Lost Art Press

Author: Lost Art Press

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

A V-block for Shaving Spindles

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Shaving a chair spindle against a V-block.

One of the things I love about how chairmaker Chris Williams works is that he tries – at every turn – to reduce the tools and contrivances needed to build a chair. One of the big things he offers is that you don’t need a shavehorse to make sticks, stretchers or legs.

Instead, you use a small block of wood in your vise and a block plane to do all the shaving.

I have 100 percent embraced this method from Chris (and John Brown), and I encourage you to give it a try.

Of course, I had to tweak the process a bit for my own liking. Instead of a flat block of wood, I plowed a V-groove in mine, which helps prevent the stick from wandering as you rotate it.

My V-block, which projects about 3/8″ from my leg vise.

Honestly, you don’t need the V-groove to make this work, but it is nice.

— Christopher Schwarz

Chore Coats Now Available

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The chore coat in Japanese cotton.

We have a batch of chore coats up for sale in our store, just in time for the holidays. These American-made coats are the last ones we’ll be offering in the Japanese cotton. Our next batches will be in American bull denim. (The price, color and sizes will all be the same).

This is the coat I wear every day in the shop and adore. It breathes and moves quite well. And it takes a beating. Mine is starting accumulate the dust and scuffs a working garment earns. And this coat can take it.

Custom buttons.

Plus, the details on this coat are great – the Lost Art Press buttons and the embroidered interior patch are subtle touches.

Order now – this isn’t a big batch. And we concede that we’re kind of nuts for offering this coat at this price. An American-made coat with these details is typically $200 more.

— Christopher Schwarz

Help a Toolmaker; Win a Poster

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I suspect that many of you have heard the Rob Hanson of Evenfall Studios lost his shop and all his possessions because of the recent wildfires in California. If not, here’s the story.

All of us at Lost Art Press and Crucible Tool have agreed to run a raffle to help raise money for Rob and his wife to help rebuild their lives. The prize is the absolute last copy of our “By Hammer and Hand” letterpress poster. We found this final copy recently in our basement in a stack of miscellaneous bits of paper. I set it aside for something like this.

Here is how the raffle works.

Donate $20 directly to Rob via his PayPal link. Please note that we are not collecting any money ourselves. This money goes directly to Rob.

When you receive your email confirmation from PayPal, forward that email to fire@lostartpress.com. Every $20 you donate gets you one entry in the raffle. Donate $40 and you have two entries in the raffle. Donate $60 and you have three, and so on. Yes, it’s OK if you are outside the United States for this.

On Dec. 9 at noon Eastern time, we’ll select a winner via a random-number generator. We’ll send the poster to that person, and I’ll personally pay for the postage.

And that’s it.

Thanks in advance for helping out a fellow toolmaker who has suffered an incredible tragedy.

— Christopher Schwarz

Make a Turbocharged Flush-cut Saw

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Here’s a tip from Raney Nelson at Crucible Tool. When we make our lump hammers we need to cut the excess wood above the eye after the handle and head have been wedged together. Typical flush-cut saws are too slow for production work. And they are usually so thin that they kink easily.

So Raney took an inexpensive Ryoba saw from the home center and removed the set with a few swipes of a sharpening stone.

Today I had a ton of tenons to flush and decided to do the same to one of our hardware-store Ryobas that is not quite good enough for fine joinery. I removed the set using a DMT diamond stone (the red one). It took about five swipes on each toothline.

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I was concerned that the diamond stone wouldn’t work well stoning the impulse-hardened teeth (which are file-hard). The diamonds had no problem with the task. The detail shot shows the amount of metal I removed to remove the set.

The saw works great for flushing tenons. It’s about 11.4 times faster than my old flush-cut saw and powers through oak tenons.

— Christopher Schwarz

Dec. 8: Ask to See Our Clock

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Dec. 8 will be the last open day at Lost Art Press for the year, and we always like to do something a little special for all the people who travel to see us and the locals who support us.

This year, we’ll have a bunch of blemished books at 50 percent off (cash only on those). We hope to have a small quantity of Crucible Lump Hammers (no promises). We’ll be giving away free Chester Cornett buttons. We’ll have our entire stock of books, including the new Christian Becksvoort book “Shaker Inspiration.”

And we will have… a clock.

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One of the local stores that our family has frequented for decades has a long-standing holiday tradition we love. Customers are asked if they “want to see the clock.” Those who agree are taken to the back room where there is a clock, of course, but also something else. (Let’s just say you need to be 21 to see the clock, and it’s not porn.)

The storefront is located at 837 Willard St., in Covington, Ky. We will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and we’ll be happy to answer your woodworking questions or even demonstrate any techniques that are flummoxing you.

After you visit us, you might like to have brunch at one of our favorite spots in Covington: Main Street Tavern, Otto’s or Hotel Covington. We’d love to join you, but I’m afraid our bosses are making us work that day. Jerks.

Hope to see you there.

— Christopher Schwarz