take the cover photo of a Shaker stepback that Glen Huey built for the cover. It's a close copy of one from the White Water Shaker Village, so we decided to take the photo in one of the buildings at the village that is in the midst of being restored.

As the art director, Linda Watts, and I drove out there this morning, we wondered if this shoot was going to be a roughie or a smoothie.

The good thing was that the project looks like a million bucks, as Glen's stuff always does. The other good thing was that the rooms at White Water have lots of detail and windows – but virtually no furniture. The bad thing was that the rooms were small and that was making the photographer grumpy. The cure for a grumpy photographer is equal parts lard and sugar (usually doughnuts).

Today I forgot the doughnuts.

Despite that oversight, everything went swiftly, like when I went to see the movie "E.T." with Kym in 8th grade. The sun didn't come streaming through the window, but we solved that by placing a light outside the building on a C-stand weighed down by sandbags.

We started about 9:30 a.m. and were done by lunch. It doesn't get any better than that (not even during "E.T.").

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. I told Glen I wouldn't post this photo of him on my blog if he paid me $10. Where's my money, dude?

Every time I bend over in the shop, I feel like I'm being just a little disemboweled.

By that, I means that all the important stuff – 6" rule, pencil, tape measure, small square – goes spilling onto the floor. And I get the nastiest knot in my stomach when I see all these expensive and easily damaged items crash to the concrete floor.

This is the fault of the standard shop apron, which must have been designed by someone with fused vertebrae. (Or by, conspiracy theory ahead, someone who makes replacement 6" rules.) The chest pocket in every shop apron I've used is hazardous to your tools.

And further in the matter of Schwarz v. The Nefarious Shop Apron Industry, I present exhibit No. 2: Crappy side pockets. This is where you are supposed to put your tape measure so it will automatically leap to the floor. Or it will sometimes hop onto the top of your running table saw (very exciting!). In all fairness, Lee Valley's shop apron has a marsupial-style pocket that helps solve this problem.

Exhibit No. 3: Shop aprons generally are too long. I don't know about you, but I generally wear pants in the shop, so I don't need a floor length hospital gown. And the length can be amusingly hazardous to your forehead. Once I tried to straddle a board on some sawhorses. The end of the board caught the apron between my legs. I tipped forward, almost whacking myself in the head with the board.

Exhibit No. 4: Some shop aprons are too heavy. We tested out some shop aprons years ago that were made from a woven ballistic nylon. Honestly, the guy who sold them to us said they would deflect knockback like a bullet (or even if you were shot by an 18-gauge nail. I have no comment on that last feature).

These shop aprons were like wearing a portable sauna. You would take them off and you would have a sweat stain that was the exact shape of your body. Leather shop aprons do this to me as well. Maybe I have a gland problem.

Exhibit No. 5: Some shop aprons are too flimsy. I've worn out the seams and the material in many pockets. One shop apron had five divided pockets when I bought it. After four months the five pockets had disintegrated into a big uni-pocket, where could have lost an entire wheel of fine brie.

But I would rather light a candle than curse your darkness.

A couple years ago I started sketching up ideas for my own shop apron – something with cutouts surrounded by marabou feathers, to enhance my nipples (hey, I was just making sure you were still reading). In truth, here's what I want from a shop apron:

1. A better chest pocket. My mom was a chef at several restaurants. She had an apron that had a horizontal pencil pocket. Your pencil never ever fell out. So I'd like two or three horizontal pockets that will fit a couple pencils and a 6" rule. This sounds crazy. I've seen it work (unless you do "jazz hands" and "Riverdance" while you work).

2. Side pockets with just a little elastic at the top. I'd like to line the pockets so they bunch up just a bit at the top. It's a balance – you want the elastic to keep the tools in and the chips out, but you also want your hand to have easy access.

3. I'd like the shop apron to end right below my waist. I like the kind from Duluth where the straps wrap around your shoulders (not your neck) and tie behind you. However that apron (which I don't think is made anymore) almost sweeps the floor in our shop.

4. A tough but lightweight and breathable material would be great.

5. Reinforced seams. Grommets for the straps.

I know I'm asking a lot. In truth, an apron with the first two features would probably make me squeal with nutty delight.

So if you can sew (or know someone who can) feel free to incorporate some of these ideas into your own apron. Your 6" rule will thank you.

— Christopher Schwarz

Today most of the magazine's staff spent the day with Ron Herman, a seventh-generation housewright in Columbus, Ohio, who has spent the last 29 years building, remodeling and restoring homes and historic sites – in many cases using only traditional tools.

His small shop north of the city is one of the wonders of the Western world. Amongst the machinery (much of it converted from a line-shaft system) are more hand tools than your eye can possibly take in. If this were a tool collection, it would be stupendous. The fact that Herman sets up all these tools and uses them is mind-blowing.

Herman spoke on handsaws at out last Woodworking in America Conference. But he knows about a lot more than saws.

I'm still trying to process all my notes and photos for a future article. Herman can talk. And his shop is a feast for the camera. In the meantime, I've pulled out a few good quotes from my notebook and some of the photos I took during our visit.

"You have to have good mojo. You don't screw widders and orphans for tools. Some guys will come in here and say, 'I got this saw for $1 and it's worth $500.' I tell them to get it out of here. It's bad mojo. That saw won't cut straight or hold an edge. I believe in that stuff. Bad mojo will follow you around."

"Tools all have life left in them if they fit your hand. Strip the handle. Salvage the parts. Whatever you do, don't s*&tcan a tool."

"We don't own these. We are their stewards for the next generation. We keep them and prepare them for the next generation."

"The more tools you have the more problems you can solve."

"I drive tool collectors nuts. They bring me something mint in the box and I give them the box back. I have no problems using a tool from the 1700s. I say to (the tool), 'How does that feel to have wood in your mouth again?' "

"The earth's gravity is a constant. I haven't seen it change. It doesn't run out of batteries. You can't kick it down a hill by accident. It's doesn't lie. It can't."

— 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

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

Congratulations to Randy Klein and his family for their portrayal of Norm Abram at all phases of his life, from a small mischievous boy up to a full-grown bearded woman (just kidding about that, Mr. Abram).

The Kleins won via universal acclaim for several reasons: Convincing an entire family to do something this crazy, and the looks on the kids' faces. We suspect the kids are all up to no good and we're glad to see safety glass on the whole lot.

The Kleins win a "New Yankee Workshop" coffee mug that is autographed by Norm Abram himself. Abram signed the mug for Publisher Steve Shanesy. Randy Klein has three choices: keep the mug as-is, rub off Steve's name or Randy can change his name to "Steve." We're also going to throw in a two-year subscription to either Popular Woodworking or Woodworking Magazine – just because we can.

We've posted some of our other favorites in a Flickr slideshow, which you can view here. Below are some of our favorite runners-up:

OK, we're suckers for kids dressed like Norm.

Three generations of Norm! Excellent.

This footwear isn't so good for the shop – no steel toes.

— Christopher Schwarz

In honor of "International Dress Like Norm Day" (the official celebration begins tomorrow), a fair number of us dressed like our favorite television woodworker.

Because of the short notice, neither Megan Fitzpatrick nor Bob Lang had time to grow proper beards. But they are bearded on the inside, I promise you.

Don't forget to send in a photo of yourself dressed like Norm Abram and send it to me by midnight Monday, Nov. 2, at chris.schwarz@fwmedia.com. The person who sends in the best photo (as determined by our staff), will win a great prize. What's the prize? We're still working on that.

— Christopher Schwarz

We were all bummed about news last week that "The New Yankee Workshop" was ceasing production. And, in case you've forgotten, this Saturday is Halloween.

I think you see where this is going.

By the power vested in me by the Radio Shack Battery Club, I declare Saturday to be "International Dress Like Norm Day." This is the time to break out your flannel shirts, your tool belt, your safety glasses, your fake beard.

In honor of Norm Abram, we're asking all his fans to dress like the man, take a photo of yourself in costume and send it to me by midnight Monday, Nov. 2, at chris.schwarz@fwmedia.com. The person who sends in the best photo (as determined by our staff), will win a great prize. What is the prize, you ask? Well, it's one of two things. We have to dig through our archives to see if we still have them. But rest assured that if you like "The New Yankee Workshop" then you are going to want this prize.

Visit this blog later this week for more details on this point.

I'm encouraging/ordering the entire staff of the magazine to observe this important date (we're celebrating IDLND on Friday). However, some of us who shall remain nameless, are going to have to go shopping for flannel and safety glasses.

— Christopher Schwarz

When woodworking magazines publish plans for a reproduction of an antique, we show you the details you need to construct a facsimile. We give you part sizes, joinery details and tips on how to perform the major operations in a modern shop.

But rarely do we give you the social, communal and historical context of a piece. We never try to investigate the original maker's intentions, or discuss his or her relationship to the neighbors, family or village.

So as a woodworker, it was both alarming and thrilling to read Robert Tarule's 2004 book, "The Artisan of Ipswich" (The Johns Hopkins University Press). This slim volume tries to capture the essence of everything important to 17th-century joiner Thomas Dennis as he built a chest for a client one November in his shop.

In this remarkable book, Tarule, a professional joiner, historian and former curator at Plimoth Plantation, takes a bird's eye view of one example of Dennis's work – a 47"-long lift-lid chest in oak with beautiful low-relief carvings. He begins the book with a bit of personal history to explain what led him down the curious path to reproducing 17th-century pieces for a living.

With his bona-fides established, Tarule begins to spin the tale of Ipswich, Mass., from its first mention in the historical texts to the time that Thomas Dennis settled there from England. Tarule's insights into Colonial Massachusetts are surprising (if you had a particularly sanitized view of Colonial history from school, as I seem to).

What you quickly realize is that one of the most important things in 17th-century America was access to wood – for fuel, tanning, fences, construction, cooperage, wheewrighting and joinery. In fact, wood turns out to be a sort of currency among the artisans. And the right to cut wood was the source of lawsuits, fines and revenge.

And so Tarule delves deeply into the topic of wood (oak, in particular). He contrasts how it grew and was managed in the coppices in England with its forms in the New World. And then he weaves the dendrology into the fabric of Ipswich society, explaining all the town's economic needs in terms of the wood.

As a joiner, Dennis needed particular kinds of wood for his work. So Tarule takes us into Dennis's head as he searches the forest for the trees he needs, and he and a helper split the wood and as he prepares it for the chest (now in the hands of the Ipswich Historical Society).

Tarule obviously spent many hours studying this chest to try to tease out Dennis's intentions. He uses every dimension, every knot and every stray tool mark to suss out how this chest was built and the mental processes Dennis employed to design the chest and organize the material to build it.

Because Tarule himself works this way (see his work at his Heart of the Wood web site), you can see that Tarule has faced the same decisions as he rived out the panels he needed for his own chests. And so the voice that Tarule gives to Dennis rings entirely true to me.

For the skilled woodworker, this book won't teach you anything about how to cut a tenon or a mortise, but it will show you how to change your methods to match the goals of a 17th-century joiner. The book won't give you precise part sizes that you can plug into your rip fence on your table saw, but it will show you how to use your material at hand to make adjustments as you go, and to sort out what is important and what is not.

But most of all, "The Artisan of Ipswich" will give you a deep appreciation for the work of 17th-century joiners and to see their pieces in a new light.

— Christopher Schwarz

If you liked the video of me walking up a wall, you might enjoy this alternative treatment sent in by a reader who we like to call "Cheeseburger, No Meat."

If you are offended by references to my bum, or to masked avengers, then please do not click on the video.

— Christopher Schwarz

If you haven't seen it, Managing Editor Megan Fitzpatrick is on the cover of the November 2009 issue of Popular Woodworking with her new laminated veneer lumber (LVL) bench. When I proposed this cover, some of the people in our circulation department were sure I had been drinking lacquer thinner.

You don't put women on the cover of a woodworking magazine, they said. You need a bearded, 55-year-old guy with a $7 haircut and Milwaukee's Best beer gut.

Despite the objections, I argued that it was Megan's bench, the bench was the cover story and so it was Megan who was going on the cover.

We sent that issue to the printer and a couple weeks later, we received the October 2009 issue of Woodworker's Journal.

With a woman on the cover. And a plywood project.

Megan's response: "Aw crap, they beat us to the punch."

"Nope," I countered. "It doesn't count. She's not depicted as the woodworker. She is the 'fantasy spouse' who is merely enjoying the project."

Then today my copy of British Woodworking showed up. Here it is:

This PG-13 sculpture is made from Baltic birch plywood by Peter Rolfe. OK you randy Brits. When it comes to putting a woman and plywood on the cover, you win this round.

In my book, there is one rule for buying vintage tools: Buy them from someone who will take them them back if the tool stinks.

That rule keeps me on my toes on eBay, at auctions, flea markets and at garage sales. If I can't completely inspect, disassemble and use a tool before I buy it, I really want a money-back guarantee.

How can you tell in the store if a chisel is too soft to hold a good edge? How can you tell if all the moving parts of a plane and its sole will work together to do good work?

There are lots of really good sellers on the Internet who will take your money back, so don't be afraid to ask about it. Here are my three favorites in the United States:

Brass City Records and Tools: Walt Quadrato runs a Connecticut storefront that sells records and tools. He manages to find tremendous tools as he haunts the markets of New England in the wee hours of the morning. And because he's a woodworker, he knows what makes a tool a user and what makes a tool a plane-shaped doorstop.

Walt also is a prince of a guy and isn't out to make a fast buck. I bought a Stanley Everlasting chisel from him years ago and have become a regular customer. If I ever need a tool, I just call Walt and ask if he's got it. He usually does.

And if you have a scraper plane problem, then you already know Walt. He's in the support group you attend every week.

SYDNAS SLOOT (aka Sanford Moss): Don't let the unusual name fool you (it's actually "Sandys Tools" spelled backward). Sanford sells tools part time, but he always digs up good users at fair prices, and he turns up some occasional collectible gems.

His site is also the single-best source of information on braces on the Internet. Sanford always ships things fast and is just great to deal with.

Olde River Hard Goods: If you like the really old stuff, you need to get to know Tony Seo. He digs up cool stuff (his passion seems to be the 18th-century stuff). And unless it's a real collectible, Tony will restore the tools he finds back to usable condition (removing surface rust, tightening hammer handles and the like). Most of the stuff he sells is on eBay as a "Buy It Now" option.

Let's just say that Tony was very happy to help me out with my hammer problem. And when I needed a real old-school holdfast to examine and use, Tony was the man.

As I said, there are lots of other great sellers on the Internet. This is by no means a comprehensive list – but these are the three guys who get most of my vintage tool dollars.

I never got to meet James Krenov, and so last week I hesitated to write anything about his death. But as I drove home on Friday afternoon I forgot to turn on the stereo in my car, and my mind drifted to a long weekend in 2006 when I was sure I knew the man.

That February we had hosted a meeting of many of the makers of modern hand tools, from Veritas to Wayne Anderson to Robert Baker to Bridge City to Lie-Nielsen Toolworks (you can read about it in the August 2006 issue of Popular Woodworking). Blademaker Ron Hock attended – he was one of the pioneers of the recent renaissance of toolmaking – and he brought along a plane that Krenov had made for him.

Krenov's plane was an interesting contrast to the astounding feats of brass, bronze and steel that these toolmakers had brought along with them. Krenov's plane was made from an exotic wood, but that was the most exotic thing about it.

It was band sawn to shape – and from the looks of the toolmarks it was done quickly and accurately. The final shape of the tool's wooden body looked like it was created by a knife, with clean facets on the corners. It was comforting to hold.

Hock left the plane with me for a couple weeks to test-drive it, and that is where the real surprises began. I expected the plane to work well, of course. A sharp, well-bedded blade in a 2x4 can sing. But I was amused to find out how Krenov had tuned the tool.

The chipbreaker was made from some cast-off piece of metal that was painted red I think and was ground by hand and a little rough. The bed of the plane was shimmed with blue painter's tape to close up the mouth. The blade was a Hock (naturally), and Krenov had written an "H" on the plane's wedge in what I assume was a black Sharpie marker – "H" for "Hock" perhaps?

In any case, the plane worked brilliantly, as well as any of the exotic infills or high-end production planes I've ever used. I used the tool on some of the nasty boards that I keep lying around. These boards aren't for building stuff – I try never to build stuff with nasty interlocked grain – but for testing the limits of tools. Krenov's plane handled the wood with aplomb. And at that moment I felt I'd had a nice conversation with the man who wrote "A Cabinetmaker's Notebook."

I was a bit sad to send the tool back to Ron, and I planned to purchase one of Krenov's planes – planemaking was one of the things that sustained his spirit when his eyesight failed. But I never got around to contacting him. So chalk up another regret.

What I am left with, however, are his delightful books. Like many woodworkers, I was captivated by the ideas inside them. And as a writer, I was struck by his prose. Here was a guy writing woodworking books that contained little in the way of how-to information, the stock-in-trade of people like me. Instead he explored his long relationship with the material and the tools he used to shape it to his liking.

Few woodworking writers have ever managed to capture, bottle and distribute that impossibly compelling but difficult-to-explain relationship that all artisans have with their raw material. That was James Krenov's gift to us all.

So I'd like to end this entry with my favorite quote from James Krenov, from page 93 his book "With Wakened Hands."

“The understanding eye sees the maker's fingerprints. They are evident in every detail … Leave Fingerprints.”

Look carefully, and I think you'll see Krenov's fingerprints almost everywhere on our craft.

— Christopher Schwarz

In the history of measuring equipment, there is one blunder so awful that it makes me twitter (old-school twitter) like a smack-addled squirrel every time I encounter it.

It's a 6" steel rule that I acquired in 1997. The numbers are engraved and filled in. The markings are nice and fine. And there are four scales: eighths, sixteenths, thirty-seconds and sixty-fourths.

What's not to like?

Well, the rule doesn't start on zero. Nor does it end at 6". The rule is actually 6-3/4" long and has about 3/8" of blank steel at both the end and the beginning. To add insult to idiocy, it actually looks like the first mark starts at 1/8" because the 1/8" is actually printed under what is supposed to be zero.

Who would commit such a crime against the legacy of Pharaoh Djoser?

We would, actually. When I started work here in 1996 we owned a magazine called Woodworker, which we were closing down. As the powers that be were trying to save the struggling magazine, they came up with all manner of ideas to get more subscribers.

One of their great ideas was to give away a 6" rule as a reward for subscribing. And this is what the marketing department came up with. Is it any wonder that the magazine folded?

After Woodworker closed, we had hundreds of these rules in the warehouse and tried to pawn them off on the unsuspecting public every year when we had a warehouse sale to get rid of damaged, overstocked or returned books. In 1996 we sold the rules for $1 each. The next year, they were 50 cents. Then they were "free with purchase."

And we still had some left when we closed our warehouse years later.

Why post this grievous error? Two reasons: To let you know that even though magazine editors act like a bunch of know-it-alls, we can get whacked by the idiot stick at times. Also, as a way of making amends, to offer you your money back (50 cents) to anyone who acquired one of these rules and wants to be done with it. Drop me a line if you have one of these in your drawer.

— Christopher Schwarz

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My wife, Lucy, is fearful that her four cats are going to get trapped inside the walls of our house. And it's my job, as a woodworker, to prevent this from happening.

Before you think I should have her committed to the Cat Rancher Institute for Disturbed Females, let me explain.

Right after graduating college, the plumbing in our apartment bathroom melted down. So we went to work "French style" (rustically unshaven and unbathed) while the plumber took apart our pipes.

When I returned home, the plumbing was fixed, but our tabby had disappeared. I looked outside. No cat. After calling for her I could hear her meowing, but she was nowhere to be found. Eventually I unscrewed the plumbing access door next to the shower and found the tabby amongst the pipes – she had sneaked in while the plumber was working.

Years passed. My wife's nightmares about the incident faded. We bought an old house. After a couple years the drain in the upstairs bathroom disintegrated, so when my oldest daughter took a bath it started raining in the dining room.

To fix the problem, the plumber had to cut an access hole to get to the pipes. When he left, the daily rainfall had stopped in the dining room, but there was an 8" square hole in the bathroom wall.

This time two cats disappeared. I think one made a nest in there. My wife stopped cutting the pills in half.

We rescued the cats and taped up the hole. I vowed to make an access door that matched the bathroom's décor. After all, it would take just a few hours to build with my woodworking skills.

That was 11 years ago. And I have yet to begin the project.

Why do I hate home improvement projects? After all, I'm going to use the same tools. Plus wood, glue and finish. What's not to like?

During a focus group years ago, one woodworker explained it so perfectly that it has stuck with me to this day.

It's like oats, he said. "I hate oatmeal," he explained. "And I have to eat it every day for my health. But I love oatmeal cookies."

This morning I took pity on my poor spouse, measured the dang hole and made a SketchUp drawing of the door. I have just enough cherry left over from my last project to make this access panel.

I guess I like the smell of oatmeal better than I like the smell of rotting cat carcasses trapped in the walls. But it's a bit of a tossup.

— Christopher Schwarz  

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I was worried this would happen. Some of the entrants to our contest to build a tool from an Altoids tin built tools that actually worked. Sigh. Woodworkers are so practical.

We're also practical. And so the winner of our contest is Tom Bier, who built a working router plane from an Altoids tin. The tool is impossibly clever – you open the lid to store the iron and thumbscrew. Heck I'd buy one.

Here's Tom's account of the construction of the tool:

"I never would have come up with this if I didn't have a box on my desk with one of Lee Valley's small router plane blades in it. I was just going to punch a couple holes in the tin and ziptie the blade in place, but then I realized it wouldn't take much to make it functional.

"There's a small piece of brass to hold the blade and a piece of mdf to support the can.  And since I'm not going to tear off the lid, and the mdf is big enough I thought I might as well cut out notches for the blade and setscrew and have a self-contained router, right?  The brass and mdf are epoxied into the can so it's pretty solid. The wood shavings in the last photo were cut with this actual router plane."

Tom wins the unbound printer proofs to my new book “Handplane Essentials." When he sells them on eBay, likely he will be able to send his kids to college with the proceeds (it should cover about four minutes of tuition).

There were some other great entries that we'd like to show you. Take a look:

Ethan Sincox made this sliding bevel gauge, which won our hearts as the best-looking tool of the bunch. Heck I've seen bevel gauges that were made out of flimsier raw materials.

Roger Savatteri built this working drilling jig for making perfectly plumb holes. The bushing is held in place with a resin infill. And the resin is etched with alignment lines so you can position the thing on your work.

Steve Spear sent us several "tools" he made – but the best one by far was the always-dead-on digital bevel reader.

Kevin Hurbanis also sent us a photo of a working tool: This is a working offset gauge for scribing lines parallel to an edge. Pretty clever.

Rob Hanson of Evenfall Studios makes shooting boards for sale, so he naturally built a shooting board using one of the really big Altoids tins. Yes, that's a honking piece of ebony on there.

Kevin Bosse built a light-duty woodworking vise. Sweet!

Chris Bowyer built this handsome marking gauge.  Fill this box with resin or MDF and I bet it would work, too.

And James Quinlivan sent us this one, which I have titled, simply: "Screw Bad Breath."

Thanks to everyone who entered!

— Christopher Schwarz

One of the coolest woodworking things I’ve seen is where a guy named Mike Burton made some awesome scrapers for cleaning up crown moulding using – ready? – table spoons.

A second cool thing: John Sindelar’s tool collection, which is worth more than the GNP of several Latin American countries. Burton, a professional woodworker, and Sindelar, a farmer and cabinetmaker, have simply let their freak flags fly.

I never thought, “Man, that Mike Burton is one cheap chicken-scratcher.” Nor did I think, “John Sindelar is one rich yuppie fool.”

I’ve never understood those extremes, which is why I love my $9 Zona saw and my $900 Wayne Anderson smoother and use them both on almost every project.

Recently we’ve been having some fun on this blog on this topic. Sawmaker Andrew Lunn is removing some of the decorative details from his saws to lower the price. As a joke, I made a saw from an Altoids tin and posted photos of it saying it was the new cheaper Lunn saw.

Some people were not amused.

However, Matt Hodgson, a custom planemaker with Gabardi & Son Toolworks, was. He got into the spirit of things and made a bullnose plane from an Altoids tin. I was drinking some coffee when I opened his e-mail and almost scorched my nostril hairs with hot Italian roast.

For the record, Matt makes *much* nicer infill planes. I’ve borrowed one for a couple months to review. Check out his web site for details.

After seeing his “plane,” it gave me an idea. A perfectly stupid and dumb idea. Let’s have a toolmaking contest with Altoids tins! Yes, I used an exclamation mark, so you know that I’ve consumed a beer (a rye-based IPA, actually).

Here are the official rules: This contest is not valid for the terminally closed-minded or uptight. Make a “tool” using an Altoids tin. Take a photo of it. Send it to me (chris.schwarz@fwmedia.com) before midnight July 31, 2009.

The winner will receive a one-of-a-kind prize: The unbound printer proofs to my new book “Handplane Essentials.” I’ll sign them in a bodily fluid if you like. Wipe them with Woobie II, whatever you want to ensure the package is worth more when you sell the proofs on eBay.

This is a readable book! By that, I mean you can actually turn the pages! There’s a hardbound cover and the printed signatures of the complete book. They’re just not all glued together. It’s a great conversation piece, and suitable for burning by any of the local chapters of Wives Against Schwarz.

So save that next Altoids tin (or ask Managing Editor Megan Fitzpatrick for one of her eleventy-billion ones). Make a tool. And amuse the rest of us.

— Christopher Schwarz

When I was in Charleston, S.C., last week one of the tour guides said something about cabinetmaker Thomas Elfe that stuck with me.

"Most of his work is buried in the ground."

One of the primary jobs of early joiners and cabinetmakers was building coffins, and these projects have always fascinated me. Frank Klausz built plenty of coffins in his native Hungary. Chinese woodworkers make coffins out of one single log, like a dugout canoe. And they're illegal.

And one of our former illustrators, John McCormick, tried to go into business selling inexpensive pine coffins that functioned as bookshelves up until the time you needed them for your earthly remains.

And today the New York Times published an interesting story about the rise of home funerals and featured the work of a Maine woodworker who builds coffins that double as almost Ikea-like bookshelves. (Honestly, the bookshelves built by our illustrator years ago were uber-creepy. "Yes, I decorated this room in the Early Elvira Style.")

As I get older, however, the idea of building my own coffin appeals to me. I couldn't imagine paying $6,000 for a commercially-made highboy while I'm alive, so why should I ask my family to shell out those big bucks for a coffin after I'm gone?

Of course, I know what my wife will say.

"You'll never have it done in time."

— Christopher Schwarz

“Charlestonians thought of themselves as Englishmen who happened to be living in America, and naturally did everything possible to emulate the life of London society.”

Thomas Elfe (1719-1775) was likely the most successful cabinetmaker in colonial Charlestown. One estimate put his personal worth at more than 6,200 English pounds, a sizable fortune for a woodworker.

His shop on King Street in Charleston produced thousands of pieces for the well-monied classes of this wealthy city. A contemporary of Thomas Chippendale (1718-1779), Elfe’s work was heavily influenced by Chippendale’s “The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director,” though the pieces I’ve seen of Elfe’s work also show distinct Southern American touches.

Since I started visiting Charleston in 1993, I’ve read a lot about Elfe, seen his work in museums and read “Thomas Elfe Cabinetmaker.” But I’ve never visited his house on Queen Street, a circa 1760 Georgian house which is open for tours only two hours per day on Monday through Friday. My schedule and the house’s schedule have just never matched up.

Today I finally got to take a tour while I sent the rest of my family to the city market to buy T-shirts and llama-shaped key chains. The reason the house has such unusual hours is because it’s still the residence of Bill Ward, who owns the house and runs the tour.

The house is unusual because it sits about 30 feet off Queen Street, an unusually deep setback. Ward explained that the person who bought the house in 1968 when it was in a derelict state jacked it up and moved it back from the edge of Queen.

Other than that unusual point, the house is remarkably well-preserved. The four original rooms of the house are completely outfitted with the original cypress woodwork and nine-over-nine windows. To add to the Colonial effect, Ward turns off all the modern lighting (which I didn’t see much evidence of) and lights candles and relies on the natural light filtering in from the street during the tour. This enhances the tour, but makes interior photos impossible (I refuse to use flashes, sorry, but you can see photos here).

Ward has outfitted the house with original American, English and European antiques from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, including a modern reproduction of one of Elfe’s stacking chests made by a cabinetmaker at Colonial Williamsburg.

While Ward patiently answered the occasionally inane questions from the rest of the tourists (“What do you mean, it’s ‘Chippendale?’ ”), I took the opportunity to examine the woodwork throughout carefully. All four rooms of the house have fireplaces that are surrounded by beautiful cypress frame-and-panel mantles with extensive built-ins.

All the house's remaining doors are original with beautiful hardware and bold fields on the door’s panels. The rooms also feature wainscoting below a chair rail – all in all it’s a joiner’s paradise. Ward said that this wasn’t Elfe’s final house; a later house burned down.

What I also really like about these house tours is that you can get a bit of history that has been unfiltered by Disney or some modern interpreter. Elfe quite fits the American ideal of an entrepreneur. He was trained in England and came to the Colonies to seek his fortune. But he was a Tory, loyal to the crown, and owned a good number of slaves. Ward says that Elfe owned 10 slaves that worked in his shops and another 50 that worked at a farm that Elfe owned.

After the Revolution began, Elfe was deceased, but he had passed his tools and possessions to his son Thomas Elfe Jr., also a cabinet maker and carpenter. His family was punished by the new government, exiled from Charleston for a time and the estate heavily taxed.

Today I think that Elfe’s work is sorely underappreciated. Search the Internet a bit and I think you’ll agree that pieces from his shop are at the top of the heap. And there is lots of research ahead. One of his account books survives, which has been an invaluable source of data for scholars. But appreciation for Elfe himself isn’t on the scale it should be.

Witness the comments Ward made as we were wrapping up the tour. We were standing in his reproduction kitchen, which cleverly conceals the appliances, when I asked him if he knew this was Thomas Elfe’s house when he and his wife purchased it.

“No, not really,” he said. “My wife was from Charleston and we were looking for an appropriate period house to buy to house our antiques. We didn’t know who Thomas Elfe was.”

— Christopher Schwarz

A view of the modern back porch and kitchen. The original kitchen burned.

Last week Andrew Lunn of Eccentric Toolworks announced he was going to remove some of the decorative details on his saws and pass the savings onto his customers.

This week we got our first look at what the new saws will look like. Though Lunn has suffered some brutal (and unwarranted) criticism for his prices, I think it will be quieted by these new saws.

Shown is the new dovetail saw, which features a super-thin .010" sawplate with hand-filed fine teeth and a folded steel back that is 3/8" wide. The handle is turned rock maple.

Instead of hand-etching the blade, Lunn has developed a new process, which produces extremely crisp work, as you can see from the photo below.

How does it cut? Brilliantly, as you can tell by the dovetails shown in the photo. Contact Lunn for pricing, but do realize that customers are requested to supply their own Altoids tin and file handle.

— Christopher Schwarz

I need to correct a grave error.

In January I published a list of my favorite woodworking writers, but I neglected to include my all-time dearest – probably because her work should be shipped in a plain brown wrapper.

If you are Canadian, then you can probably guess who I am talking about: Mag Ruffman. She was the host of the "Anything I Can Do" show in Canada that featured wistful, gauzy shots of Ruffman driving through the country, taunting the viewer with ribald puns and sawing through boards in a romantic barn while working behind a Veritas workbench.

Oh, and she also played Olivia Dale in "Road to Avonlea," which ran for seven seasons on television.

Though some might say that technically Ruffman is a home-improvement writer, I say to that: But her writing is so titillating. Recently I read a selection of her book "How Hard Can it Be?" out loud in the office, which is why I'm now scheduled for some sensitivity training with our human resources department.

That book is truly one of the funniest books I own. It might be the only home-improvement/woodworking book with a nude bath scene (and thank goodness, really. I'm not sure we're ready as a society to see Norm Abram buck naked. Well, I know I'm not).

Here's a quick G-rated excerpt about building rustic furniture from her book.

You can start creating your own romantic idyll with a few twigs and 2 x 4s. In fact, this is a great project for those new to woodworking because it's "rustic," meaning that even if your results fall somewhere between monstrous and butt ugly, you still rock.

If people criticize your garden screen, laugh mockingly, and say, "It's rustic, man. It's a choice." Then try limping a little when you walk away, so they realize that things haven't always been this easy for you.

Ruffman's work on Canadian television actually was our inspiration behind our "I Can Do That" column in Popular Woodworking, which features projects you can build with hand-held tools and no workshop. And in fact, I put Ruffman on the cover of Popular Woodworking in February 2002.

She built us a potty cabinet (that matches her mouth…), and it is the single most entertaining story we have published in the magazine since I started work here in 1996. Reader response was tremendous. I received letters from readers who said they read the thing out loud to their entire family multiple times. I've tried to get Ruffman back in our pages a couple times, but our schedules haven't worked out.

So Mag, if you're out there and want some work, if your poutine funds are running low, drop me a line.

In the meantime, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of "How Hard Can it Be?" from a bookseller and check out her ToolGirl.com blog, which features some of her older projects and details on what she's building, fixing or writing about these days.

— Christopher Schwarz

Instead of calling myself a woodworker, I am now considering the title "outsider artist."

Now before you stop reading this entry and resume watching videos of funny monkeys, hear me out for a bit. Whenever I'm at a dinner party with strangers and they find out I'm a woodworker, there is usually one of two reactions.

1. They ask if I could please come over to their house this weekend to build them a new closet, kitchen island, deck or addition to their home.

2. They ask if I enjoy my job at the mall scrollsawing letters all day to make plaques for kids' rooms.

I have tried to explain how I design and build furniture, but I might as well be telling them that I make scented candles from reclaimed earwax. They don't understand why anyone would make something (furniture) that is so cheaply available from Ikea.

But on Thursday, I had a revelation.

That's when our family took a quick trip to New York City and paid a visit to the American Folk Art Museum. Ever since Lucy and I visited Howard Finster's Paradise Gardens in 1990, we've filled our house (and basement and attic) with this sort of stuff. The academics call it "outsider art," and the typical outsider artist is:

1. Completely self-taught
2. Driven by an unchecked passion to make things (Finster made 46,000 pieces in his lifetime)
3. Sometimes reluctant to sell his or her work
4. A little bit nuts

While I was wandering around the American Folk Art Museum, I began to get a very weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. In the museum's "Folk Art Revealed" exhibit, which runs through Oct. 18, one wall features a number of typical Shaker oval boxes. Two steps away, there is a small chest that is obviously a product of Pennsylvania's German community that features a couple painted figures on horses.

Then you turn around and there is a chest of drawers that is grain painted to look like it is made out of mahogany. To your right is a stepback cupboard filled with homemade pottery.

Downstairs is an exhibit devoted to Ulysses Davis, a Georgia barber who liked to carve things and then display his works in his shop. He produced an entire collection of carved busts of the presidents. It's nice work.

It's then that I realized that most of us qualify as outsider artists. We're self-taught, driven to make things from wood for ourselves and, yes, a little bit cracked for doing so.

So stop bathing, let your hair grow long and get yourself a beard (or grow out that armpit hair). Speak in circular riddles.

No one will ever ask you to build them a deck again.

— Christopher Schwarz

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I'm just about ready to assemble a drawer, so my daughter Katy lays down her saw and heads to the pickle bucket below the drill press. She dumps the cool water down the drain outside the shop door and refills the bucket with hot.

She drops the liquid hide glue bottle into the bucket then comes over to the bench, where I'm paring out the last little bit of the floor of my half-blind dovetails. I'm using a fishtail chisel, which she's never seen before, so Katy asks if she can give it a try. I show her how I hold the tool to wiggle it into the acute corners, then I put the tool in her hands.

After a couple shavings we knock the drawer side into the dovetail sockets. It fits fine, so Katy shakes the glue bottle and fetches the deadblow mallet. I hold the drawer front and Katy paints the sockets with hide glue using an artist's paintbrush I've owned since college.

I show her how I drive the joint together with a block of wood by spreading out the blows all along the joint line. Two taps. Move the mallet. After the first joint is home, Katy takes over gluing and assembly. We put the assembled drawer on the table saw and check it for square. We press the corners of the assembly against the rip fence until the box is square.

Then Katy goes back to the small bench I've rigged up for her and lines up the two handplanes on the end of the bench. She asks when she can start cleaning up the shop.

It's at that moment that I realize I'm living in a book. It feels a bit like the time I visited Graceland and descended the stairwell to Elvis's basement. Both walls are completely mirrored and the thousand reflections of your every move are both familiar and disorienting.

A New Book Project
Since January, I've been working on my next book project during nights and weekends. Joel Moskowitz (of Tools for Working Wood) and I are expanding a curious book that was first published in 1839. It is one of a series of short hardbacks written to introduce young people to the basic knowledge needed for a trade, such as baking, coopering, printing or joinery.

What’s amazing about this particular little book is that it is an engaging work of fiction that tells the tale of young Thomas, a lad who is apprenticed to a joiner's shop in a rural English town. Thomas begins his apprenticeship by sweeping the shop, managing the hide glue pots and observing the journeymen.

Then, thanks to a plot twist, Thomas is tasked to build a rough box for a customer who is leaving on a journey that same day. The book follows Thomas every step of the way, from stock selection through construction and finally to delivery, when Thomas brings along an envelope of cut nails for the customer so he can secure the lid shut before his trip.

Thomas goes on to build a schoolbox (which will be in the Autumn 2009 issue of Woodworking Magazine) and finally a large chest of drawers, all the while picking up different joinery skills and the right attitude to become a competent and trusted journeyman.

It's an idyllic tale, and likely a bit sugar-coated compared to the reality of an apprentice's life in early 19th-century England. But that detail aside, the book is extraordinary. Not only is it fun to read, but if you build the three projects shown in its pages, you will get an excellent course in working wood with hand tools.

And so with Katy's help, I have been constructing these three projects by following the instructions in the book. And though I haven't told Katy much about the story, she is naturally falling into the role of young Thomas.

She has been working alongside me through most of the chest of drawers. When I don't need her help, she's off doing her own thing – trying out the different saws, messing with the planes and asking me questions. Such as this one she asked on father's day:

"Dad, when I grow up, do you think I'll be a woodworker?"

Well Katy, I think you already are.

— Christopher Schwarz

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"The two great truths in the world are the Bible and Grecian architecture."
— Nicholas Biddle (1786 – 1844), president of the Second Bank of the United States

Among some historians of furniture and architecture there is a line in the sand where everything built before 1830 was great and everything built after that was on the downhill slide to McMansions filled with Value City pressboard termite-barf.

Jonathan Hale, the author of "The Old Way of Seeing" (one of my favorite books), explores this idea in a thoughtful way. Before 1830, carpenters and woodworkers viewed geometry as a world of secrets that teaches us to "trace the chain" of truths. After 1830, geometry became a set of rigid rules that a builder should follow to produce a design that was correct.

In Hale's view, the early builder chose harmony over symmetry. The modern builder reversed that relationship.

What happened in 1830? That's when the Greek Revival style of architecture swept the nation – this country's first national building style. Suddenly, new buildings (even humble ones) had Greek porticos with massive columns. Architecture had become a performance, according to Hale.

American society was also going through enormous changes. Clothing was becoming more prudish, as were attitudes toward sex and alcohol. Though America was still rural, the country was beginning to become urban and industrialized.

The same changes applied to furniture, according to Wallace Nutting, the author of the three-volume "Furniture Treasury." He challenged anyone to show him a piece of well-designed furniture built after 1840. For any piece of furniture since then, Nutting said he could produce one that was both better and older.

"Is it likely that anyone can think of anything new and good?" Nutting wrote. "It may be new, but it looks as if born in the infernal regions to plague the glimpses of the moon. Nobody in a hundred years has brought forth anything new except monstrosities, or at least inelegancies, weak shapes, or mongrels.”

Here at Woodworking Magazine, we have been investigating this tumultuous time in the history of furniture, architecture and society. And though you're probably reading this and thinking "What does this have to do with me and my workshop?" I hope you will bear with us.

— Christopher Schwarz

Illustration at top: A stand 1690-1720 from "Furniture Treasury"