Lost Art Press

Author: Lost Art Press

Publisher of woodworking books and videos specializing in hand tool techniques.

The Hardware Store Under the River

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While working in Omaha, Nebraska, last week I took a couple hours to visit an exhibit of thousands of tools and household implements from the mid-19th century that had been preserved in the mud of the Missouri River.

The objects – more than 250,000 – were recovered in 1968-69 from the wreck of the Bertrand, a sternwheel steamboat that was hauling goods from St. Louis to the Montana Territory in 1865. During its maiden journey, the steamboat hit a log and sank. No one on board was killed, but most of the cargo was lost to the mud of the river.

A modern painting of the Bertrand.

The oxygen-deprived atmosphere preserved most of the cargo. And when the ship was found in 1968 by a couple of treasure-seekers looking for mercury, they unlocked a time capsule of material culture in the United States from the mid-19th century.

The permanent exhibit is at the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge, a serene river setting that encompasses land in both Iowa and Nebraska. Walking through the exhibit is like visiting a Main Street in 1865 America. There’s stuff from the General Store – pickles (still green), canned food, honey, sauces and household implements. The Hardware Store – tools for woodworking, farming, mining and homesteading. The Gun Shop. The Haberdashery. The Shoe Shop. And the Liquor Store – so much liquor (especially champagne). Oh, and nuts. Peanuts still in their shells.

A mandrel for a circular saw.

The front part of the exhibit shows samples from the collection, nicely displayed. But what is shocking are the racks and racks and racks behind the displays that are filled with even more of these objects.

The ones on display have been cleaned, and it is remarkable to see how some of them still look brand new (especially the sharpening stones). 

Brand-new sharpening stones from 1865.
The rusted-together nails from the Bertrand.

My favorite part (and I’m not alone) were the nail kegs. The square nails had rusted into one big keg-shaped mass, and then the barrel had rotted away.

There are also lots of fascinating details about the collection. The matches they found amongst the cargo were still so potent that they kept accidentally igniting – setting one of the researcher’s pants on fire.

If you are ever in the Omaha area, it’s worth a visit. Now I just need to get to the similar exhibit in Kansas City – the Arabia Steamboat Museum.

— Christopher Schwarz

Another cool detail from the exhibit. Many of the items were packed in sawdust and wood chips, which is why delicate things survived. The wood swelled up when it got wet and immobilized everything for its journey to the next century.

For Sale: Cherry Comb-back from ‘The Stick Chair Journal’

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This six-stick comb-back chair with a narrow comb is the chair I built for the first issue of The Stick Chair Journal. I spent about a year gradually changing details on my chairs to arrive at this design, which features a four-piece arm with mitered arms.

This chair, which is built using Pennsylvania black cherry, is set up for dining or relaxing. The back leans 17° off the seat, and the seat is tilted 5°, so the back is a generous 22° off the floor. The seat is 17” above the floor, which is a good height for most sitters. Overall, the chair is 39” tall, 28” wide, 23” deep and weighs 16-1/2 pounds.

 

The hands of the chair feature through-tenons that have been shaped pyramidal. The stretchers also use through-tenons, which add strength to the chair’s undercarriage. Also worth noting: The shoe is attached with both glue and two blacksmith-made roseheads – a tip of the hat to the iron hardware that sometimes holds together old examples of vernacular chairs.

Like all of my chairs, this one shows texture and evidence of the tools used to make it. There are subtle rasp marks in places. All the angles of the chair’s legs, stretchers and sticks are sighted by eye and without jigs. So there are small variations – some might say imperfections. I’ve never had complaints from customers, but I like to make it clear this is not like a factory-made chair.

The joints are assembled with hide glue and oak wedges, so the joints are strong but can be easily repaired by future generations. The finish is a home-cooked linseed oil/wax finish that has no dangerous solvents. The finish offers low protection, but it is easy to repair by the owner with no special skills or tools.

Purchasing the Chair

This chair is being sold via silent auction. (I’m sorry but the chair cannot be shipped outside the U.S.) If you wish to buy the chair, send an email to lapdrawing@lostartpress.com before 3 p.m. (Eastern) on Thursday, May 26. In the email please use the subject line “Chair Sale” and include your:

  • First name and last name
  • Bid
  • U.S. shipping address
  • Daytime phone number (this is for the trucking quote only). You will not receive a phone call or get put on a mailing list. I really dislike that stuff.

Shipping options: You are welcome to pick up the chair here in Covington, Ky., and also pick up a free yardstick and pencil. I am happy to deliver the chair personally for free within 100 miles of Cincinnati, Ohio. Or we can ship it to you via LTL. The cost varies (especially these days), but it is usually between $200 and $300. 

— Christopher Schwarz

Not the Sharpest Chisel in the Roll

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The first cover of the first printing of our first book. Designed in about 15 minutes.

When we sent our first book, “The Art of Joinery,” to press 15 years ago, I was teaching a class at Kelly Mehler’s School of Woodworking in Kentucky and got a phone call from the pre-press shop.

“The interior folio looks fine,” the voice said. “But what are you going to put on the cover?”

I stood there, dumbfounded. John and I hadn’t even thought about the cover.

So on my lunch break I grabbed my laptop and whipped up the cover above in about 15 minutes. I laid out the text and thought: Should we put some image on the cover? I quickly scanned through the images in the book and – with about two seconds of thought – threw the dividers on there. I sent the cover to pre-press and ran back to finish the class.

And that is how we got our company’s logo – dividers. 

Believe it or not, it took a while for us to catch on that our books needed cover images. When I worked in corporate publishing, the cover and title were things that were settled and discussed by people way above my pay grade. So it wasn’t something I thought much about.

So “The Essential Woodworker” went through the same oh-crap-I-forgot-the-cover process as “The Art of Joinery.” It really wasn’t until “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” that my head really began thinking much about our books’ covers’.

A quick mock-up of the new diestamp for “The Essential Woodworker.”

These days I spend more time working on the cover – though we don’t fret over the marketing aspect of it. Like all aspects of our books, the cover is a joint decision between the author and me. So many times the cover is remarkably unmarketable. Which I love.

Now that we have Megan on board as the full-time editor, I have more time to breathe, think and look beyond the flaming crisis of the day. So this week I spent some time redesigning the cover of “The Essential Woodworker” by Robert Wearing, which is one of our core books. We are in the process of reprinting it for its 11th printing, and I don’t know when the new cover will appear. Likely this fall. And I don’t know if the cover cloth will be blue. Cloth shortages are wreaking havoc with our titles. (Have you seen the new cloth on “With the Grain?” I like it, but it wasn’t our first choice – or our eighth.)

Some days I am amazed we are still in business. 

— Christopher Schwarz

Getting Weird on the ‘Why Make?’ Podcast

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Look, I know y’all are here for the posts by Suzo “the Saucy Indexer” Ellison and Megan. But if you aren’t totally sick of me and my voice, there’s a new podcast out there that might amuse you.

The Why Make? guys interviewed me last year for their podcast with high-end makers and artists. I am definitely the outlier when it comes to their guests.

In the podcast, we delve into my early days as a business boy. My first woodworking business? Making jewelry from bark I found in my neighbor’s mulch. Then selling it to the younger kids in the neighborhood. I also had a brief spat trying to counterfeit $100 bills that didn’t end well.

Luckily, I got some ethics installed in my redneck brain.

Listen to the podcast here.

And if you want to hear a really cool episode of Why Make? Check out this one with Michael Puryear.

— Christopher Schwarz

Tour of Our Workshop Waist Apron

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Our new Workshop Waist Apron is made in the USA and built to last. I have destroyed so many aprons made of “ballistic cloth” and other high-tech fabrics. This cotton canvas one takes a real beating. Above is a quick video discussing its development and features.

— Christopher Schwarz