Changes to ‘The Anarchist’s Tool Chest’

Ever since “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” was first published in 2011, readers have asked: “If you could, what would you change about the chest and the book?”

Until now, the answer was: “Er, I don’t know.” And that’s because I hadn’t re-read the book or thought deeply about it since 2011. The book was done. And while I’m not afraid of assessing my work after it’s printed, I didn’t think it was necessary with this book. Plus, I have about 30 more new books in the works in my head. So it’s difficult for me to look back.

If you haven’t read “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” here’s the idea behind the text: Here are the tools I use (and why). And here is the chest I put them in. Oh, and maybe we should all stop buying so many damn tools. Fin.

But that’s not really the book. I get that now.

During the last six months, I’ve been living in that 2011 world. I read my own book. And I thought about that guy in his early 40s, who was thinking about himself at age 11.

I soon realized this: I can help them both.

That’s when the revision of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” took flight. First, I fine-tuned the book’s tool list. Mostly, I removed tools. You don’t need a cabinet scraper or a drawer-lock chisel to do good woodworking. I added a couple tools to the list of essentials.

Also, however, I moved things around. This tool is important; this one is not so. After 15 years of making furniture to eat, my choices on tools have become more refined. Am I right? I think so. I hope so. You’ll let me know if I’m not.

When it came to building the chest, however, I knew exactly what I wanted to change. Megan Fitzpatrick and I have built this chest over and over with students and for paying customers. Megan and I have talked about it ad nauseam over beers/ciders.

And we have both worked out of the same basic tool chest the entire time. Her blue chest on the south wall. My black one on the north.

Megan is welcome to publish her own list of changes. Here is mine:

1. The shell of the chest should remain mostly the same. All the dimensions and joints are exactly right for me and my work. (Well, I did decrease the number of dovetails in the shell to seven per corner – down from 13 per corner). The chest’s interior, however, saw significant changes.

2. My new sawtill is smaller – it’s about one-third its original height. And it’s a bit narrower. This change affects everything else in the chest’s interior.

3. Because of the extra space, I built four sliding trays instead of three.

4. The moulding plane corral is unchanged. (Well, I added a partition because I don’t use as many moulding planes as I used to. So there’s room for a hatchet perhaps. Maybe some other stuff?)

5. I added a rack on the back wall for backsaws. It holds all the backsaws I own, and there’s weirdly room for more saws.

6. The front wall has a tool rack pierced with holes (1/2" holes on 1-1/2" centers). I added this rack to my 2010 chest, and it made a huge difference in the way I work.

In all, I added lots of empty space for tools I don’t yet own. This realization seemed kind of weird. Yup – for the revised edition, I reduced the number of tools you need to buy. And I increased the amount of space to store tools.

Is that a contradiction?

It is.

I pulled myself out of this paradox by reflecting on how I have changed as a woodworker. After I finished the book in 2011, I began work on “Campaign Furniture,” a book that was all about casework, full-blind-dovetails and endless (truly endless) hardware that needed to be installed.

Cut to 15 years later, and I am finally the full-blown chairmaker that I set out to be in 1998. I still love casework (my next book is all about it), but chairs have occupied most of my frontal lobe since I saw my first Welsh stick chair.

There has to be room in “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” for people who want to cliff dive into other aspects of woodworking.