Lost Art Press

Author: Lost Art Press

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

‘Hands Employed Aright’ is Finished

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The printing plant reports that Joshua Klein’s “Hands Employed Aright” was put on a truck yesterday and is headed to our Indianapolis warehouse. If all goes to plan, the book should arrive next week, and we will begin shipping out orders as soon as our warehouse can set up a special assembly line to fill pre-publication orders.

If you would like to order a book that will go out with the first batch, there’s still time. Visit our store here. The book is $57.

All of us, including Joshua I’m sure, are excited and relieved that we’ve reached this point with the book, which took many years of labor for Joshua to research and write.

“Hand Employed Aright” is a rare peek into the life of an early American woodworker through his extensive diaries, his tools and the furniture he left behind. The book is gorgeously illustrated with Klein’s photographs, plus historical paintings and letters.

The last time the world saw a book such as this was Charles Hummel’s landmark “With Hammer in Hand.”

No matter what sort of woodworker you are, I think you’ll be fascinated by this intimate portrait of Jonathan Fisher as he built his life on the frontier in the 18th century.

— Christopher Schwarz

An Immediate Change to our Shipping Policy

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LAP_logoEffective immediately, we are now charging shipping on all orders. The cost is about $7 per book and goes up based on weight.

Why are we making this change? For the last 32 months we offered free shipping on all orders. And after a detailed financial analysis, we determined that “free shipping” was costing us much more than anticipated. It was simply unsustainable.

We considered raising retail prices to cover this shortfall, but that wouldn’t be fair to people who buy our books through our retailers, such as Lee Valley Tools and Highland Woodworking, or at our storefront in Covington, Ky.

We wish we didn’t have to do this, but it is truly necessary.

Lost Art Press is a small business. The only people working on it full time are John and me. Kara, Meghan and Megan are all part-time contractors.

Yes we ship out 25,000 books each year, but we also split all profits with our authors 50/50. This is an unheard-of royalty in the publishing business, but we think it’s the only fair way to operate. As a result of this 50/50 split, Lost Art Press has slim margins, and it’s the reason why John and I also work other jobs to make ends meet in our households.

So this isn’t a ploy to squeeze more money out of customers. This shipping charge is a way to ensure that Lost Art Press will be around for a long time and continue to keep high-quality woodworking books that are printed in the USA in print.

As always, we thank you for your support. And if you have any questions, let us know at help@lostartpress.com.

— Christopher Schwarz

The Weed Stick Chair

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I have accused the red oak species, Quercus rubra, of being a weed. It is overused in kitchen construction here in North America, it has a barfy pink cast when finished with modern film finishes and it is usually flat sawn to show off its least-attractive grain orientation.

For this chair, and for many of the projects in “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” I embraced red oak because it has three other characteristics that trump the ones listed above. It is cheap. It is widely available. And it is strong.

So the real trick with red oak is how to con it into looking like something other than a full-overlay bathroom cabinet door at Desperation Acres Phase II.

Here’s how I gave the species a makeover for this chair.

Don’t Settle for Flat Sawn
The seat of the chair is a combination of rift and flat-sawn woods. The more-attractive rift material is at the front of the seat, which is more noticeable. The wide cathedrals of the flat-sawn stuff is at the rear where your farts will make it smell better.

The legs have their quartersawn faces facing the viewer. The armbow is 100-percent quartersawn so it shows off its medullary rays.

The spindles have dead-straight grain, so you aren’t going to see many (if any) ugly cathedrals. Just straight grain lines and some medullary rays. The crest is flat-sawn but the bevel on the front pulls the grain into a smile shape. That’s distracting (in a good way).

Also, there’s just not a lot of wood in this chair, so its form is somewhat dominant compared to the wood’s figure.

Select for Color
Red oak has a lot of color variation. That can be caused by where the tree grew or if it is a subspecies in the red oak family. So with the exception of the sticks, all the wood for this chair came from a single tree. And all the sticks were selected carefully for color.

Avoid the Modern Film Finishes
About a decade ago I had to build some cabinets for a customer’s suburban home. And I had to match the finish on the home’s existing red oak cabinets. I found that by using modern waterborne finishes or some modern lacquers that were more water-white, I could mimic that depressing pink cast in many kitchens.

Avoiding this color is easy. Use old-fashioned finishes that add a red or orange cast. This chair is finished with organic linseed oil and beeswax. While this finish will require maintenance, the low sheen also helps obscure its Quercus rubra roots.

And if all else fails, paint the stuff and tell everyone it’s rare English brown oak.

— Christopher Schwarz

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Newsy’s Profile of Crucible Tools

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Newsy began filming a detailed profile of Crucible Tool right before we launched our first two tools – our Improved Pattern Dividers and our Iron Holdfast.

Today Newsy gave us their kind permission to post the video here for you to enjoy.

In other Crucible news, we are about to launch our fourth tool – a Lump Hammer – within the next two weeks. Raney is milling the heads all day and we are getting set to assemble the first huge batch next week.

More details to come soon. In the meantime, enjoy the moviefilm.

— Christopher Schwarz

 

 

More Chore Coats in the Works

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Our factory is working on a new batch of chore coats that should be ready to sell in the next couple weeks.

This batch will be made with the Japanese cotton we used with the first batch, plus the nice embroidered patch and the custom buttons. As I mentioned before, I’m afraid we’ll have to raise the price a bit on the coat. Making nice garments in the United States is tricky and expensive.

After this new batch sells out, we will shift gears with the chore coat. Here’s why:

  1. Our West Coast factory raised the manufacturing price – radically – on us.
  2. The Japanese cotton has proved more difficult and expensive to get than we anticipated.

As a result, we will switch to a new fabric – an 11 oz. brushed bull denim – that is readily available here in the United States. It will still be black and 100 percent cotton, and it will still be awesome. We’re also switching factories. Tom Bonamici, who designed the coat, is negotiating with two factories here in the middle part of the country, and those talks are going well.

The new chore coat will still have the same embroidered patch on the interior pocket and custom buttons. And it will still be made in the USA. More details on the new chore coat, including the price, will be available in the coming weeks.

The only thing we haven’t been able to fix is figuring out how to make it cooler outside so we can wear our dang coats.

— Christopher Schwarz