Lost Art Press

Author: Lost Art Press

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

Pégas Blades, Good Books, Other Stuff

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For those of you who missed my blog entries on Pégas blades (here), the bad news is that Tools for Working Wood is temporarily sold out of these outstanding, durable and less-expensive Swiss-made coping-saw blades.

The good news is that Knew Concepts now has 60 packages of the 18-point skip-tooth blades, which they are selling for only $5 per dozen. Go here. I cannot say enough good things about these blades.

Also, ShopWoodworking.com now has the four-volume set of “The Practical Woodworker” in the store in paperback. The set is $65 and will ship in late October or early November. If you missed out on the hardback set, which was excellent, this is your chance to add these books to your library.

“The Practical Woodworker” is a collection of writings from early 20th-century authors on handwork. Just about every aspect of the craft is covered in the four books. Need to build a crate? A chicken coop? Learn French polish? It’s all in there. It’s one of the first places I consult when I’m looking for a technique or plan.

Oh, and the other stuff? “l’Art du menuisier: The Book of Plates” goes to the printer on Monday. And Roy Underhill’s “Calvin Cobb: Radio Woodworker!” is about a week away from the printer. Megan Fitzpatrick, the editor of that book, will post an update on the cover this weekend (right Megan?).

— Christopher Schwarz

How to Make Money Making Posters!

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Every week a customer suggests we sell posters, postcards, calendars, stationary or sketchbooks that feature a piece of artwork or photograph from one of our Lost Art Press products.

It’s flattering, but we decline. During my tenure in publishing, I’ve studied this market and have concluded that this is how you make money on posters that do not feature kittens, human flesh or dumb motivational sayings.

  1. Select the most popular images from your publishing business; scale and clean the images so they will reproduce well on heavy coated paper stock.
  2. Find a press that can hold the line screen appropriate for a quality reproduction job.
  3. Purchase 2,000 posters so you can reduce the unit cost and charge less than $20 for the poster – a key price point.
  4. Sell 200.
  5. Warehouse the 1,800, running up a monthly fee to store them until your profit is gone and someone decides to pulp them.
  6. Sell a kidney.
  7. Profit!

Rather than lose another internal organ, let’s try this. Last night I made a high-resolution scan of one of the pages from this post on furniture styles. I scanned it at the maximum resolution we can handle, cleaned it up in Photoshop for about two hours and scaled it so it would print nicely at 18” x 24” – a common and inexpensive ($13) poster size at Staples.

You can download the high-resolution file here (it’s more than 50mb):

You have our permission to take it to a printer and have them make you a poster for your own use. If 50 people send me a photo of this poster on the wall of their shop, I’ll do another one for free. We lose less money this way.

— Christopher Schwarz

‘To Make as Perfectly as Possible’ Named one of the ‘50 Books of the Year’

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The deluxe edition of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry” has been named one of the “50 Books of the Year” for 2013 by the Design Observer, in association with AIGA and Designers & Books.

Wesley Tanner at work on his bench during the French Oak Roubo Project.
Wesley Tanner at work on his bench during the French Oak Roubo Project.

Designed by Wesley Tanner, “To Make as Perfectly as Possible” is the most beautiful modern book I have ever held, much less worked on. Wesley, a fine woodworker himself, did justice to the immense years-long translating job by Don Williams, Michele Pagan and Philippe Lafargue.

You can see all of the winners of the competition here.

This “50 Books” competition is the oldest continuously operating graphic design competition in the United States, starting in 1922.

Please join me in congratulating Wesley on his prestigious award.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. We have about two dozen copies of the deluxe edition for sale in our store. Once they are gone, they are gone forever.

Materials & Tools for the Knockdown Nicholson Workbench

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I’m teaching two classes in building the Knockdown Nicholson Workbench in 2015 (details on the locations to come) and needed to prepare a list of materials and tools for the students. Because I received an S+ in “Sharing” in kindergarten, I am also posting it here.

Hardware

  1. Ductile mounting plates for 3/8” x 16 threaded rod. You need 16. Available from McMaster-Carr.
  2. High-strength steel cap screws, 3/8” x 16 thread. You need 16. Available from McMaster-Carr.
  3. Plain steel 3/8” flat washers. You need at least 16. Buy a pack of 100 from McMaster-Carr.
  4. Plain steel split lock washers, 3/8”. You need at least 16. Buy a pack of 100 from McMaster-Carr.
  5. No. 10 x 1” slot-head screws (for attaching the mounting plates). You need at least 32. Buy a pack of 100 from McMaster-Carr.
  6. No. 8 x 2-1/2” wood screws to assemble the ends. A box of 50 should be fine. Here’s a link to the square-drive ones from McMaster-Carr.
  7. No. 8 x 1-1/4” wood screws for attaching the interior apron bracing. You’ll need about 20. You can also buy these from McMaster-Carr.
  8. Gramercy Holdfasts. One pair. Available from Tools for Working Wood.

Wood
For a 6’ or 8’ bench, I recommend you buy four 2x12s that are 16’ long. Buy yellow pine or douglas fir, whatever is available in your area. Buy the clearest, straightest stock in the pile. (And if there’s another 2×12 there that looks good, grab it too.) This will allow you some waste and to cut around knots, shakes, pitch and ugly. Note that this does not include the shelf – add a 2×12 x 16’ if you want a shelf. Yes, you will have leftover wood.

You will also need 1×10 material for the interior apron bracing. For a 6’ bench you can get one 1×10 x 8’. For an 8’-long bench, get two.

Tools
You’ll need basic marking and measuring tools, plus screwdrivers, a handsaw, a cordless drill, chisels and a block plane. Here are some of the specialty tools that will make your life easier. Plus:

  1. 9/16” socket set to assemble and disassemble the bench.
  2. 3/4” WoodOwl Nailchipper bit. Get yours at Traditional Woodworker.
  3. Forstner bit. You’ll need 1-1/8” for the counterbores.
  4. Brad points. Bring your set. Bench building is a lot about drilling holes.
  5. Tapered countersink bits. The Snappy set from Woodcraft is good.
  6. A pair of sawbenches or sawhorses to work on. (Barring that, a couple of 5-gallon buckets).

— Christopher Schwarz