Thanks to a solid month of volunteer work, there are now complete transcripts of “The Naked Woodworker” available for Lost Art Press customers.
These transcripts are ideal for woodworkers with impaired hearing or who simply want to check the dimensions from the videos before they make a cut. The transcripts are in three documents: Two documents for the video on tools. And one document for the video on building a sawbench and workbench.
If you already purchased the DVD or video from Lost Art Press, you were sent an e-mail this morning notifying you that the product has been updated and that you can download the new version (so check your e-mail). The new version contains a folder with the transcripts.
And all new customers will automatically receive the transcripts with every order.
If you purchased “The Naked Woodworker” from one of our retailers, send us a note and we will send you the transcripts via e-mail.
Transcribing a technical video takes a lot of time. So please thank Suzanne Ellison for creating the transcription and Mike Siemsen for proofing it. This was weeks of 100-percent volunteer work to assist one reader. And every customer will benefit as a result.
The designer and I finished up proofing “l’Art du menuisier: The Book of Plates” on Tuesday and today are washing our hands of the project.
We probably should wash our hands twice after what Wally the cat was doing on the proofs. While it looks like he’s examining the pages for typos, I can assure you that is not what is going down.
Today the final proofs for “Calvin Cobb: Radio Woodworker!” arrive. It’s like Christmas.
Roy Underhill’s first novel is complete and off to the printer. It is an enormous honor to publish this labor of love, which Roy has been working on for years. (I really don’t want to ask how many hours he has in this manuscript.)
In true form, as I was preparing the digital files for upload this evening, Roy called me to add one more joke – something that popped into his head while he was soaking in the bathtub. And it involved a prosthetic leg.
So of course we added it.
And you can see above, the cover came out quite nicely. Jode Thompson, the illustrator, blew us all away with her work. And her work ethic. We typically work odd hours, and she was always right there ready to help.
If everything goes well, the book should ship from the printer in mid-November – just in time for Christmas. It will be $29. As per usual, everything we do is printed in the United States. This book will be hardbound with a red cloth cover and a full-color matte dust jacket. The interior pages will be casebound and sewn for durability.
I don’t have any more details on where it will be available, but I will post them when I get them.
We’ll soon be posting some excerpts from the novel for your enjoyment. until then, here is the description of the book that Megan Fitzpatrick wrote for the dust flap.
“Calvin Cobb is Section Chief of the Broadcast Research division – the smallest section of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Along with his staff of four women (all severely injured WWI volunteers), Calvin studies “broadcast seed, nutrient and amendment distribution technology and practice” – that is, what happens when the sh*t actually hits the fan.
“But the four women are more interested in developing the world’s first supercomputer (using abandoned punch-card tabulating machines), and Calvin is more interested in woodworking…and in one particular woman: Kathryn Dale Harper, host of the radio program “Homemaker Chats.”
“How best to woo her? Why, a radio show: “Grandpa Sam’s Woodshop of the Air!”
“It’s an almost-overnight sensation (for measured drawings, write to “Grandpa Sam’s” and be sure to include a 3 cent stamp to cover the cost of duplication). But – as Calvin discovers – success breeds jealousy… a dangerous thing when one’s enemy has friends in high places.
“Can Calvin and his friends save the world through woodworking, one listener at a time? Perhaps – but first, they’ll have to save themselves from Nazis, the clutches of the FBI, bureaucracy and wooden legs that break at inopportune times.
“Well, you get the idea.”
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. For those of you who wish to offer technical advice on the motorcycle shown on the cover, or the particulars of pre-war prosthetic technology etc. etc., we kindly ask that you get a girlfriend.
Yesterday, Thomas Lie-Nielsen and I finished teaching a weekend class that introduced the students to handplanes – how to sharpen, tune and use them. Curiously, the class wrapped up a couple of hours earlier than usual, and we’d covered more material than in the last eight classes.
What changed? We steered clear of a full discussion of the silly debates that circle around the forums, woodworking clubs and blogs – selecting tool steel, chipbreakers, bevel-up or -down tools and sharpening media (for starters).
So instead of a technical discussion of the different tool steels available, we told them that all of them work and that keeping them sharp was more important than their molecular composition. Chipbreakers (or back irons) are one of five primary strategies you can employ to reduce tear-out. Here are all five. Use them as you like. What’s the most important strategy? Sharpness.
Instead of getting into a detailed explanation of cutting geometry, clearance angles, wear bevels and the like, we explained the simplest sharpening strategy that will work with all tools, from paring chisels to high-angle smoothers. And that what was more important than the angle of attack was that blade was wicked sharp.
Oh, and about sharpening, the message was this: Making tools dull is way more fun than making them sharp. All the sharpening systems work (including using a cinder block). The more important message about sharpening media is that you should pick a system and stick with it for at least a year before considering a change. This is what I call “sharpening monogamy.”
Our goal with presenting the information this way was to inoculate these new handplane users so they didn’t feel the need to learn everything a metallurgist and machinist knows before flattening a board. If we’re lucky, when these 26 woodworkers see these debates raging on a messageboard they’ll shrug their shoulders, close the browser window and head to the shop.
— Christopher Schwarz
Personal note: I have exactly 103 messages in my inbox that require a response. I am going to be out of commission for about two weeks, and I will be particularly slow to respond to messages. I apologize in advance for the inconvenience. If you have questions about an order through our store, John will be happy to help you at john@lostartpress.com.
Thanks to a solid month of volunteer work, there are now complete transcripts of “The Naked Woodworker” available for Lost Art Press customers.
