Book 'The Anarchist's Tool Chest'

[Dave Lehnert]

I am a little confused about the book "The Anarchist's Tool Chest"
Is it a book like the Workbench book with plans to build a tool chest or ????

[Michael Titus]

It's more than just plans to build a tool chest. About 50 pages is a meditation on building furniture to last vs. buying furniture that won't last, and about buying from fellow craftspeople rather than from large corporations (the Anarchist portion). Another 250 pages lists and describes how to use essential hand tools. Another 100 pages on how to build a tool chest. Also appendices on which tools past craftspeople thought were essential (Moxon vs. Seaton, etc.), sources for refurbished vintage hand tools, etc.

[Jim Matthews]

That sentiment (pay a little more, to keep your neighbors employed) is one I hope catches on.

I'm not opposed to big manufacturer's so much as big retailers - they suppress quality along with prices. Choice suffers as an unintended consequence.

[paul cottingham]

It is a terrific book about woodworking culture for lack of a better word. Why we do it, which tools help us do it, and why we might want to do it with hand tools. I've read it twice already. (I guess I'm a slow learner...) He makes compelling arguments for hand tool use, and for traditional woodworking (whatever the heck that means.)

[Chris Fournier]

Where does the anarchy start/stop? Is a tube amp more virtous than a solid state amp? Are you an anarchist if you build furniture with Grizzly machinery and swipe a few handplanes across the machine prepped boards? Should you refurbish or buy new quality handtools? Handtools do not an anarchist make, although an anarchist may well have some. He may also bury school buses below ground and fill them with dry goods and water...

If you are holding down a middle to upper class life style working for the man, I hope that you take pleasure in your handtools, they should provide some solace from the daily grind but you aren't dangerous enough to be an anarchist now are you? I know that I'm not.

[Shaun Mahood]

Chris, have you read the book yet? I thought it was a worthwhile read even beyond the woodworking knowledge.

There is actually a very good section explaining why he chose the word (and the blank stares he got when he told people). A lot of his arguments resonated with me. I have a tendency to see where the mainstream is going and flee in the other direction (in some parts of my life). He discusses the move away from market driven craftsmanship and towards mass cheap consumerism.

He also made a point in there about traditional skills having to be kept alive by skilled amateurs, since there is not much of a market for them anymore. I'm sure a lot of his points have been gone over many times, but I definitely enjoyed it.

And if my post didn't make sense, I'm claiming that I meant to do that!

[Jason Coen]

Where does the anarchy start/stop? Is a tube amp more virtous than a solid state amp? Are you an anarchist if you build furniture with Grizzly machinery and swipe a few handplanes across the machine prepped boards? Should you refurbish or buy new quality handtools? Handtools do not an anarchist make, although an anarchist may well have some. He may also bury school buses below ground and fill them with dry goods and water...

If you are holding down a middle to upper class life style working for the man, I hope that you take pleasure in your handtools, they should provide some solace from the daily grind but you aren't dangerous enough to be an anarchist now are you? I know that I'm not.

This is the second time I've seen you deliberately mischaracterize Chris's use of the word "anarchist", and I'm curious as to your motivation. Did Chris Schwarz once steal your lunch money? Are you just generally distrustful of people from Arkansas? Don't like those with German surnames?

[Ed Looney]

I haven't read the book but if Chris is proposing to start a traditional hand tool revolution against the cheep MDF furniture making establishment, then using the word anarchist is perfectly acceptable. In fact the concept of hand built by a local craftsman is quite "revolutionary" in today's furniture and cabinet industries.

Ed Looney

[Chris Fournier]

No I have my lunch money in pocket and I too have a German ancestory. The word anarchist is used here for effect, sizzle let's say and I'm poking fun at that. It's a very effective "hook" so to speak.

My point is that if you are railing righteously against MDF and factory furniture, it's a bit lame. I make my own furniture and use handtools everyday by the way. It's just that I find the ferver with which we woodworkers rally behind this flag a bit much. We are the same people who go on endlessly about import machinery (complaining that the cheap goods we buy are indeed cheap...) and watch our inexpensive Chinese manufactured flatscreen TVs while eating prepared meals out of boxes. It's this dichotomy that I'm poking fun at.

Were it not for factory furniture and MDF 90% of our neighbours would be sitting on floors. We like making furniture, some for fun and some for profit. Regardless it is a great activity but it isn't any more noble or contrary/anachronistic than cooking from scratch with local produce.

[Mike Henderson]

I have not read the book. My problem with anyone advocating a reaction to factory built furniture is that we're preaching to the wrong people. The people who will read that book are ones who will likely build heirloom furniture. To change anything, you have to preach to the people who BUY furniture and convince them that heirloom furniture is a good investment.

My own belief is that Ikea style furniture sells because it meets the needs of the people who buy it. They want a piece of utilitarian furniture, at a utilitarian price, and they expect it to last for maybe 20 years, when their kids are grown and leave the house, or when they change the style of their furniture and dispose of the old furniture. As such, Ikea furniture exactly hits the mark.

But there is a small market for heirloom furniture and expanding it would be good for those of us who build furniture for clients.

Mike

[george wilson]

Except for my wife's Art Deco jewelry box and table,posted in FAQ,and a nice couple of tables,I don't make complicated.heirloom furniture. Just never could get into it. So,we have some cheap,home assembled little storage thingys in the bathroom that I'd LIKE to make better ones,some day,but probably never will. A few other junky items that my wife brought home(never consults me!) I'd also like to toss. I guess furniture isn't that high on my priority list,when there are INTERESTING things like tools and guitars out there.

[Pam Niedermayer]

I don't have opportunity to make all that much furniture either. My family in Virginia has always been into buying hand made stuff, and as they're died, I've accumulated more than enough quality stuff. In fact, I'd have to sell several pieces to make room for a new piece. I've got this four poster of walnut that's gorgeous, but it's only a double; so now my quandary is whether or not to repurpose the wood, maybe for a table.

Pam

[Ed Looney]

No I have my lunch money in pocket and I too have a German ancestory. The word anarchist is used here for effect, sizzle let's say and I'm poking fun at that. It's a very effective "hook" so to speak.

My point is that if you are railing righteously against MDF and factory furniture, it's a bit lame........

Were it not for factory furniture and MDF 90% of our neighbours would be sitting on floors.

Chris
Sorry you misunderstood my intent. My purpose was to support the use of the term anarchist. Secondly I must disagree with with your assertion that 90% of the people would be sitting on floors if it weren't for MDF. If that were true then 90% of the people had to be sitting on the floor prior to the creation of MDF.
I will assert that Craftsman furniture was one of many revolutions in woodworking. The concept of exposing the joinery as a design element was if not any thing else a rebellion against the traditional furniture establishment where joinery was necessary yet so unattractive that must be hidden. Likewise today's furniture produced with man made materials by mechanization is the establishment. So the proposition of going back to the old school of hand tools used by someone locally who works with "real wood" is a bit of anarchy.

Ed

[David Weaver]

My own belief is that Ikea style furniture sells because it meets the needs of the people who buy it.

Bingo, and nobody who is short on money and trying to make ends meet (or even if they're not) needs to be made to feel guilty for not wanting to pay someone gobs of money to put together a piece of utility furniture when the ikea furniture will do just fine.

There is an overabundance of people in the hobby woodworking world, and in the book-writing world, who like to play holier-than-thou because they decide they like to make something with their hands, and feel that other people should feel obligated to participate in the same thing.

Maybe we should all refuse bread that doesn't come from wheat that was in shocks at one time, or meat from animals who haven't been fed by hand with a shovel.

People can make those decisions on their own. If they like expensive hand made furniture, that's great. If they want to spend their money on TVs or save it, and buy ikea furniture, too, that's great - they don't need the likes of us telling them how awful they are and how they're moving the world toward soylent green.

[Ed Looney]

I have not read the book. My problem with anyone advocating a reaction to factory built furniture is that we're preaching to the wrong people. The people who will read that book are ones who will likely build heirloom furniture.
Mike

Mike
Perhaps the book was not intended to be a sermon preached to the choir but rather sheet music for the choir. The harmony is much better if we are all singing the same tune.

Ed