About Christopher Schwarz
About Never Sponsored
In 2011, I wrote “The Anarchist's Tool Chest” as a warning for my 11-year-old self. I’d spent my adult life buying, using and reviewing woodworking tools for Popular Woodworking Magazine, and I was fed up with the tool industry.
Many of the tools that passed through my hands were what I called “tool-shaped objects. ” Sure, it looked like a 16-ounce hammer, but it had none of the important qualities a furniture maker requires.
Some tools were designed by people who obviously had never built a single piece of furniture. When you manufacture a tool that puts rasp teeth on a chisel, you have made something that is not only useless, but also dangerous for the user.