Those of you who shop over the counter with us in Farsta know that the shop is really full. There are shelves and benches everywhere. When Rubank Verktygs moved into the premises about 10 years ago, one of the rooms was used as the stockroom and the rest was offices. Now it is the other way round. This means that every time a delivery of new products arrives, it feels like playing Tetris to make room for it. We move, rearrange and squeeze things in between everything else. And every time you order something, the bottom row or rows disappear and there is new space higher up to fill with even more. We are fairly sure we have hit the ceiling in our Tetris game, so a bigger playing field is needed for the coming years. We will see when we get upgraded – hopefully quite soon.
Until then we are working on making more room in the current premises. We have done some work on our bookshop, the part at the back of the shop with the books and a small seating area. We have an idea of collecting Swedish books about woodworking to preserve them for the future. Whenever we have come across old books for sale we have bought them and put them out so anyone interested can read them. We now have two small bookcases with these books. They are not for sale but are reference copies.
We will tidy up even more so that the whole area is dedicated to books and similar products. There are now about 90 reference copies, and we are happy to take more if anyone wants to part with their books. Get in touch if that sounds interesting. And of course, we will never sell them.
As for books we are happy to sell you, we have added new titles to the Swedish section. One of them is "Konsten att tälja" (The Art of Whittling) by Niklas Karlsson. This is how he describes himself:
"I have whittled all my life. It is part of my family's culture. In 1822 my ancestors cleared a new homestead, today the village of Grundsjö in southern Lapland. My grandfather made everything he needed from the forest around him: boats, horse tack, farming and hunting tools.
I grew up myself in Upplands-Väsby, a suburb of Stockholm, and I remember the light glimpsing through the garage door when my father worked there in the evenings. During those evenings in the garage he taught me the basics of whittling, and I got to choose my first knife from a mail-order catalogue. It was a big folding hunting knife. Not the best choice, I realise today. I remember so well sitting under a large spruce deep in the forest and folding the knife shut right over my fingers.
It was only after I turned twenty that I started whittling seriously. I ended up on a course with the craftsman Ramon Persson, who masters everything from leather sewing to interior joinery. When I made a wooden last for a leather sheath, Ramon said it looked as if I knew what I was doing. I remember thinking: 'Do I?' After the course I was to make a knife with a leather sheath. That was when it hit me with full force – my love of wood as a material."
The book is in Swedish and we are glad to be able to offer it: Konsten att tälja.
We now have about 40 Swedish books for sale, so together with Lost Art Press there are over 100 titles to choose from. Lost Art Press titles that are sold out will be restocked within a few weeks. You also need a break from all the work, so we have brought in a few pastimes: tricky puzzles, games and other things made of wood. You find all of this in our Woodworking Bookshop.
For me personally, the Woodworking Bookshop is a small dream I have had for a long time: being able to sell books to interested customers. Those of you who lived in Stockholm in the 1970s–90s, especially in the north, probably remember the bookshop and stationery chain Perssons Bokhandel, with shops in Sollentuna, Kista and the Fältöversten mall at Karlaplan. It was run by my father's sister and her husband, and it was part of my childhood; I worked there during holidays and weekends from my early teens. So shops and selling have always been part of my DNA, and when I started at Rubank Verktygs just over five years ago and unpacked my first delivery from Lost Art Press, I felt a special warmth. It was like coming home.
We have sold the Czech maker York for a very long time, and I found a picture showing what their products are meant to be used for. We have all models in several versions, many in up to three variants: quick-release, coarse thread, or with a wheel instead of a tommy bar. We also have a vise and several other products. I have rewritten the texts a little to make it easier to understand what kind of vise each one is. We have bench vises from York, Veritas, Sjöbergs and Lie-Nielsen. They are bulky, so we cannot keep many of each model in stock, and they may seem sold out now and then, but we get regular restocks. Do use the option to get an email when something is back in stock. You find all our bench vises here.
With the long-awaited delivery from Japan's Naniwa a few weeks ago, we brought in a new product: a gigantic sharpening stone. "The green giant", as sharpening enthusiasts around the world call it. It is 55 mm thick, so there is plenty to wear down for those who sharpen a lot: Naniwa Aotoishi.
Running a shop is very exciting, especially as it gets older. We turn thirteen this autumn, so a lot has accumulated between our walls. It may be products that came with a purchase that we meant to list later because there was no time right away, or things that came with an acquisition that we did not even know existed. Much of it turns up when we are looking for something else, and one such find (there are many more – more on those later) is these oil stones from Norton: Norton combination stone. I found the boxes, looked up what they were and have now listed them. More Norton products that have been sitting in boxes in the stockroom will be added, and newly ordered ones are coming soon.
It feels as if I have gone on about everything new that is coming these last few times, and then it takes longer than planned. It is always hard to plan when you work with different manufacturers; that can be the downside of working directly with them instead of relying on a wholesaler with everything on the shelf. But the benefits outweigh these small setbacks. And we do have some news this time: a new supplier of finishing products, Real Milk Paint. A family business that has been active for 25 years, with a large palette of colours and many oils and waxes. We will build up the range over time, but what is on its way now is the paints in different package sizes, wax and cutting board oil. All their products are food-safe and many are also child-safe, so you can use them on toys.
With this and our other recent suppliers Selder and Hampshire Sheen, as well as long-standing ones such as Briwax and Walrus Oil, we have built up a broad range of products for the final finishing touch on your project, and we hope you find something interesting. More will be added to this group during the year. If you feel something is missing that we should sell, get in touch and we will look into it. The whole range is under finishing.
We often talk about how to reach more people, because the more customers we have, the more products we can bring in, and the more products can reach more customers. It is a complicated cycle we have worked on ever since we started in 2010. The basic idea was to offer hand tools of the highest quality at the best possible prices, and we have worked towards that the whole time. More than 12,000 of you have bought something from us at some point, and we naturally want more customers and for existing customers to come back. Overall you are very happy with us: on Trustpilot we have 4.9 out of 5. We have not used that service actively for several years, so the figure would surely be different today, but our feeling is that your satisfaction is high.
We have over 7,000 followers on Facebook and over 1,000 on Instagram, and this newsletter goes to more than 2,200 people. But we assume there are many more who work with or enjoy woodworking. We also understand that many shop elsewhere for various reasons, which is of course everyone's own choice. Another thing we have held firmly to is not pushing advertising on you excessively; we do not want that ourselves, so we do not think we should do it. But we believe many of you do not know about all the products we have – as I wrote earlier, we hardly know about all of them ourselves. So the question is how best to tell you what is available.
We have tried campaigns and posts on Facebook, advertising in magazines and online, newsletters and other email campaigns, and we go to fairs and craft events. Every company struggles with this, but we wonder how you would like to receive information. Should we send more newsletters, post more on Facebook, make our own films and be on YouTube? Where are you, and where do you see what you want to buy? We have many ideas but want to back the right horse.
There are many thoughts. We are considering a survey for you to answer and will think about good questions for next time. In the meantime, feel free to share your views.
Tomorrow, 28 January, we have Saturday opening. We have not had time to arrange a theme this time, but we are there between 10 and 14 if anyone wants to come by for a chat, a look or to buy something. Hope to see or hear from you next time!
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