Two new titles have arrived in our Indiana warehouse and are available for immediate shipment:
“Sharpen This” by Christopher Schwarz and “Euclid’s Door” by George Walker and Jim Tolpin.
If you order either of these titles before Oct. 1, you will receive a free pdf download of the book(s) at checkout. After Oct. 1, the pdf and book will cost more.
“Euclid’s Door” is Jim and George’s latest exploration of artisan geometry. In this new book they show you how to build a set of highly accurate and beautiful wooden layout tools using simple geometry and common bench tools. This practical application of geometry will train your hands and mind to use this ancient wisdom. And you’ll end up with a fantastic set of useful tools.
After editing all of George and Jim’s books, I thought I had a pretty good handle on the geometry stuff. I was wrong. This book blew my mind a few times with stuff I should have known. (And now I’m glad I do.)
The book is 8.5” x 11” and 120 pages. It is printed in the USA and is built to be a permanent book, with heavy cover boards and a binding that is glued and sewn.
‘Sharpen This’
My latest book, “Sharpen This,” is the book I wish I had when I was learning woodworking. It might have saved me hundreds of dollars of buying sharpening equipment I didn’t need. And saved me time in learning how to grind, hone and polish.
This book is a short and blunt treatise about common bench tools: chisels and planes mostly. (Exotic tools and saws need their own books, really.) It seeks to explain how sharpening really works and what you need to do the job well – and no more.
It is not about one sharpening system. It’s about all of them. It is not trying to sell you some stones or jigs or magic paper. Instead, it is trying to give you the foundational knowledge you need in sharpening so you can make good decisions and – perhaps more importantly – ignore the vast piles of sharpening crap that companies are trying to sell you.
The book is 4” x 6.5” and is 120 pages. The book is printed and bound in the USA using quality materials and a sewn binding. It is designed to last a lifetime. “Sharpen This” is the same trim size as “The Woodworker’s Pocket Book,” and easily fits in the slipcases made by Texas Heritage.
— Christopher Schwarz
Is it really appropriate to have a “blunt treatise” about sharpening? Just asking….
I seem to remember you having slightly NSFW stickers that said “Sharpen This.” Maybe you should bring them back so people can buy them as a set LOL
Nice! I now count these as number 64 and 65 bearing the LAP imprint. That’s pretty phenomenal.
Word. They are on a roll. Rock and roll artists of the books, chairs and Dutch tool chests.
Thank you. Thank you. . Thank you. My sharpening still sucks. Need all the help i can get. Cheers
Excellent, I have been eagerly awaiting the release of both of these books.
Because I am north of the border I usually order the PDFs from you and get the hard covers once Lee Valley has them in stock. However Shopify wants to charge me $10 shipping on these PDFs. I don’t remember this happening the last time I ordered. Is this an artifact of the issues you were having the other day or have I done something to cause this? I double checked my cart and both items say PDF only.
That’s not right. Investigating and will report back.
Try now. If it gives you trouble send an email to help@lostartpress.com.
Worked like a charm! Thank you.
it was broken for me, but now fixed (also north of the order). Try switching browsers if still broken for you – might be a caching issue.. Sorry aboot that.
At some point in life, adding an image of the Table of Contents for Euclids Door would be great. Thank you
I have added the contents to the store page. And here it is as well:
Table of Contents
Foreword………………………………………………………………… VII
Introduction……………………………………………………………….IX
1. Laying a Foundation………………………………………………. 1
2. The Builder’s Bootstrap………………………………………….11
3. Build a Set of Winding Sticks………………………………… 23
4. Make a Try Square……………………………………………… 35
5. Tools for Layout: Marking Squares………………………… 55
6. Beyond Right Angles: Some Handy Triangles………….67
7. Build Miter Squares……………………………………………….81
8. Build a Panel Gauge…………………………………………….. 93
Will you be shipping them to the UK fast enough for us to benefit from the free pdf option?
I know you will say it is up to Classic hand Tools to order them, and I have prodded them, but I guess that won’t happen in time … 🙁
John
Speaking of “…stuff I should have known. (And now I’m glad I do.)”…
Thumbing (or paging I guess) through Euclid’s Door this morning I came across the winding sticks on stilts section and the concept of cutting shallow/narrow rabbets on either side of wide boards before traversing. As George and Jim note “Once the tracks are parallel over the length of the board they become the guides to remove all of the material in the center of the board.”
This seems incredibly useful for wide/long boards – i.e. the slab benchtop for the Moravian workbench that I currently have under construction. A simple, elegant, and seemingly obvious concept, that I haven’t seen or read about before. Looking forward to sitting down this evening to begin reading the full text ins search of other “mind blowing” concepts.
Done! I’ll get Walker’s stuff even if I don’t build the tools, and gotta hear what LAP says about sharpening. But I didn’t see Apple Pay as an option. I really do prefer that; I hope you haven’t dropped it.
Just ordered, however… I could have sworn that I was on your experimental one time only email list to be informed when this became available, but no email appeared in any folders. A little fyi, given the fun with technology you seem to have been having lately.
Email arrived at 7:18 this morning. Real.people still faster than autoimagic electrons…
I must ask if “Sharpen This” is “The Last Word On Sharpening” (video) in book form? It sounds like it might be. The video was excellent. Yes, it taught me about sharpening but it also taught me how to think about sharpening so that it is second nature now. Since I love reading I’m going to buy the book anyway.
Basically yes.
Do you have any idea when the slipcases will be back in stock at Texas Heritage?
Nope! Jason is the only one who can answer that.
Email issues? I had a small problem with my order of “Sharpen This” so I sent an email to help@lostartpress.com . It has been 24 hrs and I have not received a response. I understand you may be busy, but just checking if there are known problems.
I have alerted them to see what is up….
Thank you – appreciate your help.
We are basically three people, so it’s difficult to keep up during the peak season. Sorry.
I purchased both books and just received them. Looking forward to reading both and putting the knowledge to use in the shop. Looking at them side by side, I’m curious about the a book design for these two. The Sharpen This book has very small page margins (almost uncomfortably so). And the Euclid’s Door book has this interesting asymmetrical margin thing happening with more white space on the outside edge. Not a problem, but I’m curious what drives that design choice.
Hi Matt,
The typography and page design of both are very intentional. I designed our pocket books (such as “Sharpen This”) to have a 1940s British vibe. The close letter spacing and tight margins (and the small trim size) were a reaction to materials shortages in post-war Britain. I selected this feel to reflect the same struggles we are feeling during the pandemic. And to keep the price reasonable ($20) in these times of inflation and economic uncertainty.
The page design in “Euclid’s Door” is a very mild personal joke. I introduced the asymmetry to the pages as a contrast to the geometrical symmetry that is one of the book’s core principles.
Thanks for the insight. I assumed it was very intentional, and was curious what was behind the design choices. I love the asymmetrical counterpoint. Take care.