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.
Finally, the tool catalogs and websites are choking with tools you really don’t need. Who needs a precision aluminum sled for cutting miter splines on a router table? No one. And yet manufacturers are happy to take you $300 for something you will use once and then put away.
You don’t need a lot of tools to make furniture. It’s about a core set of 50 or so. And that has been true since the first tool inventories from the 1600s. But your tools need to be good. They need to have the right set of qualities for making mouldings, mortises or (yes) mitered splines.
And yes, there are a lot of tools that you don’t “need” but are nice to have. I have some of these, too.
Why Start this Substack?
It is my fondest wish to never again have to set up a student's Harbor Freight jack plane. Or tell another student that her modern Stanley No. 78 can only be used as a paperweight. Or have to hack off part of a plastic handle to make a chisel usable.
And I want to encourage manufacturers to do better. Some of them are already doing an amazing job (you’ll read about them here). Others should be shunned by the tool-buying public (you’ll read about them here, too).
Why Should You Trust Us?
“Never Sponsored” is written by me, Christopher Schwarz, and my shop-mate Megan Fitzpatrick. We're both practicing furniture makers, writers and teachers. We’ve worked together for more than 20 years and have used thousands of different tools in shops all over the world.
But that’s not why you should trust us.
Here’s the rub: We have never in our lives taken sponsorship money from a tool manufacturer. We've never been part of an affiliate program. We have bought all of our tools with our own damn money. In short, we are Never Sponsored.
When a tool works well, we’re thrilled and want to tell you about it. And when a tool we buy is a piece of crap, we want to tell you about that, too.
Try us out with a free subscription. About one-third of our posts are completely free – no strings attached.
