Lost Art Press

Author: fitz

Woodworker, writer, editor, teacher, ailurophile, Shakespearean. Will write for air-dried walnut.

‘The Art of Joinery’ & Beer. And Bourbon.

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Here’s a known fact about Christopher Schwarz: he enjoys beer. And here’s a little-known fact about me: I do not enjoy beer. (But I do love bourbon.)

With the 2012 Woodworking in America Midwest conference coming up in about two weeks, I suspect there might be a bar bill or three to cover. I suspect it will exceed my credit card limit. So, on eBay, I’ve up for auction two of the three copies of the long-sold-out 2008 hardcover “The Art of Joinery” I have in my woodworking library. (I’m hanging on to the last one … until I need money for a kidney transplant.) There is no reserve, and the starting bid on each is 99 cents.

Both of these books are signed by Christopher, and on one copy, Chris drew in a mustache on the frontispiece portrait of Joseph Moxon. I do not know why. There was probably beer involved.

All proceeds will be used to cover libations at Woodworking in America (and one bottle of ibuprofen). So if you win, you can be proud that your money is going to an excellent cause (Pappy van Winkle 15-year, and IPA).

Click here for the mustachioed Moxon auction. For the non-graffito version, click here.

— Megan Fitzpatrick

p.s. The image uploader at eBay is screwy at the moment; I’m told the auction pictures should show up within a couple hours.

The Chestmaker’s Apprentice

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Everything I need for my tool chest shell.

Christopher Schwarz is literally off the grid at the moment – so he has no idea that I’ve commandeered his blog for the weekend (though I suspect he’ll soon figure it out). But it seems appropriate, because I’ve finally begun building my version of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” (ATC).

It’s pathetic that I’ve waited this long.

I watched as Chris built his first ATC in late 2010, before, I think, he’d even come up with the title. He’d leave the Popular Woodworking shop every night (you know…when he still worked for a living) to race home and make dinner for his family, then write until the wee hours. And after he was satisfied with the words, he moved on to the images and book design.

By April 2011, Chris was almost done. I distinctly recall copy editing an almost-final proof of ATC on April 15 and 16 last year. Why? Because there was a Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event (and the public unveiling of Chris’s chest…so to speak) in our office/shop that weekend – so I was wielding my peacock-blue editing pen (it’s so much kinder than red) while also talking with visitors and giving tool demonstrations. And Chris wanted the book off to the printer on April 17. If you have a first edition of the book, well, that explains the crap editing.

So I read the book twice again before the second edition was published (and caught almost all the earlier mistakes) and again before the third edition (at which point I caught, I hope, the rest of them). If you have the latest edition and find an error, I really don’t want to know (but Chris does – feel free to point it out to him).

After “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” was published, Chris started traveling around the world to teach classes on building the chest (like Elvis, he’d by that point left the [PW] building). And I even spent a week as his helper monkey at Roy Underhill’s The Woodwright’s School early this spring, during which I cut what I think was eleventy-billion board feet of poplar for all the students’ skirts, lid pieces, bottom boards and battens. (I’m now awfully good with a panel saw, if I do say so myself). I helped glue up cases and fit skirts, and helped a new woodworker learn to cut his first hand-cut dovetails (though he didn’t need much help).

This is all a (very) long-winded way of saying that I know “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” inside and out – both the book and the construction. Yet I’ve not actually built the darn thing.

Within the next two weeks, if all goes according to plan that will have changed. This morning, I glued up panels for the case front, back and sides (and pesky knotholes have dictated that my chest be just shy of the 24″-wide panels called for; I guess that’s my idea of anarchy?).

Tomorrow, I’ll trim the panels to final size and process the stock for the skirts (yes, I’m using the PWM power equipment for that – sue me). Then, I’ll bring everything home to my hand-tool shop and break out the dovetail saw. My goal is to have the shell, bottom, battens and skirts done by next weekend, at which time I’ll build the lid. But unlike someone else, well, I still have to go to work every day…so I hope I can stick to my plan.

— Megan Fitzpatrick

p.s. Christopher will be back on the grid – but busy teaching – come Monday. He’s back at Roy’s in Pittsboro, N.C., teaching students to build…the Anarchist’s Tool Chest. (This time, he’ll have to do his own rough stock prep.)

p.p.s. The best thing about this build so far? I needed to buy liquid hide glue, and the only place near me that sells it happens to be right next door to Graeter’s. Excellent!

A Poor Student of a Great Teacher

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Last July, I took a class from Peter Follansbee on making a joint stool. It was at Roy Underhill’s The Woodwright’s School in Pittsboro, N.C., where the sun beat down all week and the mercury crossed the 100° mark every day. My people are from peat bogs; I would rather it be 50° and raining than hot and sunny  – and our first two days were spent outside splitting stock from freshly felled red oak logs. But despite the constant threat of heat stroke, I had a marvelous time.

Peter has an arid sense of humor (which I adore) and he is unfailingly generous in sharing his years of woodworking experience, and his deep knowledge of 16th- and 17th-century furniture – not to mention his tools. And working with wet oak was a wholly new experience for me, and a great deal of fun. It seemed revolutionary to me – even though the technique is centuries old – to be able to split off a perfect (or perfect enough) tenon rather than saw it. (And I’m sad you can’t do that with cherry.)

In just one week, most of the 10 students in the class managed to go from a log to a finished drawbored joint stool, complete with shaped legs (some of them turned the legs on Roy’s pole lathe) and a seat with a profiled edge.

I’m chagrined to admit that I was in the minority (as you can no doubt tell from the photo at the top). On the last day, as we were doing a final dry-fit on the tenons in preparation for drawboring, I cut the angle on one of my side stretcher tenons at such a wrong angle that I removed too much material to be able to drawbore it in place. Peter calmly assessed the situation, made me laugh about my mistake, then hewed another stretcher for me from some leftover stock in less than a half-hour, while also helping the other students complete their work. (I’m a horrid hewer; I need a lot more practice and a much stronger wrist.)

By the end of the day, I managed to get the show surface planed and the angles cut on the shoulders of the new stretcher, but the tenons were still square and I didn’t have time to add a bead to match the other three. I think I was having too much fun playing with the gouge and mallet as I cut the simple design shown at right into the aprons – a technique that Peter had me doing with ease in but minutes.

With the class over, I packed all the parts into a tomato flat, tossed them in the back of my car, and drove home to Cincinnati. As soon as I got home, I borrowed from Chris Schwarz a beader to finish the last of the decoration, and I was gung-ho to get the joint stool assembled. I took it into my shop at work … then life got in the way.

As of two days ago, the pieces were languishing at work in the tomato flat, and covered with sawdust. Now, they’re dry-assembled on my bench at home, and I have a couple pins driven. I still have to fit those last two tenons, then drill the holes so I can complete the drawboring.

But I can’t for the life of me remember what Peter told us about pegging the top in place – particularly a two-board top, which is what mine will be.

So I’m delighted that “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” is at the printer; I need it as soon as possible – because I’m not moving those joint stool pieces off my bench until the project is done.

– Megan Fitzpatrick

WIA Surprise No. 2: Anarchist Tool Chest Art Prints

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Just in case you need yet another reason to stop by the Lost Art Press booth at Woodworking in America: we’ll have limited-edition, signed Anarchist Tool Chest art prints for your viewing (and purchasing) pleasure.

There are two prints on offer. One design features a collage of 22 images from “The Anarchist Tool Chest” and a silhouette of the iconic Anarchist’s Square. The other design is a poster-sized version of the “chest design” image on page 354 of the text.

All prints have an imaged area of roughly 20 x 30 inches and are made by me in my studio. And to make things even less straightforward, both designs are available in two formats. Why two formats? Honestly, it’s because Chris had a brain aneurism while trying to decide which format he liked better. Don’t worry—he’s fine now. Mostly.

1: Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308, one of the finest giclée papers in existence. This matte paper seems to absorb light and draws you in like nothing else. The detail, depth and tonality of images printed on it and its velvety texture make it one of my all-time favorites and the gold standard in the fine art print industry:

These sheets are 24” wide by 36” tall, signed at the bottom by both myself and Chris and can be framed like a poster (they won’t be matted and shrink-wrapped version in the photo above). The HPR prints are $80 at the show and will come in a protective bag and rolled in a tube.

2: Canvas Gallery Wrap. These prints are made on a coated cloth canvas, dried, given a protective coating, then stretched by hand onto a wooden frame about 1-1/4″ deep. Images made on canvas have a unique character derived from the surface irregularity of the canvas and the dimensionality of the wrap:

The coating applied to the canvas after the print is made has a slight sheen to it and protects from UV degradation. The wraps can be hung as-is or inset in a frame, offering a very different look on a wall than a traditional framed paper print. These canvas prints measure approximately 20” x 30” and have a black border. They’ll come in a protective sleeve but are a bit unwieldy because they’re mounted on rigid stretcher bars. (They’ll be a great option for those of you driving to Cincinnati). They cost $120 at the show and will also be signed by me and Chris.

We’re bringing a very limited run of all of these prints to WIA: fewer than 50. The prints will be first-come, first serve. And yes, if you buy them at the show we can mail them to you at home (we’ll charge only actual shipping and packaging costs).

After Woodworking in America, we hope to offer these art prints to the rest of our customers. We’ll post details in the coming weeks here on the blog and through the LAP newsletter.

I’ll write a little more on the creation of the ATC images in a later post, but even if you’re not interested in taking one of these prints home for yourself, swing by the Lost Art Press booth at WIA just to see the images produced with greater care and in greater detail than what would ever be possible on the pages of a book.

If there are any questions about the prints, I’m happy to take them in the comments.

— Narayan Nayar, the designer who created the photoillustrations that open the chapters of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest”