For the first time ever, we have the ability to live stream stuff from our shop in Covington, Ky. It’s still pretty low-tech (it will be through a laptop camera) but it’s a start.
To break in the new technology, we will hold a live “Question Time” session at 11 a.m. (Eastern) on Jan. 30. Megan Fitzpatrick and I will answer as many questions as possible about woodworking, publishing and possum menstrual cycles as we can handle in one hour.
You will be able to tune in live, or watch the recording later. Here’s how to participate:
Send your questions *beforehand* to Megan at fitz@lostartpress.com. The earlier the better. Please make the subject line of your email “livestream question” to ensure it’s not a question about where your darn book is. Like I said, we are happy to answer any sort of question about woodworking, woodland animals or our books. Please send your question as early as possible so we have time to make up a response that involves an Estonian limerick.
Tune in at 11 a.m. Saturday (Eastern). Use this link to watch it live. We’ll also put up an embedded window on the blog Saturday morning to make it easy for you. If you cannot watch live, we will post the recording sometime Saturday afternoon on the blog.
Please remember: We are not professional actors. The talk will likely be PG13 (partial nudity, strong language, adult situations). So take that into account if you are working at a day care facility.
Most of all, please send questions beforehand so we don’t have to make some up.
We’ve wanted to bring the Crucible dividers back into production and (here is the crazy part) actually not lose money in the process. The original dividers took entirely way too much time to polish. There was a lot of waste. And they were fussy to assemble.
With the help of mechanical designer Josh Cook (also a woodworker), we are now inching toward production. We have a working prototype. A hinge mechanism that is robust. And we are working with our machinist to streamline the production process to make the parts easy to mill and as inexpensive as possible.
Still, these won’t be cheap. We are shooting for a retail of $100 to $120.
There are lots of changes inside and out on the dividers. The surface finish is different. And the tension will be adjusted with a straight screwdriver. But they work just as well (in my opinion, and I use dividers every day at the bench).
I don’t have a timeline, yet. I hope we will have these in the store this summer, but that might be optimistic if we hit a snag.
On Feb. 1 we will discontinue all the “print on demand” products in our store. That includes all the T-shirts, sweatshirts and hats. You can see our current selection here.
We are not (repeat, not) discontinuing our bandanas, chore coat, vest or pullover work shirt.
So if you want one of these print-on-demand products, place your order before Feb. 1.
Why Chris, why? Two reasons: We want all our apparel to be made like our books, tools, chore coats and vests. In other words, we want them made by small companies that take pride in their work and produce top quality. Until now, I viewed T-shirts as a commodity product. I don’t anymore.
Second, the “print on demand” service we use has done a good job (considering the pandemic), but I think the prices are a bit high for what we get. And we don’t control the stock. Or quality control. Or customer service.
So Tom Bonamici, our clothing designer, is now investigating offering a nice USA-made T-shirt. Something high-quality and special, like our books. We also will have new hats in the store from Ebbets Field Flannels next month.
Make Your Own Dang Shirt What if you like having a scruffy T-shirt with our logo on it? We have you covered. You can download the logos we use on our shirts here. You have our permission to use them to make shirts for your personal use (or gifts). There are lots of places that will make you a shirt on demand (or a baby onesie, thong or hotpants). Go nuts.
We have opened pre-publication ordering for “The Woodworker’s Pocket Book,” which is currently at the printer and is expected to ship in March. This important reference book is $13 and is built to withstand daily use in a hand-tool shop.
This book has been a long-time coming, and I think you’ll be thrilled with the thing.
We also have just restocked on bandanas. These are green, feature a new design from Tom Bonamici and – most importantly – come from a new maker. One Feather Press in East Nashville cuts, sews, prints and washes these bandanas all by hand in a shed. And they are printed on both sides.
‘The Woodworker’s Pocket Book,’ edited by Charles H. Hayward “The Woodworker’s Pocket Book” is small – just 4” x 6-1/2” – but it contains 112 pages of critical woodworking information for the hand-tool woodworker.
Edited by the great Charles H. Hayward and published in 1949, “The Woodworker’s Pocket Book” is a guide to everything from finishing recipes to drawing ellipses to choosing the correct screw or nail.
We own several versions of this book, as it was regularly updated and republished. After reading through all of the versions, we decided to reprint the original edition (with permission, of course). This edition is packed with drawings from Hayward and doesn’t deal much with the metric system, sharpening high-speed steel sawblades or pulley sizes for your machines. In other words, it’s for the woodworker who likes working by hand using fractions, inches and feet.
Also appealing to us is the small size of the book – it literally fits in your back pocket. We recommend keeping it in your tool chest or tool cabinet. It belongs in the shop and is more like a tool than a book.
To ensure the book’s long life, we made sure this book is designed for a shop environment. All our books’ signatures are sewn and taped for durability. We wrapped this one in high-density boards and picked a durable paper that improves on the original’s paper.
Like all our books, “The Woodworker’s Pocket Book” is printed in the United States.
You can read a complete index of the book’s contents here.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. I’m sorry there is no PDF of this book available. We were not able to acquire the electronic rights to the material.
Our retailers have been asking about the tools and books we have planned for 2021. If I have to write this explanation up for them, I might as well let y’all have a look, too.
If a book or tool is not on this list, that means I don’t have a timetable for it. So if you ask when Andrew Lunn’s sawmaking book will be released, my response will be: crickets. Please don’t be offended by this – I simply don’t have any information to give you.
These are roughly in order of when they will be released. Like many manufacturers, we are fighting supply-chain breakages from the paper mills all the way up to the cardboard box supplier we use to ship products.
“The Workbench Book” by Scott Landis We are still taking pre-publication orders for this book. We expect it to ship out in early February. We are also working on getting its companion book, “The Workshop Book,” to the printer by Feb. 1.
“Make a Chair From a Tree (Expanded and Revised Edition)” by Jennie Alexander with Larry Barrett and Peter Follansbee At long last, this should go to the printer in February. We still don’t have a retail price, but I suspect it will be less than $40. This book has been a group effort from people all over the country, and I hope you will be pleased. The layout is just about complete. We have a couple drawings and photos to add. And then some editing. Look for it this summer.
“The Woodworker’s Pocket Book” Edited by Charles H. Hayward This is a book I have wanted to reprint for many years, but we kept hitting obstacles. First printed in 1949, this small handbook (4” x 6-1/2”) is perfect for the hand-tool woodworker. It is filled with finish recipes, workshop geometry, details on tools, practical wood advice, moulding charts from different furniture periods – plus tons of information on using nails, screws and other fittings. I’ve owned a copy for many years and use it all the time. This book is at the printer and should be out in late March. The price will be $13, which is a steal as the book is built to take a beating. We also hope to offer a special slipcase (for an added charge) that screws to the inside of your tool chest or cabinet and keeps the book where it should be – by your tools.
“The Handmade Life of Dick Proenneke” By Monroe Robinson Kara just posted this update on the book last week. So I won’t repeat after her. Linda Watts is now designing the book (the proofs I’ve seen are gorgeous), and Elin Price is still making the illustrations. I don’t have a timetable for this title yet, but I suspect it will be released at the end of the summer.
“The Dutch Tool Chest Book” By Megan Fitzpatrick This is the working title. For all I know, the real title could be “Come Hither, Monkey Bride: A Guide to Dutch Tool Chests.” Megan is doing everything she can to get this book out this year. It will show you how to make two Dutch tool chests with a lot of different variations in the back, lid and how the interiors are arranged. The book will go into great detail on all the handwork, so if this chest is your first hand-tool project, this book will be a great guide.
Crucible Tool We are hard at work on three new tools and hope to release all of them this year. One is a cast planing stop that works like a blacksmith-made stop (with a super-sneaky improvement). The second is an adaptation of A.J. Roubo’s miter square. This square, which has almost disappeared, is insanely useful for hand-tool woodworkers, especially for edge-jointing. And the third tool (fingers crossed) is to bring back our Crucible dividers, redesigned so they are less expensive (and can be manufactured without my wanting to pluck out my own spleen with barbecue tongs).
There also are a couple other books that might make it across the finish line in 2021 (“Guerrilla Chairmaking” is a contender). So stay tuned.
And finally, thank you for all your support and patience in 2020. We shipped 50,502 books and tools directly to customers last year (and sold thousands more through our retailers all over the world). We are still a tiny company. John and I are the only “employees”; Megan, Meghan and Kara are all part-time (but absolutely essential) contractors. So we still feel like we are gulping for air at times. We make mistakes every day, but we try to do a good job and make things right.
