The following is a composite of letters I’ve received about my personal problem of clocking screws. Note that I don’t think you should clock your screws. in fact, I don’t think you should even think about clocking screws. Think instead about screws with slots at all random angles.
— Christopher Schwarz
Dear Mr. Swartz,
I just read your article about clocking screws and I don’t know where you get the idea that professional cabinetmakers ever clocked their screws. Clocking screws means the screws are either over-tightened or under-tightened, so it is a mark of a poor craftsman with a mental problem.
I bet you line up all your pencils on your desk. Or lick light switches.
Woodworkers wouldn’t have taken the time to clock screws anyway.
I’ll bet you got all your little Communist flags all lined up in your caviar bowls when you have your little anarchist friends over to talk about your anarchosyndicate communes. And you line up your pita crisps, too.
Oh, and good woodworkers never overcut their baselines when dovetailing, either. That – like clocking screws – is just sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.
God Bless America, you Red Overcutting Screw Clocker.
— Lord Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftsbury