Jason writes: I have a question for you about your announcement of “The Book of Plates.” I have already purchased the first installment that Lost Art Press has published on marquetry, and I plan to get the one on furniture when it comes out. My question is this: Is there more information that can be gleaned from “Plates?” Or would having Roubo 1 & 2 have the same information?
Keep up the good work! I look forward to Roubo 2 and the Studley book (yeah, for French fitting).
Answer: “The Book of Plates” includes all the plates from all of Roubo’s books, which includes architectural woodwork, furniture making, carriage building, marquetry and garden woodwork. So far, we have published most of Roubo’s writing on marquetry. The second book (due early next year) will cover most of his writing on furniture and woodworking tools.
We hope to publish the other books in Roubo’s series, but these translations take many years of effort.
So the primary reason we decided to publish “The Book of Plates” now was so everyone could own the complete set of plates from the entire 18th-century opus.
The second reason is we wanted to ensure that Roubo’s plates could be enjoyed at full size at an affordable price and on quality paper. We printed them at full size in the deluxe edition, but the standard edition has them in reduced size. With “The Book of Plates,” you can easily see all the detail at the scale that Roubo intended. Plus, if you own Roubo in the standard edition or the pdf download, having the book of plates handy in front of you is a great way to absorb the text.
— Christopher Schwarz
Will deluxe (full size) plates be available as individual plates suitable for framing?
There has been only one woodworking poster that has ever been profitable – the H.O. Studley Toolchest poster by Fine Woodworking. We tried a Roubo poster at PW (fail). Others have tried posters, too.
So I’m not eager to burn money on posters.
If there’s a crushing demand for posters, we’ll make them.
I would buy a poster.
I bought one of those PW Roubo posters; still haven’t framed it.
This seems the perfect fit for one of the print on demand services out there.
good idea!
What about an Elephant version? Almost drawing you can measure!
Chris – it’s been almost a year since I became “Anarchist/Galoot” aware – thanks for being such an eloquent advocate for the cause – even with the occasional snark. (And the sellers on Ebay thank you too, as I’ve build my basic set of hand tools as well as 70’s reprint of “Moxon”.)
Who handles the typesetting for your books: I ask because despite the very elegant binding and lus cious paper on my copy of Anarchist, there seems to several basic typography/layout issues (like having strangely widowed section heads (p. 90) or rivers/strangely hyphenated line breaks. I know that makes me sound like some Luddite guild member that makes daily sacrifices to Janson and Frutiger, but it strikes me as incongruous with the rest of the user experience and contextual message (craft matters) of the work.
Brandon,
I did the page design on ATC. It was supposed to have a “manifesto” feel to it. No baseline grid. Regular violations of the overall grid. The display font made from a labelmaker. But perhaps it didn’t go far enough and just looks a little off.
Oh well.
No drama, Chris: perhaps having read the book after it had mades its accession from revolutionary and disruptive cult classic to the graven in stone guide to woodworking purity (at least in the world according to Lumberjocks), I had more establishment googles on when I read it (and professional publishing baggage in tow.) Must say, I am very glad about the rugged binding as the book has been pawed over, annotated and sketched, plus circumnavigated the world, as I dream about my eventual woodshop at 10,000 feet.
What’s the difference between an “opus” and an “omnibus”?
From the peanut gallery:
One is a cartoon character and the other is how politicians blame bad law passing that THEY voted for.
Or I could be completely ignoring the context of your question. 🙂 Sorry, couldn’t resist.
The terms are not mutually exclusive in my experience. Opus generally meaning something large in scope or effort, and omnibus, a collection tied together in some way, usually works by the same person.
Poster-wise, are there any sites out there where you can put up an image and people can pay for posters on an individual basis? I believe they do something very like that for T-shirts and such already… just a thought 🙂 Copyright might be an issue though, that does occur to me, but Roubo is probably past the cut-off date there…
As an aspiring woodworker just emerging from the womb(metaphorically speaking)learning to do dovetails is on my bucket list.One of the things I wonder about in the middle of the night is the layout line that is left so visible on the work piece when the job is finished.it seems counterintuitive to do such beautiful work only to leave a glaring line etched into your work.Please help me to be able to sleep all through the night once again.Secondly, I as well as many others would be thrilled to have you come to Bozeman Montana to do a class either for a few days(or a week),so I wood like to begin that conversation with you(a1776dew@gmail.com).And yes i’m aware of my spelling(and my addiction to parentheses)
Doug,
The world is split about layout lines. Some leave them. Some don’t. So do what you like. In old work you will see it both ways.
As to teaching, my 2015 is fully booked. If you want to discuss something in 2016, drop me a line at chris@lostartpress.com
I popped into the thread to offer my .02 on the worth of the plate book and got sidetracked while scrolling down–a side effect of eating lunch at my desk, I guess.
Anyway, I’m going to pop on this work even though it is a full benjamin (100 bucks). I didn’t buy the first Roubo volume because it does not (yet) speak to where I’m at in woodworking.
I will definitely acquire the second volume and accept at full face Chris’ supposition that it is more useful to understand the text with full size plates readily at hand.
Here is where the boring stuff starts; feel free to tune out. I make no claims to prowess at woodworking. I still feel my pieces suck, though I keep trying. I can make the basic joints (even dovetails), complete simplistic designs, and apply finish. There is a decent kit of tools in my shop, too.
I work alone with only ‘net and print resources to guide me. I believe my work has hit a plateau in skill. I’ve been diving deeper into my print resources to break through to the next level. I’ve been mostly studying the four volume set of The Practical Woodworker and Wearings The Essential woodworker. The more I study, the more I’m able to interpret what the text and illustrations are actually trying to convey. In short, I’m learning the thought and speech of the trade slowly but surely.
The graphics are a pet peeve of mine. The graphics in The Practical Woodworker are scanned from originals and a lot of detail is lost. The graphics in The Essential woodworker are pages away from the text describing them (this occurs in TPW, too). I’m constantly flipping back and forth trying to grasp the nuances of the information being transmitted.
I’m not talking about simplistic stuff like the measurements of the left leg of a table. A recent example is from a bookcase in TPW (2d volume, I believe) There is a cool crisscross of trim in the glass of one of the examples. Working out how that joint goes together is actually quite difficult. The author knew this and put the needed information into the graphics, but not so much in the text. It took about four minutes to glean how to make it work by going back and forth from the text to three blurry graphics.
I guess if I’m going to learn anything from some dead French dude as translated by a couple overscheduled American dudes, I need clean pictures. Dammit.
(Yes, I know the translation team is a lot more than the two LAP principals, but that would kill the humor)
Time to get back to work.