Lost Art Press

Author: Lost Art Press

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

FAQ: ‘Will my Local Retailer Carry this New Book?’

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The above question is one we answer every day. And no matter how many times we repeat our answer (many times it’s even woven into our announcement of a new title), people still ask. So here’s the answer:

We don’t know. Our individual retailers get to decide which Lost Art Press books they carry and which they don’t. 

Plus, every retailer orders books on different schedules, so we have no idea if Lee Valley or Dictum is going to carry a book until months later when they issue a purchase order.

Our recommendation: Send a note to your local retailer asking if they are going to carry the title you are interested in. Chances are if enough people ask about the book, they will carry it.

The Ordering Process

For those of you who want all the details, here is how we sell books to retailers. When a book is released, Lost Art Press is the sole source for that title for 30 days. This gives us a small headstart on selling our own title to our regular customers.

After 30 days, the book is added to our wholesale price list and sent out to our retailers. Some of them want to see the physical book before they make a decision. Others want to see a pdf of the book to make sure the content is something for their audience. Still others order it sight-unseen.

Most of our retailers place a few big orders during the year instead of ordering a big batch of a single book. This saves them on shipping charges. So they might order stock for Christmas at the end of the summer and restock in January. Other retailers order books when they are released. Still other retailers might wait a year to see if there is demand for it in their market before ordering.

After they place the order, we assemble a pallet of the things they order and we await a truck to pick them up. The truck’s schedule is usually out of our hands. Sometimes it can take weeks for a truck to show up.

After the retailer receives the new book, they usually write their own product description that suits their audience. So they have to read (or skim) the book, take photos, update their website etc.

All this takes time and – as I said – is completely out of our hands.

2025 World Tour! (It’s Only 2 Places)

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I’m teaching four stick chair classes in Germany and Australia in 2025. Yes, it’s an American teaching a Welsh/Scottish/Irish form in places that are truly exotic for this humble chair form.

Here are details and links. First stop, Germany.

Comb-back Stick Chair With a Steambent Arm
July 7-11, 2025
Dictum, Niederalteich facility

This is the most ambitious chair to make in a class. Heck, I wouldn’t dare teach it anywhere else. But Dictum’s Niederalteich campus has a great steam box and – most importantly – incredibly good workshop technicians (Mattias and Wolfgang) who can make anything work. The classroom is in a converted barn in a monastery. It’s a beautiful and isolated place to take a class.

Irish Stick Lounge Chair
July 14-18, 2025
Dictum, Munich facility

This is one of my favorite chairs to build (I have two on the bench right now). It’s incredibly comfortable, and the joinery is perfect for a first-time chairmaker. This class is in Dictum’s Munich facility, which is across the hall from Dictum’s storefront in Munich. Peter runs the shop there, and it’s an excellent urban workshop. (Bring your family, and they will find lots to do in Munich.)

Second stop, Australia.

Seven-stick Comb-back Chair
October 6-10, 2025
Wood Dust, Melbourne

The Wood Dust people are bringing me (plus Michael Fortune and Matt Kenney) to Melbourne for a woodworking event. I’ll teach a five-day class in making a comb-back, and there are evening events in Melbourne as well. Tickets haven’t gone on sale yet, but the link will take you to the site that has more information.

Seven-stick Comb-back Chair
October 14-18, 2025
Wood Dust, Newrybar, NSW

After a couple days off and some travel, I’m teaching a second five-day class in making a comb-back in Newrybar. Tickets haven’t gone on sale yet, but the link will take you to the site that has more details.

Teaching overseas is difficult. Not just for me, but for the people who organize and execute these classes. Because of the difficulty, any one of these trips could be my last. Not because of me – my health is great, and I have plenty of energy. But because of the difficulty and expense of putting on a class with an instructor who has to travel 9,786 miles to get there.

— Christopher Schwarz

The GoDrilla Saga (With a Happy Ending)

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Good news: We now have 500 pristine-perfect GoDrillas in our warehouse, and we’re shipping them out as fast as you can order them.

Today ends our six-month saga with manufacturing difficulties with this tool. If you care about sob stories involving aluminum extrusions and custom lathe tooling, then this is the bedtime tale for you.

Earlier this year we received a batch of GoDrillas that would not accept a hex-shank drill bit. Things were just too tight. The manufacturer said they were in spec. We ate the cost of that run. We ordered a replacement batch. It was better, but still on the tight side. We could get hex-shank tooling in with a little effort. After a few go-rounds using these GoDrillas, things loosened up and the GoDrillas worked normally. Still, we were grumpy.

So we sold that batch at a deep discount.

The interior surfaces of the new GoDrillas. So much room for activities!

Now we finally have GoDrillas that are perfect. We had to buy a $2,000 tool and add a step to the process to get here, but it was worth it. We all spent all day today packaging up GoDrillas and hex rods and instruction books, and they are ready to go.

If you have been waiting for these in-spec GoDrillas, the wait is over. You can order one here.

Thanks to Josh Cook, the mechanical designer for this tool, for figuring out the problem and getting a solution.

— Christopher Schwarz

Now Shipping: Exeter Hammers

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A few of the 100 hammers we assembled today.

We have a large batch of our new Exeter furniture-maker’s hammers for sale in our store now. These hammers are perfectly sized for people who build casework and chairs. They are the ideal weight for driving in 4d and 6d nails, smacking wedges in place and adjusting bench planes.

We’ve spent about three years developing this hammer, which is based on an old British form. The cross-peen is used to start brads and headed nails – the peen slips through your fingers to set the tip of the nail. Then you flip the head around to finish the job.

The octagonal handle feels great in the hand and offers two gripping positions: one for power and one for finesse.

At 9.8 ounces, the Exeter hammer is less fatiguing to use than a 16-ounce carpenter’s hammer, but is heavy enough to sink furniture nails for assembling carcases or planting mouldings. 

Like all our tools, the Crucible Exeter hammer is made entirely in the United States. The hickory handle is made in the Carolinas, the head is milled in Nicholasville, Ky., and the tool is hand-assembled in our factory in Covington, Ky.

You can read more about the Exeter hammer here. You can read all about our line of hammers here.

My stamp.

Fun Stuff

We take pride in the work we do here. So each employee now stamps the handle with a touchmark after assembling the hammer. My symbol is a bumblebee. Kale is an “X.” Mark is a shamrock. Gabe is an arrow. And Megan is a cat.

So you can look at the butt of the handle and know who assembled it. Note that we just started doing this on Sunday (Oct. 13). So hammers shipped out before today don’t have the touchmarks.

— Christopher Schwarz

A Cheat Sheet for ‘Principles of Design’

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My personal copy of the book and the cheat sheet I keep in it.

Our latest book, “Principles of Design” by William H. Varnum, offers a systematic method to design furniture, plus a series of rules that guide you in the process. Perhaps even more important, “Principles of Design” shows you how to interpret other people’s design. Or how to fix your own designs.

Instead of saying something looks “unbalanced” or “awkward,” Varnum’s rules allow you to voice what you like (or don’t like) about a piece of furniture. “The dominant mass of this piece is placed too high in the composition, so the piece is top-heavy.” Or “The brackets offer little life or variety to the piece because of their too-obvious curve.”

I find most design books to be too idiosyncratic or tied to a particular furniture style (Shaker, Bauhaus, Arts & Crafts etc.). “Principles of Design” (and the books of Jim Tolpin and George Walker) instead offer you systems that work with any style of furniture. Plus ways of understanding the built world.

After reading Varnum’s “Principles of Design” a few times, I wanted a cheat sheet that could quickly guide me to each of Varnum’s rules and the explanation he offers for them. So I made one. And you can download it here:

Cheat Sheet for “Principles of Design”

So if I’m working on designing a border around a panel, my cheat sheet reads: 

Rule 6d. Bands and borders should have a consistent lateral, that is, onward movement. (page 105)

I can then quickly turn to page 105 to see both good and bad examples of borders. (One of the best parts of Varnum is that he offers you just as many examples of poor design as good design. It really helps you sharpen your eye.)

Books on design are a hard sell – it’s like pushing water uphill. And re-printing “Principles of Design” to the high level of the original 1916 volume was expensive. Plus we are strapped for space in our warehouse. As a result, we think we can do only one press run of this book (3,000 copies). We’ve sold about 750 so far.

This is just fair warning that this book probably won’t be offered permanently. 

“Principles of Design” is $41 and is made entirely in the USA.

— Christopher Schwarz