Don't tell anyone I said this, but there's more to life than swords. Pens are important too. As are chisels, saws, planes…

Pencil Box in Brown Oak, Maple, Cherry, Walnut, and Resin

On my recent trip to the USA I was sitting in my friend Heidi Zimmerman’s garden when she dropped a truth bomb on my head. We have been close friends for a long time, but she doesn’t have anything I’ve made in her house. This unacceptable state of affairs had to be rectified, and we settled on a pencil box. I had complete artistic freedom, it just had to hold pencils. Oh, and a sliding top, not hinged. I’ve never made one before so I bashed out this in plywood:

It’s just butt-jointed and glued, nothing fancy. But it gave me the dimensions, and an idea about order of operations. I made the box out of brown oak (because I have tons of it. Literally. A dead tree in our garden had to come down and I had it sawn into planks, the thinner of which are about ready to be used).  I used lap dovetails at one end, and through dovetails at the other, just because. I decided to make it long enough to have a section for sharpeners and rubbers.

I chose a scrap of walnut for the divider because it had an ombre effect, light to dark, that I thought might tie the dark sides to the light base.

The base was a piece of maple I’ve had lying around for about five years, too small for most projects, but too nice to throw away. It was way too thick though, so I decided to leave it full thickness, and carve feet out of it when the box was assembled. Using such a pale wood should make the inside of the box lighter, making it easier to see what’s inside. 

The sliding top came from a leftover bit of cherry that I had used for experimenting with resin. I like the idea of a translucent window into the box.

I have no idea how long it all took- I did everything by hand (including sawing to thickness, stock preparation, etc.) because that’s more fun than firing up the machines. The only exception was the grooves for the lid and the base. I didn’t have the right size blade for my plough plane, and didn’t want to grind one to fit, so I slummed it with the router. I think it turned out ok!

Pen Tray in Pine, Brown Oak, and Leather

A while ago the philosopher and swordsman Damon Young (prof, dr, etc. Also guest on my podcast) posted a photo on Twitbook of his pen drawer. A small drawer in his writing desk with his pens in it:

They looked very sad in that crappy cardboard tray, and I couldn’t help but share a photo of mine:

But not being a total arse, I softened the sting by offering to make Damon a proper pen tray. He’s in Tasmania, and I’m in the UK, but all I needed was an accurately cut template of the inside of the drawer, and it should slide right in. Prof. Dr. Young is an accomplished writer and philosopher, but not a craftsman, as the template rudely attested. A bit gappy sir! In fact, as gappy as the plot in most Marvel movies. But I made some educated guesses, and made this:

It’s pine, with grooves routed out, spaces for the drawer handle screws (which are in huge saucers for some reason), covered in goatskin and edged in brown oak. The edges are just pinned on so if the insert was a bit too big, they could be easily popped off. The whole thing took maybe two hours, not including waiting an hour for the glue holding the leather down to go off. I posted it off to the far side of the world, and turns out if fits ok!

Now I really should get on and make the next bookcase…

 I came across the idea of a book nook quite recently; one just popped up in a search for something else (a book, I think). And I just had to have a go, as it's a perfect crossover between several of my interests. I was about half way into it when I realised it would take a simply absurd amount of time (somewhere probably over 50 hours work), because I've never done one before, and kept having to invent things from scratch. So I leaned into that, and let it take all the time it needed.

It also occurred to me about half way in that it would be a perfect wedding present for my dear friend Veera, whose wedding I couldn't go to thanks to the blasted plague. So I know it's going to a good home!

I started by making the box, and like a fool decided to dovetail it all together. I was at the ‘this won't take long' delusional phase, so I rushed it rather, and I'm not at all happy with the joinery there. No pictures for that reason. Part of the difficulty was that I had a completely free hand to do anything- it's a purely decorative piece, so there are no constraints other than size, and even that's negotiable. I had the idea at some point that one side should be mirrored, to create an illusion of depth, and then decided to make it a library. But I wanted more variation, so thought that the library should have an upper floor that's more mysterious, more fantastical. I can't paint for shit so I printed out a forest scene for the top floor, and a library scene for the bottom floor. 

The library scene came from here: http://www.dollshouse.com/3d-library-paper-door-books-plaque

it wasn't in the right size for my project, so I scalped the image off their website and re-sized it. I hope they don't mind! I've sadly lost the reference and the image I used for the forest scene.

The library door needed some texture, so I made some moulding in walnut and added it round the doorway. The floor is made of birch veneer, some stained black, some bleached. I cut it in strips, taped them together, then cut them in squares. Nice to do a bit of veneer work, it's been a very long time! I was inspired by Uri Tuchman's video in which he makes (among other things), a frame for a painting.

I thought the library needed some furniture, so I made a little table, and some books.

The books are super-easy: just little bits of maple wrapped in goatskin. Compared to bookbinding, they took seconds!

Then I thought to make a fake doorway upstairs, to hide the sword behind. It's glued in position, so doesn't open or close.

I've never used lighting in a project before, so figuring out how to do it took some time. There's just one light, in the space behind the door.

Now the sword… I forged the blade from a nail, then filed it to shape. Cut and filed the brass crossguard, made a little walnut handle, then added a pommel and finished shaping the handle. Sadly I forgot to photograph the finished sword before hiding it forever in its stone!

Now the doorway: I cut the basic shape from this piece of walnut, then ripped it down the middle so the arch is made of bookmatched grain.

I then carved some detail, just for fun. But, it turns out you should make the furniture after making the nook complete…

Oops!

So I made a new table, this time out of cherry, and in a more modern style. No reason, just because.

Of course the nook needed to be tested in a realistic environment, so here it is in a bookshelf:

I'm happy to report that it made its way to its new home without mishap, and here it is!

I’m in that funny limbo state between a book being finished and being published. My translation and interpretation of Fiore’s longsword plays (of which the current working title is now From Medieval Manuscript to Modern Practice: The Longsword Plays of Fiore dei Liberi. What do you think?) is back from the editor, his 2,370 comments and changes accepted, rejected, or otherwise acted on (that number is exact, not figurative. 2,370. Really. That's normal for a good editor with a 65,000 word document) and the resulting draft is now being proof-read. I expect that back in a couple of weeks, then it’ll be off to layout. Hurrah!

So it's a Schrödinger’s book, both finished and not finished. Done and not done. I can’t really concentrate on another sword related writing project (I think the replacement volume for The Duellist’s Companion is next up) until this one is really done. Instead I’m doing some productive procrastination, which for me is usually some craft-related activity. It’s something of a relief to get away from ideas and pixels, and back to physical materials. I’m making bookcases. This one is basically done:

That’s 18mm birch ply with solid cherry banding, and adjustable shelves, held onto the wall with a French cleat.

I haven’t done the cap or base yet, because I’m concentrating on getting books out of boxes. I can add the decorative but not actually necessary elements later. Bookcase 2 is basically the same, but with maple accents. I’ve been using the kiridashi knives daily since I made them– and holy cow, they are beautiful tools. They led me to dust off a chip-carving knife I’ve had knocking about the workshop for maybe 6 years. I got JT Pälikkö to make the blade for me, and I stuck a crappy birch handle on it just to get it into use asap. But I haven’t used it nearly as much as the quality of the blade deserves, which is partly because the handle just wasn’t appealing. So in some down-time between bookcases, while all my clamps were occupied with a glue-up, I started re-shaping the handle. After five minutes I thought ‘you know what? This knife deserves better’, and stripped off the old handle, and made a new one out of maple, cherry, and walnut. You can see part of the old handle in this photo.

Top tip: leave the wood long as long as possible- it's much easier to hold it still if it has a built-in handle! I epoxied the whole thing together.

Then I did 90% of the shaping before cutting the handle to length. I went so far as to actually finish the handle at the blade end before cutting the waste away.

The handle is finished in boiled linseed oil, then shellac. I made a home for it on my tool board- it fits in beautifully!

Of course, in my enthusiasm, I drilled the hole for the tang too deep, and it was visible at the pommel end, so I plugged it with a square cherry plug. I could have made it disappear with some antique-restorer trickery, but decided to highlight the error with a contrasting wood.

This is in the spirit of wabi-sabi: the things that make something imperfect can also make them beautiful. This is true in many fields, but not, ever, book editing!

I’ve had my woodworking bench for twelve years now. It’s been a good workhorse, small enough to fit into my bijou little workshop spaces but big enough to be useful. It first lived in a corner in the old salle, then the tatami shed in the ‘new’ salle:

then my garage in Ipswich, and now my workshop at the end of the garden):

The vice has never been great though. Good enough for most things, like holding this bit of ash in place while I mark it out for a scabbard:

But it was always quite sticky, and has gotten worse over time. And with changes in atmospheric moisture, the bench top has moved a bit, so it didn’t close up all the way to the edges. 

The body of the bench has also never been perfectly stable. It’s okay, but a bit light, and with the racking forces from planing on the bench top, it’s gradually become more wobbly.

Yesterday I spent about four hours disassembling the vice and getting it tuned up; planing down the vice jaw, the side of the bench, and the bench top; and adding some diagonal members to stabilise it.

Turns out, the floor itself in my workshop isn’t very stable (it’s fundamentally just a shed) so I put down a couple of planks to spread the load a bit.

Now the vice twizzles beautifully.

At the time, I just felt like spending a day doing woodwork, and thought I’d take half an hour or so to improve the vice because I have some tricky sliding dovetails to cut. But one thing lead to another, and now the bench is performing better than it ever has before.

So here’s a thought. What other bits of maintenance am I neglecting? What other opportunities are there to put in a little bit of work now, to reap rewards for years to come?