If I lived and worked alone, music would play almost 24 hours a day. (In fact, on the rare occasion when Lucy leaves town, that is exactly what happens.)
Many times it’s the radio (WMOT-FM is a favorite). Or an album or playlist based on my mood.
We play music in the bench room during classes, and several students have asked if I had a playlist I could share. So here is one that I have put on Spotify. (I’m not a fan of the way Spotify pays artists, FYI. I prefer Bandcamp. But this is the best way for me to share this. I buy all my music, and I hope others support the artists they listen to.)
This is my Mid-tempo-so-I-hope-you’ll-like-me Playlist. It’s mostly melodic Americana from the last 30 years with an emphasis on acoustic and electric guitar. Right now it’s 378 songs – more than 24 hours of music. But I’ll add some more songs to it, I’m sure.
I hope you find some new artists here. But in the end, you get what you pay for with free playlists.
Oh, one more thing: This playlist isn’t sequenced (that would take weeks for me to do). So just put the dang thing on shuffle for best results.
Because People Ask
I have other musical moods. At times I go into long periods of listening to the earliest recordings of American hillbilly music. I love it, and it helps me interpret and understand the music I listen to today. I also have an aggressive mood, which is where I play a lot of Husker Du/Bob Mould, Superchunk, Pixies and other post-punk and punk bands. And I have a Growing Up Music mood, where I listen to the bands that were formative of my taste today: R.E.M., the Replacements, Velvet Underground, Violent Femmes, The Police and others (some embarrassing).
Also good to know: I’m not an audiophile. My sound system is nothing special: Some Apple HopePods (you Hope they’ll actually work), plus a stereo with a Thorens turntable and Schitt pre-amp and amp. Mid-range Klipsch speakers.
I’ve always owned vinyl, CDs, cassettes and digital. I’m no purist searching for some religious sonic experience. I like vinyl because of its glorious artwork and lyrics sheets. I like digital because I can take everything anywhere.
Yes, I clamp my joints as I drive the drawbore pegs. I’m a chicken, OK?
On Friday, I knocked together a cupboard inspired by Romanian peasant furniture for my next book, “The American Peasant.” The piece was made entirely by hand, but using Western tools instead of Eastern European ones.
All the joints are drawbored and glued (with gelatin glue I made here in the shop). When I went to make the drawbore pegs, I decided to first look at what is in the Jennie Pipe in the machine room. Jennie Pipe? Read on.
After Jennie Alexander died, the family asked us to take any of the spare tools and bits of wood that other woodworkers didn’t want. I took a hacking knife and some scratch stocks. But somehow I also ended up with a piece of 6″ PVC pipe (sealed at one end) that is filled with Jennie’s dowel stock.
I usually split out my own drawbore pegs, but there was a 5/16”-diameter white oak dowel in the pipe that had grain that was as straight as if it were split. I thought: Why not?
I used the dowel and found that I had exactly enough to drawbore the 16 mortise-and-tenon joints, plus make the hinges for the doors, which rotate on dowels.
In the end, I had about 1/16″ extra, which is painted red. I took it as a sign that I had made the correct choice.
It’s funny how I can’t throw away some things (which is totally not like me). I still have my father’s stationery from his medical practice (printed in the 1980s) and his Rolodex. These things take up space I don’t have to spare, but I can’t part with them. Perhaps I’m destined to mail a letter to someone in the Rolodex.
I also have a sizable chunk of bright orange Plexiglas that Jennie used for making go/no-go gauges and other dingus (dingi?).
I can’t wait to see the cabinet I’m destined to build using that….
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. What’s The American Peasant? It’s my substack. It’s a somewhat foul-mouthed open wire of my progress on my next book. There’s practical information (how to sharpen and use a timber scribe) and “thoughts on craft” that would make David Pye roll his eyes – and then over in his grave. You can subscribe for free (about one-third of the posts are free). And there’s a trial subscription that lets you sample everything for free for seven days. I enjoy the heck out of writing it.
If you don’t want to mix up your own soap finish – or if you just want to give it a try – the Pure Soap Flake Co. offers it pre-mixed in jars for as little as $10.
The product is called Pure Castile Cream Soap, and it is available in 8 oz. to 64 oz. jars. I don’t know its exact water-to-soap ratio, but it is like a mayonnaise consistency and is ready to apply to wood.
The product behaves exactly like the soap finish I make from flakes.
Apply it with a soft cloth. Let it dry. Then buff it a bit. As I’ve mentioned before, a soap finish isn’t durable, but it is easily repaired and renewed with more soap. And no, your furniture won’t foam up if you spill a little water on the finish. It’s a traditional finish in Scandinavia. Non-toxic and pleasant to use and touch.
I’ve had soap finish on my work desk here at Lost Art Press for more than eight years. I love it.
Linseed oil paint requires a lot of stirring at first. I used a stick. The Allbäck company recommends using a whisk.
For the last 20 years I’ve used mostly milk paints and acrylics on my furniture. I have reservations about both kinds of paint.
On milk paint, I find it inconsistent and a lot of work. When it works, it’s great. But it takes significant effort and time (for me) to get good results. And just because you know how to use red milk paint doesn’t mean you can use the same methods for black or blue.
That said, the paint has a lot going for it. It’s non-toxic. It is hard-wearing and looks better after a lot of wear. And it doesn’t create a plastic film over the wood like other paints do.
From the perspective of someone who sells furniture, however, I need to charge more for pieces that use milk paint because of all the extra time and steps involved.
Acrylics, on the other hand, are consistent and fast. I can spray a chair in the morning (about 45 minutes of work total) and have it sittable by the end of the day. The major downside is that it is a plastic finish. I’m not a fan of plastic – full stop. Nothing about plastic makes me happy. Acrylic wears fairly well, but it hasn’t been around for all that long (only since the 1930s). So the jury is still out on it (as it is on plastic glues such as polyvinyl acetate – aka yellow glue).
About seven years ago, we started working with the Canadian distributors for Allbäck, a Swedish finishing company that makes excellent linseed-oil-based finishes. The distributor also became our Canadian distributor for Lost Art Press for a time (we parted on amicable terms).
As we got to know one another, the Canadians sent us a bunch of their products for us to try. I became a huge fan of the Allbäck linseed oil wax. So much so that I sought to make our own variation on it for our shop (which we call Soft Wax 2.0).
They also sent us some of the Allbäck linseed oil paint. I’d made my own linseed oil paint before, and it’s a bit of a pain to get the pigment mixed into the oil. And then the paint takes a long while to dry. So I was a bit skeptical.
But I decided to give the Allbäck paint a try because everything else the company made was really good.
I painted it on our chopping block outside. The next day, the paint was still wet. Three days later, it was still wet. It took a full week for it to dry to the touch. At the time I remember saying: “I can’t wait a week for a single coat of paint to dry. I’ll starve.”
However, I was amazed by how good the paint looked, even after it was subject to our Midwestern climate with its extreme heat, humidity, snow and ice.
I set the stuff aside until I started work on “The American Peasant.” After much thought it became clear that linseed oil paint was the right paint for all these projects. It looked right. It was simple. It was low-VOC. Natural. I decided to give the paint a second go.
This time I read up on the paint a lot before using it. I experimented with adding a thin coat of oil on the wood the day before painting – this seemed to really help. And after applying the paint, I kept it in a room with low humidity. Plus I exposed it to lots of sunlight (a tip from Jögge Sundqvist).
The first paint sample basking in the February sun (and low humidity).
The coat of oil before painting made the paint go on very smoothly (like I was applying a second coat of paint). Controlling the drying conditions reduced the paint’s drying time to less than 24 hours.
And the linseed oil paint looked great with just one coat. You could still see the wood’s grain, the paint was fairly matte and there was no plastic feel.
My first finished paint sample. I love it.
I’m sold.
For the book, I’ve bought three colors of paint. (I could have bought all of them. The Allbäck colors look absolutely gorgeous to me.) Here they are: Old Blue, Holkham Green, and Old Red.
It’s a little more expensive. Allbäck is about $2 an ounce. (Quality acrylics are about $1.70 an ounce.)
But the quality of the Allbäck is outstanding. In fact, now that General Finishes is reducing its acrylic offerings, I’ve decided to try linseed oil paint on my chairs to see how much time it adds to my process. I suspect it won’t add much labor. But I will need to be patient and allow the paint to dry.
We’ve just received another load of brass engraved center squares, which are now in our store. Whenever I’m building a chair or working with curved surfaces, this tool is always on my bench or in my apron pocket.
Yes, the tool is useful for marking the centers on a piece before putting it on the lathe. But I use the tool for far more. Because of its shape, it helps me lay out mortises on a curved arm, seat and comb. Bisecting a curved surface by eye is tricky, but it’s child’s play with this tool.
It also is great for pulling lines around curved and flat surfaces, again a function that regular squares can’t do (without special attachments).
Finally, the tool is like a worry stone. We designed it to have a soft and noticeable presence in your hand. There are no sharp edges, and I find myself rubbing the engraving when I’m thinking at the bench.
In fact, we joke that the hang hole at the tip of the tool is actually so you can wear it as a necklace when you are at the disco. (So much classier than wearing a medallion or razor blade around your neck.)
New Printing of ‘Sharpen This’
We received our third printing of “Sharpen This.” That is a new record for one of our books. Usually we print enough books to last us a year to 18 months. “Sharpen This” was released in June 2022, and we are already into our third printing. That means more than 14,000 copies are out there in the world.
Even crazier, both French and German translations of the book are already well underway. Usually foreign publishers wait a few years to gather sales data before investing in a translation. (It took eight years for the German translation of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” to come to light.)
Most heartening has been the response from readers. Most woodworkers seem to get their sharpening instructions from people who make or sell sharpening equipment. So it’s little wonder there is so much confusion out there and useless or redundant sharpening stones and jigs.
“Sharpen This” isn’t selling or promoting a particular system. They all work, and I’ve used almost all of them. Instead, the book explains the mechanics of a simple process. And the perspective on what is “really sharp” is from a professional woodworker’s point of view. Not a manufacturer or seller of silly #30,000-grit sharpening stones.
So if you feel any uncertainty about your sharpening, or it takes you more than a couple minutes to sharpen a tool, “Sharpen This” might help.
