Lost Art Press

Month: November 2025

2025 Anarchist’s Gift Guide: Day 4

Posted on by fitz

Hey everybody, it’s that time of year again – it’s the Anarchist’s Gift Guide. We’ve been doing this for more than a decade now, people seem to like it, so I guess we’ll keep it up. Why? Unlike some other gift guides, ours isn’t sponsored. (In fact, if somebody asked us to write about their tool for the gift guide, our standard retort would be: “Why don’t you poop up your own butt?”) This is stuff we use and love. We have 11 offerings this year, and will publish one a day until we’re done. – Chris & Fitz

Conifer and Cairn Angle Setup Blocks

When I was self-employed, I thought about making setup blocks for Lie-Nielsen honing guides and selling them – a piece of plastic cutting board screwed to a block a wood to quickly be able to set the perfect projection of a plane blade for a 35° secondary angle. But I didn’t do it, because that sounded like work.

Enter John Byer, a woodworker in Indiana. He makes HDPE setting blocks for the Lie-Nielsen honing guide (25°, 30° and 35°) and the same angles for the Veritas Side Clamping Honing Guide. We have both.

They’re large enough to handle any blade that fits in the guide, and they are priced to make you never make your own again. Most of all, they are quite durable. Our wooden angle-setting guides got chewed up in no time. So far, the HDPE has proven quite resilient. – Fitz

2025 Anarchist’s Gift Guide: Day 5

Posted on by fitz

Hey everybody, it’s that time of year again – it’s the Anarchist’s Gift Guide. We’ve been doing this for more than a decade now, people seem to like it, so I guess we’ll keep it up. Why? Unlike some other gift guides, ours isn’t sponsored. (In fact, if somebody asked us to write about their tool for the gift guide, our standard retort would be: “Why don’t you poop up your own butt?”) This is stuff we use and love. We have 11 offerings this year, and will publish one a day until we’re done. – Chris & Fitz

Baby Bessey Tradesman Clamps

We own dozens of the 6″ Bessey F-style clamps for our shop. These miniature clamps get into places that our big clamps can’t. They are especially ideal for tricky repairs where you need a lot of strength applied to a small place and at a weird angle.

We always bought our 4″ clamps from the home center or when our local woodworking supplier, Mueller, would put them on sale. They’re made in China and use zinc castings. They are OK, and I didn’t think there were other options available.

While teaching in Germany one summer I picked up one of the small Bessey clamps in the shop where I was working and was shocked to see it was German-made and was part of the company’s Tradesman line of clamps, which are the best.

This German clamp was considerably different than our Chinese-made Besseys. It had malleable iron jaws and could crank down with more pressure than the Chinese ones. Plus, the German version had two plastic pads instead of one.

The Chinese-made Bessey.

I bought a bunch of these small Tradesman clamps in Germany and shipped them back to the States. You can do the same thing – Dictum carries them. They are also being sold by Rob Cosman in Canada, who has been trying to get Bessey to sell them in North America for a long time.

If you don’t have any small F-styles, you should definitely fix that deficiency. And the little Tradesman ones are the best. The ones I imported are the TG10/100×50 clamps. These have 4” opening with a 2” jaw depth. – CS

New Book in the Queue: ‘Marquetry for Everyone’

Posted on by fitz
Albert Kleine

I am pleased to announce that we’ve just signed a contract with Albert Kleine; he’s hard at work on a book that, in effect, democratizes marquetry, making it accessible to everyone. I don’t know when it will be available, but after spending a weekend with Albert, I feel certain he’s not one to dally – so likely less (and possibly far less) than the typical two-year cycle between contract and finished book. (But no promises!)

I’ll let Albert tell you about the project himself, interspersed with a few pictures of his work. The passages below are excerpted from his book overview. And you can see more from Albert in the meantime on his Instagram feed.

– Fitz

Marquetry is incredibly accessible and can be practiced by anybody, anywhere, at pretty
much any time. This book is a thorough beginner’s guide, covering things I’ve discovered in
my own journey, along with a few projects to introduce skills and get the creative juices
flowing.

Marquetry as an art is a lot like French cooking in Ratatouille. And while I don’t think
there are any real Anton Egos in the world of marquetry actively trying to
discourage folks from trying it out (I also don’t think the stakes are as high as, uh,
death) the craft can be less than accommodating and welcoming all on its own.

  • The work appears to be extremely delicate, so it gives off an air of requiring a
    high amount of skill. When people see my work, they always assume that I must
    have some innate ability that they cannot possibly obtain. I assure you I do not.
  • Like fine French cuisine, marquetry is typically only found in high price places
    (on higher end furniture pieces), and thus most people only encounter it briefly
    and are left with the impression that it is rare and luxurious.
  • It requires tools that are unfamiliar to most woodworkers – let alone people –
    which adds to the mystique of the marquetatarian.
  • The practice is filled with jargon, and if people who practice the craft aren’t
    interested in being accommodating and welcoming, that jargon can scare folks
    away.
  • If marquetry is the French cuisine of this story, then I am the Chef Gusteau telling you
    to stop listening to the Anton Egos of the world, whether external or (much more
    likely!) internal, pick up a fret saw, and get to work.

Despite all the barriers listed above, over the course of this book, I will convince you
that marquetry is indeed for everyone.

  • The skill can be acquired fairly quickly. Whenever I teach, people with zero
    experience are cutting and fitting pieces by the end of day one. Because every
    single cut is pretty much the same, once you have that down, then you know
    pretty much all the technique that you’ll need to know. And because every cut is
    the same, if you give yourself a large project, by the end you’ll inevitably be a
    master at cutting.
  • Tools are extremely low cost and very easy to obtain, even if they are weird. An
    entire kit can be purchased for less than $50, and that will keep you going for the
    rest of your life.
  • Materials are incredibly low cost — even large and intricate projects have low
    material costs. I’ve had commissions of many thousands of dollars that have
    essentially negligible material costs — all the value is in the labor.
  • You can do it anywhere! There is no power, and the noise level is actually quite low
    unlike other hand tool endeavors (chopping dovetails).
  • Being able to do it anywhere also means that you can do it any time. This is
    important in the modern world where people juggle family and work
    life with their hobbies. Marquetry is so self contained, quiet, and low mess that
    I can easily pick up a project for a few minutes here and there when I can.
  • You’ll quickly realize that the jargon is just a weak facade, and once it starts to
    crumble away you’ll see just how simple all of this is.

2025 Anarchist’s Gift Guide: Day 3

Posted on by fitz

Hey everybody, it’s that time of year again – it’s the Anarchist’s Gift Guide. We’ve been doing this for more than a decade now, people seem to like it, so I guess we’ll keep it up. Why? Unlike some other gift guides, ours isn’t sponsored. (In fact, if somebody asked us to write about their tool for the gift guide, our standard retort would be: “Why don’t you poop up your own butt?”) This is stuff we use and love. We have 11 offerings this year, and will publish one a day until we’re done. – Chris & Fitz

Veritas Mk. II Power Sharpening System

This accolade is long overdue. I bought one of the Veritas Mk. II Power Sharpening Systems when they first came out. I liked it, but it took some getting used to. The fact that you are working on a flat plate requires some practice because the outside rim of the platter sharpens faster than the interior. This makes a difference on wide blades, especially.

After mastering the hand motions to get the results I wanted, the machine slowly wormed its way into my heart. And my stationary dry grinder started feeling lonely.

For the most part, I use the Veritas as a precision grinder. The #80-grit platter rarely leaves the machine. And recently, I’ve infected Megan with the machine’s charms.

Why do I love it so? It’s so easy to get a dead-straight grind on tools that really need it, such as blades for shoulder planes and rabbet planes. It’s not as fast as my dry grinder, but that’s a good thing. It’s just fast enough to be convenient. And just slow enough that I don’t trash my blades by accident.

The other thing I love about it is that it allows me to grind short blades, such as my spokeshaves, without any fuss. It has a separate setting for short tools that comes in handy.

Finally, I like grinding gouges freehand on the machine. It’s easy to rest the gouge on the tool’s crossbar and grind away.

When grinding, be sure to keep a cup of water handy for cooling your tools. They will heat up quickly. After dunking your tools, shake them off but let a few drops remain on the blade as you return to grinding. As the drops heat up and boil away, you’ll know you have reached 212° F. And that it’s time to cool the tool again.

I don’t use the Veritas much for polishing. I prefer to use my Shapton waterstones for that. But for grinding tools, it’s my first choice. Made in Canada, the Veritas Mk. II Power Sharpening System is extremely durable and continues to run well despite more than a decade of built-up swarf. – CS

2025 Anarchist’s Gift Guide: Day 2

Posted on by fitz

Hey everybody, it’s that time of year again – it’s the Anarchist’s Gift Guide. We’ve been doing this for more than a decade now, people seem to like it, so I guess we’ll keep it up. Why? Unlike some other gift guides, ours isn’t sponsored. (In fact, if somebody asked us to write about their tool for the gift guide, our standard retort would be: “Why don’t you poop up your own butt?”) This is stuff we use and love. We have 11 offerings this year, and will publish one a day until we’re done. – Chris & Fitz

Veritas PMV11 blade in a Lie-Nielsen Smooth Plane

Nothing is magic, but I’d call call the combination of a Veritas PMV-11 iron in my Lie-Nielsen No. 3 magic-adjacent. Why? Something about carbides/rocks…on which Chris will pontificate a bit below. Why it adds up, though, is that A2 can be a little toothy on the edge, and as a result leave a not-mirror shine behind when used in a smooth plane blade. The purpose of the smooth plane is to make it look pretty; the PMV-11 blade does a better job of making it so.

Plus it’s easy to sharpen, hone and polish (and arguably holds a sharp edge a bit longer, though to quote Shania Twain: that don’t impress me much, since I know how to sharpen). – Fitz

Chris’s take: Lie-Nielsen has refined its A2 blades so they are are excellent, as good as I’ve used. But the PMV-11 is just a little bit better in my opinion. After long experience with both, I find the PMV-11 sharpens faster. It feels like good old O1 on the stones. It takes a wicked sharp edge. And it lasts a lot longer than O1 (and noticeably longer than any A2). If you are happy with your A2 blade, don’t switch. But if you want something a little more, then the PMV-11 is the answer. I use my stock Lie-Nielsen chipbreaker with the PMV-11 blade without any problems, FYI. – CS