Norwegian forest workers wondering where all the stick chairs are. All the factors should be in place. Trees? Check. More than 2,000 years of well-documented woodworking and other crafting traditions? Check. A large countryside with huge distances and scattered, isolated villages? Check. A long and proud history of self-sufficiency and homesteading? Check and check. So …
Making dividers – hundreds and hundreds of them – has been our obsession most of this year. As a result, we at Crucible Tool have been burning through sanding belts. We have become quite good at precision reaming (stop snickering, or we’ll give you a taste of it). And we have become connoisseurs of legs …
Publisher’s note: Ever since being charmed by “Woodworking in Estonia,” I’ve been curious about how and why it was first translated into English in 1969. Fellow woodworkers have shared strange theories about the translation with me that involve the U.S. State Department, the Israeli government and covert Cold War cash. After my years as a …
The Twisting Translation Tale of ‘Woodworking in Estonia’ Part 1 – Read More »
A wedged through-tenon after the gelled glue has been removed. In 2018, I shared this trick that David Savage used to improve dovetail joints. He called it “Juicy Lucy,” and it involves flooding the exterior of a joint with extra hide glue to swell the fibers and improve the joint cosmetically. We continue to use …
Both items are gone. Sorry. With only two weeks until we move above the storefront, we are both excited and desperate to unload stuff that will simply not fit into our small apartment upstairs. We have given a lot of stuff away to charity and family. Some stuff – prototypes mostly – are simply too …
GONE to a Good Home (or Stronghold/Castle) – Read More »
Editor’s Note: For those of you who have purchased “Hands Employed Aright,” you’ll note that we also used Jessica Roux’s illustration as endsheets. It was more expensive than typical endsheets, but worth it in every way. And now you can purchase a poster of this gorgeously detailed work of art. — Kara Gebhart Uhl When …
‘Hands Employed Aright’ Poster Now Shipping – Read More »
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Publisher’s note: I don’t think I’ve ever dealt with publishing a book that has a more tortured history that “Woodworking in Estonia.” First published during the Cold War, the book was translated to English in 1969 under unusual circumstances, and the author never receive a kopeck for his efforts. Our edition seeks to reconcile that …
The Twisting Translation Tale of ‘Woodworking in Estonia’ Part 2 – Read More »
We (and our kids) were all inoculated with enough Geometry during middle school to “know” the Pythagorean theorem. You know, the one that enables us to rattle off: “A squared plus B squared equals C squared.” But that particular manifestation of the underlying geometric truth of our particular universe isn’t limited to squares. In the …
Jacob Arend’s letter, Collection of the V&A Museum, London. Text contrast and sharpness was adjusted by me. Almost eight years ago, I wrote a piece about a hidden letter written by Jacob Arend, a journeyman cabinetmaker, living and working in Würzburg, Germany. Arend, and fellow journeyman, Johannes Witthalm, had recently finished making their masterpiece, an …
A Look Back at an 18th-century Journeyman’s Letter – Read More »