I am off to Charleston, S.C., for the rest of the week to help settle my father’s estate and clean out his house. So I won’t be posting much on the blog, if at all.
In my absence, I give you this embarrassing reading of the poem from “Ingenious Mechanicks: Early Workbenches & Workholding.” It always takes me a little time to get any perspective on my own work. This book seems to be an unusual combination of deep and difficult research with Cheeto jokes. I can say at this point that the printing job is spectacular. And the paintings that Suzanne Ellison dug up for the book are worth the price of admission.
The poem is an exhortation on the sort of woods that are appropriate for a workbench. The audio was recorded and edited by Brendan Gaffney. The plates are from from M. Duhamel’s “de L’exploitation des bois.”
My daughter Maddy is ready to start shipping our latest round of stickers. They come in sets of three for $5 cash, or you can buy them through her etsy store.
Maddy graduates from The Ohio State University on Sunday and in August will move to New York for some secret research job that involves developing vaccines for infectious diseases.
While she’s saving the world from the Infectious Lizard Butt Syndrome, she has also happily agreed to continue fulfilling sticker orders.
This might sound corny, but I think she kinda likes the notes, photos and stickers that readers send her. She has decorated her apartment with some of the stickers and photos. So thanks – y’all have been right nice.
Here are details on the three stickers.
A “Disobey” sticker a la Shepard Fairey designed by Jason Weaver. Jason has published this design on a T-shirt and says that he will be offering those shirts again. I really dislike looking at myself, but Jason did such a clever thing with this image that I forgive him.
A detail of the cover of “From Truths to Tools.” This image is an homage to William Blake’s “The Ancient of Days” by Andrea Love.
An image from “Ingenious Mechanicks” featuring my personal motto: Experto Crede.
A few people have noted the disparity of having a “disobey” sticker in the same group as a “experto crede” sticker. We do this because Carl Jung.
These are quality 100 percent vinyl stickers. They will survive the outdoors – heck you could put one on a street sign. Want a set? You can order them from Maddy’s etsy store here. They are $6 delivered ($10 for international orders).
Or, for customers in the United States, you can send a $5 bill and a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) to my daughter Maddy at:
Stick it to the Man
P.O. Box 3284
Columbus, OH 43210
As always, this is not a money-making venture for me or Lost Art Press. All profits help Maddy escape Ohio for New York without selling her (boyfriend’s) plasma.
A photo I took (pre-chocolate) of Thomas Lie-Nielsen at the 25th anniversary.
Recently I sat for a nice interview with Finn Koefoed-Nielsen, a U.K. furniture maker who started his career through home restorations.
One of the things we discussed was how John and I started Lost Art Press. So-called “origin stories” (I got me superpowers after being bit by a horney alpaca) are interesting to me. But I’ve never sat down and hammered out the one for Lost Art Press.
In 2006, John and I attended the Lie-Nielsen 25th anniversary open house. John got to chatting with Christian Becksvoort and asked Chris: “Why haven’t you written any more books?”
Chris gave John a history lesson on how corporate publishing works and how most authors make very little money in the end but the publisher gets rich. I didn’t need the lesson; I was working for F&W Publications and was living the life.
That night John and I sat up late drinking beer and eating melted chocolate. I had brought some Esther Price chocolates (a local delicacy) to give to Thomas Lie-Nielsen. But during the flight and drive they’d melted into one disgusting-looking mass. Like a molten meteor from the Planet PMS.
This is where Finn’s story picks up on his blog. Note his excellent logo. A squirrel. (I assume it’s a red one.)
So there John and I sat with too many beers; chocolate smeared on our faces and hands. Instead of talking about our feelings we talked about publishing. My first book, “Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use,” was working its way into my laptop. And I had a lot of ideas for other books that were not very commercial.
And, like all magazine editors, I was certain I was going to be fired. (Note: In 28 years of publishing I’ve never been to a single retirement party for a magazine editor. Like the moon landing, they don’t happen.)
The next day we were hungover, crashed from the sugar rush and waiting on our plane back to real life. Slumped in our seats in the Portland terminal, we decided to investigate this idea a little more.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. The interview with Finn covers a lot more ground, including details on some of our upcoming projects.
When I built my chest for “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” I didn’t include any chest lifts. Why? I don’t know. I had planned on making some intricate rope beckets. But I didn’t. I guess I’m just an idiot.
Months later, Roy Underhill showed me how to make “dog bone” lifts for a chest. He makes them a little differently than I do, but the idea is the same. These are the lifts I use now when I build chests for customers. Here are the steps:
Make a handle that looks like a dog bone.
Turn down the middle of the dog bone to a cylinder
Shape the remainder of the lift with ogees, ovolos, yodas etc.
Finish and attach.
For each lift, start with a piece of wood that is 1-3/4” x 3” x 13-1/2”. The handle in the middle is 1” in diameter and 4” long. So saw out the excess material as shown in the photo below:
Now chuck the piece in your lathe and turn down the handle to 1” in diameter. I give the handle a slight barrel shape and incise a couple lines (because I am a fancy lad).
Now saw away the excess and shape the ends. I use an ogee and an ovolo. Then I rasp an 1/8” x 1/8” bevel on the hard arrises. Finally, drill the counterbores and pilot holes for attaching the lifts with four stout steel screws.
Finish the lifts. Attach them.
Note that I want these lifts to look handmade (they are). I am not going for the pattern-routed look. I like the sharp silhouette of the chest with the addition of these slightly earthy-looking handles on the ends. You grab them and they feel smooth and worn. It’s Hobbit-y to me.
When I post photos of my tool chest, there’s a 50 percent chance someone will ask me how much it weighs. My usual and honest answer: I don’t know. It weighs a lot. Two people can easily move it, however.
Today we broke out the heavy-duty scale and weighed my tool chest, which is full of tools. And we weighed two empty tool chests that are on the way out the door to customers. Here are the results.
A full-size Anarchist tool chest in pine (with oak runners) and loaded with my tools weighs 208.6 lbs.
A full-size Anarchist tool chest in pine with pine tills and oak runners and empty weighs 101 lbs.
A full-size Anarchist tool chest in pine with walnut interior and oak runners, empty, weighs 106 lbs.
This is where Finn’s story picks up 
