John Economaki at Bridge City Toolworks has written up a nice overview of his visit to China on his blog here. It’s definitely worth reading. He also posted the video from his trip showing the Chinese woodworking show attendees making chopsticks in his booth.
You also can now sign up to receive more information about the release of Chopstick Master on its dedicated site.
— Christopher Schwarz
“What knowledge is this which thieves may steal, mice or moths eat up, fire or water destroy?”
— 13th-century Parisian preacher in a sermon on elaborately bound books.
We still have 109 postcards left to give away with copies of “Virtuoso” The Tool Cabinet and Workbench of Henry O. Studley,” which will be published next month.
So if you had given up hope that it was too late to get a postcard, it’s not.
The full-color 4×6 postcards will accompany the first 1,000 copies of “Virtuoso” purchased through Lost Art Press, whether you opted to pick it up at Handworks or have it shipped to you. “Virtuoso” is available with free domestic shipping if ordered before May 13, 2015.
— Christopher Schwarz
George Walker, one of the authors of “By Hand & Eye,” handed me a small box of tools yesterday as the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event in Cincinnati was winding down.
The tools were intended for the students at my Hand Tool Immersion class this fall at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking. While some of the students have their own tools, many will need some of the basics to complete the tool chest we’re building.
I picked through the box of well-cared-for, user-grade tools and thanked George.
He picked up a Brown & Sharpe 12” combination square from the top of the pile that looked like it had seen a lot of years. It had a well-patinated standard head, plus the protractor and center-finding heads.
“When I was an apprentice, this was my square,” he said, smiling a bit.
I know that my face screwed up a bit when I replied: “You’re giving away your first combination square? You sure you want to do that?”
“Sure,” he said. “During the last several years I found I have a lot less need for rulers in my work.”
Touche, George. This fall some lucky beginning woodworker is going to end up with a sweet tool with an even better story behind it.
— Christopher Schwarz
Whether you realize it or not, we pour a significant amount of the money you send us into our research library. While it might not be as impressive as the mechanic’s library at Winterthur or the American College of the Building Arts, we want to be grounded in the past as we write and edit books.
We use local libraries when we must, but it’s unwise to do research at the University of Cincinnati at 5:30 a.m. in your underwear. And that’s exactly what I was doing this morning as I was trying to shake off some jet lag from my trip to the Northwest. Something led my hand to Jan van Vliet’s “Book of Crafts & Trades” (Early American Industries Association, 1981).
This reprint includes a reappraisal of van Vliet as an artist after many years of academic dismissal or scorn. However, all I could think about this morning were the tables, stools and benches shown in the plates.
Of course, they were practically all staked construction, with the kind of detail only the Dutch can muster. Finding this small cache of amazingly detailed drawings was just what I needed for a couple of the projects in “Furniture of Necessity.”
And so to celebrate, I bought a reprint of a related book from 1568. So, if you wouldn’t mind buying a few extra Lost Art Press T-shirts this week….
— Christopher Schwarz
