It’s raining. I have Lost Art Press’s world-class collection of tarps at the ready. But the truck that’s supposed to deliver “Mouldings in Practice” hasn’t shown up. Perhaps the driver is waiting for a thunderstorm to kick in before backing a semi down my street.
So instead of drinking some of the beer from the Upper Midwest that a student brought me, I attached the steel binding to the Traveling Anarchist’s Tool Chest. I stink at metalwork, so I took my time hacksawing all the pieces to length and drilling the bores and counterbores.
As a result, this was a fussy three-hour job for me.
I’m fairly happy with the results, however. I managed to get almost all the counterbores at the right depth, and the screws from blacksmithbolt.com look great. The only task that is left is to file the metal corners flush and remove any snaggy bits that might bite me or my students.
Now I get to turn my attention to the chest’s interior fittings. I tried to dig up enough pine for the sliding tills from my wood rack, but I’m still awash in mahogany from building campaign furniture. I know I’m going to catch some grief for using such a bourgeois wood on a proletariat project, but I don’t want to buy more pine and wait for it acclimate.
So mahogany tills, here I come. Now where did I put my pocket square and ascot? Oh Muffy, have you seen my velvet smoking jacket?
— Christopher Schwarz
