We have more Crucible Type 2 Dividers in the warehouse and ready to ship. And we have another batch in the pipeline. Dividers are $120 plus domestic shipping.
Also, we have a second run of “The Family Tree of Chairs” letterpress posters in the works. These will be printed in glorious PMS 364 U (aka green). We hope to begin selling those in two weeks. The price will be the same. And we will reach out to our international distributors to see if they want to carry them. No promises – it’s up to them and not us.
The new cover cloth for “The Stick Chair Book.” We had to switch colors because one of our vendors stopped making the cloth we’ve been using for 14 years.
For the last 13 years, our books were printed on a reliable schedule. Five weeks after we sent a book to press, a semi would show up at my house (in a torrential rainstorm) with pallets of books for us to unload.
During the last 18 months, however, the printing industry has turned upside down. There are crazy paper shortages. Getting the cotton cloth we use for our hardcover books has become impossible. (Holliston stopped making it because it can’t get the raw materials.)
The pandemic is to blame in part. But U.S. printing plants were shutting down and consolidating before the first COVID cough.
What does this mean for Lost Art Press and y’all? Well, we are better off than most small publishers. We have long-term relationships with our printing plants, so we can still get time on press. But the big publishers are bullies, and they are first in line thanks to their fat checkbooks.
So the biggest change ahead is that our books will take longer to come out. In the olden days, “The Stick Chair Book” would be sitting in our warehouse right now. Today, we are negotiating to get it printed in October.
Other changes ahead: We’re going to have to change the cover cloth colors of almost all of our titles in the coming year. So some of our books will look different. We’re switching to more expensive cover cloth, but we hope to hold retail prices where they are. Also, some books will have to use a different paper (I can’t get 70# opaque at a decent price to save my soul). But again, we are opting to use better paper and eat the extra expense for as long as we can.
There are some quick solutions available to our problems. We could print overseas, switch to web-press printing for all our books, use perfect binding and softcover (which are easier and cheaper to do). We could also stop using cotton cover cloth altogether and switch to another cover material (rayon? vinyl?).
None of those solutions appeal to us. So instead, we’re going to keep on the same course. This might result in some books going out of stock for a month or two. And for that I apologize. We are going to do everything we can to stay fully stocked until the industry regains its balance, but I’m sure we’ll make some mistakes.
Sorry that this reads like an automotive recall letter.
I’ve just completed this comb-back stick chair in oak with a blue-green paint finish and am offering it for sale for $1,200 plus domestic shipping.
The chair is based on the Scottish Darvel chair, and it is designed for dining or keyboarding. The seat is 17” off the floor, and the back tilts at 15°. The overall height of the chair is just under 42”.
Construction features of this chair:
The stretchers are pitched low on the legs, giving the chair an old-school stance.
The legs are joined to the seat using tapered and wedged tenons. The more you sit on the seat, the tighter the joints become.
All joints are put together with hide glue, so the chair is easily repairable by future generations.
The arm and comb are steambent oak with no short grain.
The oak seat is gently saddled by hand, like many vernacular chairs.
All surfaces are finished with edge tools (planes and scrapers). So all the surfaces feature fine facets.
The finish is a hand-brushed and durable acrylic paint.
This design is one of the chairs featured in my forthcoming “The Stick Chair Book.”
Purchase Information
Send an email to fitz@lostartpress.com. Ask as many questions as you like, but the first person to say “I’ll take it” gets it. The price includes a custom wooden crate and packing. Shipping is via common carrier. Typically shipping runs $100 to $200, depending on the destination. Delivery is free within 100 miles of Cincinnati. You can also pick the chair up at our storefront.
If we had a company motto, it would be something like this: “If it were easy to do, then every idiot would do it.”
It’s something we say to ourselves when we’re fighting to find enough cotton cloth for a run of books, or a vendor for hinges for our dividers, or looking for damn Chicago screws without a burr on the underside of the head that has to be machined off and who does that and why am I not able to finish this sentence like a normal person?
And so we look to Craig Jackson for salvation.
Craig is the machinist we use for a lot of parts. He’s like if Matlock and Columbo had a baby. He’s easy to underestimate because of his Kentucky accent, and you do that at your own peril.
Anyway, for the last few weeks, we’ve been wrestling with the tips of our Crucible dividers. They have been getting bent in transit, and we’ve tried lots of strategies to stop the damage. All through the process, Craig kept saying: I can show customers how to heat-treat the tips at home.
But we ignored him. At our peril.
Finally, we came up with a solution with the CNC mill that would strengthen the tips. Craig said it would work, but he also sent this message:
“Heat treating the tips now.”
OK, because we live in a litigious society I have to say: Don’t do this, you fool. It’s a joke. You will hurt yourself badly (but please tell us if the tips increased in Rockwell hardness).
Good news and bad news on the Crucible Type 2 Dividers. We will have 101 pairs for sale at our open day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at our storefront.
The bad news: We had to raise the price to $120. Steel prices are going up every time we order, and we are even lucky to have a supplier of steel at this point. I’ll be on hand to show people how to sharpen them (it takes only a minute). If you can’t attend, you can watch this quick video here.
If we have any remaining from this batch of 101, we’ll put them up in the online store next week. (Also, we are making more today.)
Other Important Information for the Open Day
Health and safety: Our ZIP code has just crossed over into the “accelerated” classification for COVID spread, and so masks are recommended indoors. Likely we’ll be wearing them. We ask that everyone maintain 6’ distance – so no hugging Megan or French kissing me.
Blemished books: We have a bunch of them from the last 19 months. Blemished books are 50 percent off retail and are cash only. Sorry, we cannot ship blemished books.
Meet the staff: The entire Lost Art Press staff will be on hand at different times during the day – not just me and Megan Fitzpatrick. That means you might get to meet Kara Gebhart Uhl (our managing editor) or John (co-owner).
We don’t know how many people will show; we hope it’s fun and not a slaughterhouse madhouse.
