My little Dutch tool chest has seen a metric crap-load of miles (or kilometers or hogsheads) during the last 12 months. And wherever I take it, I like to pick up a sticker from a local gas station or convenience store to apply to the chest.
The stickers are not to reinforce the joinery. Promise.
Today, the president of the Kansas City Woodworkers Guild gave me the coolest stickers yet. Rob Young gets to spend some of his working life in Antarctica and brought back a sticker for the South Pole Station, plus a sticker that indicates you shouldn’t freeze whatever is in the package (it could be a well-dressed live penguin).
I can’t wait to add these stickers to the chest. Even though I haven’t been to the South Pole, and I have little prospect of teaching there (I hear there aren’t many trees. Yet), I love the stickers.
This year I hope to get stickers from Alaska, Alabama and England – three of the foreign lands in which I’ll be teaching in during 2014. (Sorry Alabama. I’m from Arkansas and you know that we’re constitutionally obligated to make jokes about you because… uh, we’re Arkansas.)
Just like woodworking, publishing is a fractal. You can get lost in the tiniest of details inside of details. And when I say “lost,” I mean the good kind of lost. Like this.
Most of my career has been on the newspaper and magazine side of publishing, where the level of detail work isn’t (and cannot be) in the same league as a designer such as Wesley Tanner, who designed “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry.” But I’m coming around.
Today I flushed out some rough ideas for the cover of “Campaign Furniture.” These are rough. And did I mention they were not smooth? Rough. The idea is to make the cover look like the top of a traveling chest or trunk. Corner guards are placed at the corners and there is something in the center – either an Anglo-Indian pull or a plate with curved corners and the title of the book.
Yes, I might add screws to the pull or plate. Or I might not muck it up with too much detail. Everything is hand-drawn, which will work nicely with the dies that do the debossing on the cover.
I’ve also been sorting through all the color choices that are possible with this cover. Right now I’m leaning toward a cotton cover that will be a color called “mudpie” – it’s a brownish-red and looks like a lot of the 19th-century British woodworking books on my shelf. The stamp will likely be something coppery or gold-ish. Maybe. Or black.
Or I’ll put a giant smiling narwhal on the cover that’s pooping rainbows.
“Campaign Furniture” is now completely designed – all 312+ pages of it – and goes to the indexer tomorrow morning. With any luck, the book will go to the printer during the first week in February and be released the first week of March 2014.
In the coming weeks I’ll post the table of contents of the book, sample pages in pdf format and photographs of all the projects. But until then, here are some details.
Starting with this book, we have decided to eliminate the pre-publication ordering process for all Lost Art Press titles. It seems that no matter what we told customers when they placed a pre-publication order (“Your book will arrive after such-and-such a date”), we were always overwhelmed by people asking: “Hey, where’s my book?”
So here’s what we’re going to do: “Campaign Furniture” will be available for purchase on the day it arrives in our warehouse. All orders placed during the first 30 days after the release date will receive free domestic shipping. Bottom line: We’re still offering free shipping for early adopters. But we’re not going to take your money until the book is in our hands.
Technical Specifications for ‘Campaign Furniture’
Here are specifications for “Campaign Furniture.” The book will be in 6” x 9” format and more than 312 pages long (we still have to add the index). It will be printed on #60 coated paper that has a matte finish – likely the same paper we used for “By Hand & Eye.”
The interior will be in full color. All photos of finished furniture, plus historical paintings and engravings, will be printed in full color. Step-by-step construction photos will be printed using a duotone (think Woodworking Magazine).
The book will be hardbound – casebound and Smythe sewn. No, it will not have a deckle (rough) edge. The book’s endsheets will be either colored or printed; I’m still working that out. We are still shooting for a retail price of $32, but we don’t have all of our printing quotes completed yet.
As to the book’s availability, we will offer it to all of our retailers worldwide. Whether they decide to carry the book is entirely up to them.
And I will be taking a massive nap tomorrow. And answering e-mails. And putting photo equipment away so I can get back to building furniture.
That’s where Roubo thinks woodworkers belong. In a footnote at the conclusion of his second section of the Third Volume of “l’Art du menuisier,” during which he describes the processes of making furniture from solid wood, he waxes enthusiastically eloquent on the world of the woodworker, and the remarkable people who populate it.
Give yourselves a pat on the back, courtesy of André-Jacob Roubo.
“…(T)he art of woodworking is, without question, the most extensive of the mechanical arts, as much for the different types of woodworking as for the multitude of works belonging to each type of carpentry, which requires a quantity of knowledge distinct one from the other. Such that the art of woodworking can and should even be regarded as six arts under the same name, but all different from each other. Namely, the art of building carpentry, which is quite considerable, the art of carriage woodworking; the art of furniture making, which is separated in two distinct classes one from the other, the art of cabinetry, which embraces not only the knowledge of choice and use of wood, but also that of different metals and other substances both mineral and vegetable, and the use even of turning and filing; the art of trelliswork or Garden woodworking, which is still another class apart, without counting the art of drawing, necessary for various sorts of woodworking, the detail of which has been made the object of more than half of the second part of this work. This observation is altogether natural – it is the only art that, under the same name, has rapport with so many different objects. With the exception of carpentry, the art of woodworking embraces all which has to do with the use of wood, instead of those arts which have for its object the use of metals, taking different names, although using the same material. Because, without speaking of the use of mines and iron forges, the workers which use this metal, are known under different names, like the blacksmiths of two types, the locksmiths also of two types, the maker of edge-tools, the tinsmiths, the cutlers, the nailsmiths, and even the clockmakers, those who make mathematical instruments, and a number of others who do completely separate arts, distinct one from the others. Their description, if they be united in a single and same art, would contain more than ten to twelve volumes, assuming that they are treated according to the intentions of the Royal Academy of Sciences, that is to say, with the precision and all the appropriate extent for each of them.”
Compared to last year, my 2014 teaching schedule is a cakewalk. But that’s like comparing the various Boer wars, the First, Second and Third Reichs and Fried Pickles v. Lots-a-tots at Hooters. In other words: It’s all brutal.
I teach classes because I know that it’s good for my research and writing. I meet fascinating people, and I get to visit interesting places. But most of the time, I’d prefer to crawl under the sink unit at the Hampton Inn in the fetus position.
I am a natural hermit.
So here is my 2014 teaching schedule, with a promise that 2015 will be even more limited.
Jan. 18-19, 2014 Kansas City Woodworkers Guild I’m teaching a two-day class on building a Dutch Tool Chest and giving a presentation on Jan. 18 on something (relating to woodworking, promise). This club is very impressive. Well-organized. They have an excellent facility and passionate members. Contact them if you’d like to attend the free Saturday night program.
Feb. 22-23, 2014 Alabama Woodworkers Guild During this weekend seminar, I’ll build a six-board chest entirely by hand and attempt to do a massive brain dump on handwork in the process. Visit the club’s site for details on attending the seminar.
Mar. 17-24, 2014 William Ng Woodworking School I’m teaching two classes at this California school. The first is on making Roorkee chairs; the second is on making a Dutch tool chest. Both classes are lots of fun (for me, at least!).
April 25-28, 2014 The Alaska Creative Woodworkers Association It’s my first visit to Alaska, and I am very excited about it. During my trip there I’ll be teaching a class in making layout tools and the Dutch tool chest. Plus I’ll be giving a presentation to the club.
May 5-9, 2014 The Woodworkers Club, Rockville, Md. During my first teaching gig in this area, I’ll be teaching a class in building the Anarchist’s Tool Chest, and speaking to the local SAPFM chapter and doing some other cool stuff I can’t mention just yet.
June 9-13, 2014 Marc Adams School of Woodworking, Franklin, Ind.
French Workbench. If you want to build an epic French workbench, this is the class to take. We have lined up some excellent ash for the class and the facility and machinery make it an incredible week.
June 18-20, 2014 The Woodwright’s School, Pittsboro, N.C.
I’m teaching the Dutch tool chest at Roy Underhill’s school during these three days. If you’ve ever been to a class with me and Roy, then you know you are in for an intense session of teaching, gesticulating and eating of scones.
July 5-6, 2014 Lie-Nielsen Toolworks, Warren, Me. In my attempt to spread awesome Dutchness across our great land, I’m teaching an intense two-day class in building a Dutch tool chest at the inspirational Lie-Nielsen facility.
July 21-28 Mystery England Classes I’ll have a lot more to say about these two classes in England – my first teaching assignment in England ever. So stay tuned. Or take a liver holiday and sign up for them now.
Oct. 4-5, 2014 Marc Adams School of Woodworking, Franklin, Ind.
This is the annual handplane weekend class I teach at Marc Adams’ school with Thomas Lie-Nielsen. It is a fun on a bun – an annual ritual of indoctrinating new hand tool woodworkers that I don’t ever want to miss.
There are a couple of other club events and shows that I am still working on, plus a couple of Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Events that I’ll be adding to this calendar in the coming weeks. But if you seek to abuse/amuse me in 2014, the list above is fairly complete.
