Christopher Clarke Antiques has released its latest catalog of campaign furniture called “An Officer’s Room,” which you can download for free from the company’s web site here.

Sean and Simon Clarke were extremely generous and helpful as I was researching English military and travel furniture for my book “Campaign Furniture.” The brother’s catalogs are a wealth of information on campaign furniture and include lots of original research into the makers and patents that are important to the style.

This catalog is no different. I’ve read it through twice – especially the section on the Fenby patent chairs, which I am researching now so I can reproduce them.

If you like campaign furniture, this catalog is a free little treat for you. By the way, all of the pieces in the catalog are for sale, in case you are also a furniture collector.

— Christopher Schwarz

The holidays are, for many, either a time of peace and reflection or a stress inducing months long nightmare culminating in an orgy of greed. I know I sound cynical about the holidays but I’m really not, I just get frustrated when I see otherwise rational people lose their minds this time of year because they allowed themselves to be pressured into participating in the frantic consumerism.

And here’s some more stuff you can buy for people who like to make and do stuff!

• Dial Calipers: a super useful tool that I opined about in the link and you can get a serviceable yet inexpensive set for under $25 at your local Harbor Freight Tools.
• Lagesse LaSquare: a cool twist on a classic tool in that this one has a wide base that makes it way easier to use with pipe, etc. They have different models on their…

You can now watch two episodes on Roy Underhill’s “The Woodwright’s Shop” on campaign furniture that we taped earlier this year by following this link.

Use the arrows below the main screen to scroll over to the episodes you want to watch.

One of the episodes is an introduction to the style and a demonstration of cutting lapped full-blind dovetails. The second episode shows my strategies for fitting inlaid corner brasses and campaign pulls.

I wish we would have demonstrated something additional: Roy trimming my hair. All I can think while watching these episodes is: Get a haircut, hippie. And a job.

The pieces shown in the episode are also featured in my book “Campaign Furniture,” which is available in our store and through our retailers. We are almost sold out of the the first edition of this book and we will be returning to press…

If I had to pick a tool that I just love and use constantly, it would be my dial calipers. I have a couple of the inexpensive Harbor Freight models laying around the shop and and basically have a panic attack if I misplace them, really. 

Though they’re just a high precision measuring tool, I find that I use them for comparison measurements all the time, as well as for centering holes, scribing lines along an edge, etc. I’ve even used them on sewing projects and since I’m not doing precision machining the cheap ones are more than adequate.

Here’s a primer on using them:

My favorite things about them include:

• I don’t have to compare a measurement to see if a drill is big enough for a bolt. Just measure the bolt diameter then physically compare it to the drill.
• The points of the jaws are generally hard…

This is a re-post from an earlier entry.  Say what you will about British imperial policy of the 19th and 20th centuries.  They certainly worked out minimalist travel with a fair amount of style and comfort on a very personal level.  These old catalogs give

From The Army and Navy Co-operative Society Store, London 1907

There are some excellent items here that should give some inspiration for fabricating some classic and classy gear.  From an era before the activity of “camping” was fully segregated from “regular living”.

Much more of this to come…

In my last post I mentioned that the QT2A-X was larger than my previous carry light (the Fenix LD10). In this post I’ll show you what I did about that.

After carrying the QT2A-X for a week There are some things I would like to change about it. The length needs to be brought down to something smaller (I can manage with the QT2A-X’s size, and for prolonged use it’s actually pretty comfortable, but at 5.8 inches I have to use the pocket clip, as it won’t sit right in my pocket unless it is clipped to it. On that note, with the standard pocket clip it rides a wee bit too high to be comfortable when I am sitting and standing frequently (I am constantly getting up and sitting back down in my job, so this became apparent pretty rapidly).

So how do we make it better?

My ideal…

…but I made my lady a cool vintage industrial style cart for the kitchen.

AND YOU CAN TOO!

MrsDIY and I love the look of vintage/antique industrial pieces and though we have a large kitchen, we have little counter space so after getting an idea of what she wanted, I set about planning to build a cart that would fit the role while looking like it was salvaged from an abandoned factory from the turn of the last century.

I used LibreCAD to make a simple plan and to help me figure out how much material I needed. The measurements are all in inches (Murican) and the plan was to use 2 inch x 1/8 inch angle iron because it looks heavy and chunky but wouldn’t weigh a ton. Our counters are 36-1/2 inches high so I designed the frame to take into account the thickness of the lumber (1-1/2 inches)…