My daughter Katy made a huge batch of soft wax during spring break, and you can order it from her etsy.com store here.
This is a 100-percent teenager enterprise. She makes it from scratch in my shop, cans it, labels it and ships it out. Then she spends the money on rock music and chicken nuggets (I hope).
— Christopher Schwarz
The Lost Art Press storefront in Covington, Ky., will be open April 14 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and there will be a lot to do and see that day.
And I believe we’ll have some of Megan’s students in the shop who will be finishing up their silverware trays from the most recent class in the storefront. Plus, we’ll all be on hand to answer questions, demonstrate techniques and generally gab about the craft.
New Food Recommendation
The food scene in Covington continues to grow. The newest addition is “Main Street Tavern,” which is about two blocks from our shop. This establishment is located in a building that has been a tavern since 1865 and is still replete with the tin ceiling tiles and wainscot of its past.
But this is not some precious restaurant that is backed by big-name chefs or money. This is my favorite kind of place: A dive bar with incredible local food.
They make their own bologna and goetta. The fried chicken is incredible. The burgers are everything you want from a bar burger. Cheap beer. Nice people. Great prices. Get the bologna sliders (then come bum some statins from me).
We haven’t been there for brunch, but it looks incredible (check them out on Instagram).
So add this to your list of places to eat near us: Otto’s, Frieda’s, Commonwealth, Bouquet, Cock & Bull, Chako, Coppin’s and Lil’s. And a dozen more…..
— Christopher Schwarz
The employees at Dehen 1920 are sewing up the Lost Art Press chore coats, but they are running a bit behind (we don’t know why, I’m afraid).
As a result, the chore coats should ship to customers in early May.
As soon as we get additional information and exact shipping dates, we’ll share it with you here.
Apologies for the delay, but we know they will be worth it.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. Customers have asked when we will open up ordering for the next run of coats. We are planning to take orders in August for fall delivery.
I’ve seen a blurry photograph of a detail of Chester Cornett’s chairmaking workbench and read Michael Owen Jones’s description of the bench in “The Craftsman of the Cumberlands.” At the time I thought: That sounds like a Roman-style workbench.
And yesterday I found out that I was correct.
Brendan Gaffney and I visited the storeroom of the Mathers Museum of World Culture in Bloomington, Ind., to view artifacts related to Cornett. And we got more than we bargained for. In addition to some of Cornett’s traditional chairs and rockers, the Mathers also had Cornett’s incredible “bookcase rocker” (more on that from Brendan in a future entry), a chair made by Cornett’s grandfather, Cornett’s worn-down Pexto drawknife, his worn-out dumbhead shavehorse and his workbench.
Located on the top rack in the storeroom, the workbench is a segment of a log with four staked legs. The workholding consists of three pegs that Chester could wedge his work between – exactly as described by M. Hulot in his 18th-century book on turning and chairmaking.
I’m pretty sure that Cornett didn’t read Hulot. So it is an amazing thing to see this low Roman-style workbench made by a 20th century woodworker who lived in the wilds of Eastern Kentucky. Did he come up with the idea for the bench himself? Was it something he learned from his family members who also were chairmakers?
The bench is 11” wide at the top and the benchtop is 10” from the ground. The log segment is 4” thick at its thickest point and about 62” long. The four legs are about 1” to 1-1/4” thick and wide x 8” long (minus their tenons).
So this is just another data point showing that low workbenches, as described in “Ingenious Mechanicks,” haven’t disappeared.
— Christopher Schwarz
During the last few months we have released a lot of material, including two books, a chore coat and the return of five T-shirt designs. We never intended all these new products to come out at once (with more in the wings).
This happened because we don’t operate like a typical publishing business that releases books timed with the seasons of the year. Instead, we release books when there is nothing more we can do to them to make them better. As a result, we have both dry spells and this current deluge of excellent material, including our latest book.
We have just sent off “Cut & Dried: A Woodworker’s Guide to Timber Technology” by Richard Jones to the printer, and it is scheduled to ship in mid to late May. This book was a massive undertaking by Richard, who sought to explain everything a serious woodworker needs to know about wood in language and terms intended for the artisan.
There are, of course, lots of excellent scientific papers and tomes available that explain wood as a construction material. Most of these resources are written for wood scientists. Others are written for project managers at large construction firms. Still others are aimed at the large cabinetshop that deals with sheet goods almost exclusively.
“Cut & Dried” is not like that. Richard has spent his entire adult life as a professional woodworker in the U.K. and the U.S., and has worked at the highest levels of craftsmanship. His goal with “Cut & Dried” was to explain an extremely complex and technical topic – wood technology – in terms that any serious woodworker could easily grasp. And he skipped the stuff for making buildings, bridges and plywood boxes.
This book is massive – 9″ x 12″, hardbound, with 336 pages on heavy coated stock. The entire book is in full color with a full-color dust jacket. As a result, this book is $65, a price that includes domestic shipping.
If you order during this pre-publication period, you will receive an instant pdf download of the book, which is searchable and (of course) portable. After the book is released, the pdf will cost $32.50.
“Cut & Dried” is intended to become a reference for any shop that deals with solid wood. It is carefully organized so you can find the answers to problems at the bench, or questions at the drafting table.
Here is the detailed Table of Contents, which makes that point better than any blog entry from me:
As always, all our books are produced entirely in the U.S., using the highest-quality materials. Our books’ signatures are sewn for longevity – we don’t offer glued-together pages spit out by a print-on-demand copier. We work with printing plants that care deeply about the survival of the printed word in this age of cheap information.
One more point: We keep our books in print as long as authors are willing to do so. Every standard book we’ve released in the last 11 years is still in print. So even if you can’t afford “Cut & Dried” today, it will be here in 18 months (unlike a traditional publisher) for you to purchase at that time.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. Numerous retailers, including Lee Valley Tools and Classic Hand Tools in the U.K. have expressed interest in selling this title. So look to those retailers if you are in Canada or the U.K.