The tour at the High Wycombe Chair-making Museum begins almost the moment you arrive. You ring the bell on the front door. Robert Bishop answers and welcomes you into a room filled with chairs, tools and photographs. You sit down, and bam – he begins telling you a story. You are hooked. And for the…
Read morePuebco Tape DispensersIhave no love for sand-filled plastic tape dispensers. Please, give me cast iron and simplicity and mass. Puebco delivers. This Japanese company designs ingenious products using recycled materials and hand labor from developing nations. Sometimes they hit a home run. Sometimes not. But the cast-iron Puebco tape dispenser is a huge winner. It…
Read moreMr. Pen Circle TemplatesI draw arcs all day long. You might be a fancy “irregular curve” person, but I am as cheap as a segment of a circle. Arcs are the foundation of the decoration of vernacular furniture. You might think peasants were channeling their squid god when they drew that shape on the chair’s…
Read moreMiller Dowels Mini-XWhen things go wrong in the shop, one of the crutches I lean on are Miller Dowels Mini-X thingies. These are stepped and ribbed dowels that you install with a super-insanely-good stepped drill bit. How to use them: First drill a hole with the bit to reinforce a questionable joint. Then tap in…
Read moreWASA Red Kitchen ShearsThese kitchen scissors are part of a (perhaps imagined) memory. One of my grandparents owned the perfect pair of kitchen shears. Used to slice apart meat and bone, these shears are just perfect and balanced in every way. Eventually I found them – I think. The WASA Inox shears are like holding…
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