My book on Roman workbenches and early workholding is now a free download for everyone. You don’t have to register, or give up your email, or sign up for sausage-making lessons. You can just click here, and the download will begin.
If you forget to do this, you can always go to the book’s page in our store and download it from there.
This is the seventh book of mine that I have made free to download. It is a small way to help people get started in the craft who might not have a big budget. Here are the other six free titles.
“The Anarchist’s Tool Chest”
“The Anarchist’s Design Book”
“The Anarchist’s Workbench”
“The Art of Joinery”
“Roman Workbenches”
“The Stick Chair Book”
I am working toward making all my books available for a free download. Sometimes this involves getting permission from others who have a stake in the book. That’s why it takes some time and effort.
— Christopher Schwarz
Aww man! I just bought the print+pdf combo. Oh well, I hope my contribution helps! 🙂
I can’t find your order under the email you are using. Send a note to help@lostartpress.com and they will refund the difference.
Thank you very much, and all the best for 2025!
Thank you sincerely.
Very kind! Thank you!
Extremely generous.
Where do we sign up for sausage-making lesson?
But if I would like to sign up for sausage making lessons, I still can, right ?
Seriously, though, thank you for this and everything else you all do.
I just wanna say: I really appreciate that you do this. Thank you <3
I just signed up for your course in Melbourne Australia……I thought I was going to make a chair. I suppose making sausages would be OK, if we made some tomato sauces too?
Thanks for the free book. You are a star!
Thank you very much… this is a great oportunity.
I am a cabinetmaker’s apprentice and at the same time I teach and I find the content of your books very enriching, they are great content for classes; But not all the people who come to the workshop can read in English. Are you planning to translate a book or some sections into Spanish one day?
Can you image if you still worked a corporate job and suggested to offer the PDF’s for free? You’d be laughed out of the room. Yet, your business is thriving. Would love some day to see a blog posting (probably already done) on your thoughts of how to run a business ethically and responsibly.
Semi related, I try not to pay too much attention to folks who have been formally trained in “business” type majors in school. They seem way too comfortable with debt and leveraging it and truly not understating the risks involved.
Fantastic. I believe there’s relatively few people that are genuinely interested in these books that are satisfied with digital copies. I think (hope?) these books will be downloaded a lot, and be spread further on. But only a fraction of a percent of these copies would have been actual books if the pdf’s weren’t there.
For sure a lot of these free copies will find their way to people that are interested in woodworking but never ever would have been in the customer base. The books will serve as an inspiration or even spark an interest for woodworking.
Thanks very much!
I fully agree with you. I know the books will last for centuries. Still doubtful same can be said for electronic versions. Wrote my Ph.D. In 1996 on a computer. I really no longer have the electronic versions but I have the printed copy. If I wanted an electronic version, I’d have to buy a PDF of it. I know the margins were really strict and I was told that was because Library of Congress would scan it but I can’t confirm that.
I actually built a frankenhybrid of the Saalbach & Herculaneum benches based entirely on the ingenius_mechanicks_excerpt pdfs that were posted on the book’s page, and ended up buying a physical copy to see the parts that weren’t in the sample pdfs. Thank you for making this a free download, I may eventually build a full sized bench, but a low workbench is very capable if you know the tricks from the book and have stool to sit alongside it…
Chris has written many over the years. try using the search feature.
Well, for those people the risk is abstract, it is not them and their families taking the hit.
Plus the idea behind LAP was (as you can read in The Anarchist ‘s Workbench, if memory serves me correctly) was to do everything not the way big publishers do …
Chris, I deeply respect you, your attitude, your dedication. You live what you preach, and there’s too few who really do that.
An invaluable contribution to our craft. So easy to read and find inspiration. Thanks so much for sharing these insights with our community.
To all at Lost Art Press: Thank you! Thank you for sharing this and your collective knowledge to all of us. LAP has made me a better woodworker and perhaps helped me deal with the other @#!* stuff!
Have a happy, healthy, and safe New Years. I tip my cap to all of you.
Thank you very much for this! I feel this is a good place to share this, offer a bit of my world in exchange. This is the only book I came across presenting the traditional Romanian woodworking art. It has been digitised and made freely available through a government initiative. I think Chris carved a Romanian symbol at some point, so I hope it will be of interest. The text is in Romanian, but it has lots of pictures. This is the link
https://biblioteca-digitala.ro/?pub=7587-arta-taraneasca-a-lemnului
Thank you so much for these PDFs. I always buy the book, but twice I have read the PDF before the book arrived. Thank you so much for all the help.
Thank you, Chris! I hope the entire LAP family has a bright and joyous New Year!
I bought copies of many of those when you had your sale, despite the PDF being free. Of course I already read the PDF & refer to it. Some might still be in the wrapper waiting for me to browse on the bookshelf.
Thanks for this Chris,
it was great catching up with you all in East London back in November
Have a great 2025 and best wishes with the new books planned 😀