The Lost Art Press storefront will be open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 8, and we welcome you and your woodworking questions.
This weekend, I’ll probably build another staked stool (I have the parts prepped) and perhaps demonstrate the charring technique I showed in yesterday’s post. Also, we have the press mockup of “Roman Workbenches,” which you are welcome to look through. The book is at the bindery now.
We don’t, however, have any blemished books on hand to sell. The Lie-Nielsen event last month cleaned us out.
Need a list of where to eat and drink during your visit? Here you go.
After five prototypes, I’ve completed the first project for the expansion of “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” which should be out in 2018.
I now have to make a SketchUp drawing of the stool, which will take longer than building the stool from wood. After busting out a lot of staked chairs and stools this year, I’m able to build this stool in 3-1/2 hours, which includes finishing time.
The finish on the stool – a combination of “uzukuri” and “shou sugi ban” techniques I’ve been experimenting with for more than two years – also allows me to add an appendix to the design book on these processes and the tools involved.
I’m quite happy with this design. It’s simple, comfortable, inexpensive and easy.
I have to take a break from the projects for the expansion of “The Anarchist’s Design Book” to build a commission and write an article for Popular Woodworking Magazine. When I complete those projects, I’ll return to making a staked armchair, a staked settee and two boarded projects for the book.
The boarded projects include a nailed-together version of the Monticello bookcases I built in 2011 and a boarded English settee. This has long been on my list of projects to build. If you aren’t familiar with the form, check out this entry from TheFurnitureRecord.com.
Above is a photo I took of our storefront this morning as I got to work. Notice anything different? Me neither.
But we have a new roof on 837 Willard St., which took almost 10 months of wrangling and four roofing companies to complete. We removed four ersatz skylights, added a hatch to the roof (who doesn’t want a hatch?) and now we don’t have buckets located strategically throughout the third floor.
To celebrate, Lucy and I want to Pontiac barbecue last night and ate a cow.
This is the end of phase one of the work we are doing on the building. Phase one was about stabilizing the structure – concrete and French drains in the basement, new gutters, repair the deck, replace the rotting fence, caulk and paint the exterior, install a sump pump, new windows on the first floor and a new roof. Oh, and gutting the first floor for my workshop.
All that took about 18 months, hundreds of hours of work and more money than most families spend on a college education. And as our personal bank balance veered toward zero this winter, we began to get stressed. Luckily, a couple commissions and articles came through and we are back in the black.
The plan now is to take the next 12 months to work on the cosmetic stuff that doesn’t cost much money or require professional help. I’m going to install a new back door to the shop ($400), install a floating floor in the utility area ($385) and start demolishing the interior walls in the Horse Garage for the machine room (cost: paying for beer for my friends).
Oh, and I’m going to enjoy not writing huge checks for a while (knock wood that there is no Godzilla attack this spring).
“He was very open minded, like the ocean containing water from all rivers.”
— Pema Chujen on Chokyi Tenpa Tsering, the founder of the Parkhang printing lamasery monastery in Tibet. Read the fascinating New York Times article here.
Today I crashed back – hard – to the United States with little sleep, folders full of photos and memories of the best pizza I’ve eaten. And as I twitched to sleep on the airplane this afternoon or morning or whatever, I wondered if I had enough information for a book.
I don’t. But I think I will soon.
If things go well this summer in Germany. If a package arrives in Kentucky. If a translation pans out. Then I’ll have an expanded book for you this fall on so-called Roman workbenches that will probably have to be called something else other than “Roman Workbenches.”
While these benches have their roots in Greco-Roman culture, the form is ubiquitous in the West and the East in both modern times and those of two millenia ago. These benches, and the techniques to use them, have been hiding in plain sight. Recorded. Written down. And mostly ignored.
I don’t have many more words for you this evening (or is it early morning?), so instead enjoy these images taken by Narayan Nayar during our trip to Pompeii.
