Lost Art Press

Author: Lost Art Press

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

‘By Hand & Eye’ Now Shipping

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BHAE_cover_IMG_6202“By Hand & Eye” by George R. Walker and Jim Tolpin is now available for immediate shipment from Lost Art Press. Our retailers – Lee Valley Tools, Lie-Nielsen Toolworks and Tools for Working Wood – have received their shipments and will have the book in their stores shortly.

If you wish to order the book from our store, click here. It is $34 plus shipping.

This is our most ambitious book to date, especially in the manufacturing. This book is full color and printed on a heavy #80-pound matte stock that is very white and took the ink beautifully. As with all our books, “By Hand & Eye” is Smythe sewn, casebound and produced entirely in the United States.

Here are some details on the other editions of “By Hand & Eye.”

Leather-bound books. I am taking 26 blocks to Ohio Book tomorrow for them to bind them in leather. We will use the brown leather with an aged finish, like we did with “Mouldings in Practice.” When those are finished – I hope in six weeks – we will put them in the store. They will be $185 – domestic shipping is included.

Electronic editions. Because of the complex layouts in “By Hand & Eye,” we will not be able to offer it in ePub or Kindle formats. We simply are not happy with the way the book looks in these formats. So we will instead offer it in pdf format, which will work on both iPad and Kindles. I should have that available in the store within a week.

One last thing: We are still building a webpage that we discuss in the book and are having some trouble with the url. Until I get that sorted out, you can download the animations referred to in the book (with complete instructions) using the link below.

~By Hand & Eye Animations

The file is zipped. Simply double-click it to decompress the file. Inside the folder you will find instructions (read them, please!). The animations will work with every browser we have tried.

I hope you enjoy reading the book as much as I enjoyed editing and working on it with George, Jim and the main editor, Megan Fitzpatrick.

— Christopher Schwarz

Update: Roubo, Studley & Handworks

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Don Williams (left) and Narayan Nayar (Mr. Spock) during the Studley presentation Saturday morning.
Don Williams (left) and Narayan Nayar (Mr. Spock) during the Studley presentation Saturday morning.

We just wrapped up two days at the Handworks show in Amana, Iowa, and loaded almost nothing back into the van for the return trip – except for some T-shirts and one box of books.

Dang it was a good show.

With about 31 minutes left until my bedtime, here is a quick rundown of some of our current projects and their status.

Our new 'corporate' sign, carved by David Bignell. Details to follow.
Our new ‘corporate’ sign, carved by David Bignell. Details to follow.

‘To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry’
The layout and editing is complete, with us just cleaning up some typographical errors. Our goal: To get the deluxe book to the printer by the end of June. If we succeed, it will ship out at the end of July.

We are planning on printing 600 and we have sold more than 400 already. If you would like to place a $100 deposit on one, there is still time. Send an e-mail to john@lostartpress.com to get on the list. We hope to have a final price in early June.

The trade edition (which will cost about $60) will follow shortly behind to the press. More details on that as we know them.

Vintage register calipers that Jeff Burks gave me at Handworks. Yes, I suck a turd.
Vintage register calipers that Jeff Burks gave me at Handworks. Yes, I suck a turd.

‘Virtuoso: The Toolbox of H.O. Studley’
At Handworks, we made our first presentation that discussed this project in detail with an entire hour of photos, commentary and details on the tools in the chest and the life of H.O. Studley. If you weren’t there, I’m afraid you will have to wait until we publish the book for full details.

When will that be? Don’t hold your breath. Author Don Williams needs to complete the two Roubo volumes before the Studley book will come out. It will be at least two years before this book is in print. So save your pennies (it will be worth it).

Other updates on books:

‘By Hand & Eye’ by George R Walker and Jim Tolpin has arrived. It looks great and is entering the mail stream now.

‘Art of the Saw: Making Sharpening & Use’ by Andrew Lunn will be released in 2014 – Andrew is scheduled to turn the book over to us at the end of 2013.

‘Campaign Furniture’ by Christopher Schwarz will also be complete at the end of 2013 and released in early 2014.

‘Art of Joinery’ by Joseph Moxon. Megan Fitzpatrick is smoothing over the text a bit to make sure we have all the long “s” characters correct. I really want to get this out before Christmas.

Joiner’s Hats: Yup. We are making these and will have some more details in the coming weeks. If you don’t like baseball hats, you might like these. Or not.

That is the news on the latest products. I’ll post more about our new corporate sign and upcoming projects in the coming weeks.

— Christopher Schwarz

Dave Jeske of Blue Spruce Toolworks builds (again) a workbench to use during the Handworks show.
Dave Jeske of Blue Spruce Toolworks builds (again) a workbench to use during the Handworks show.

Help Me, Suzanne

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crispin_chair

I haven’t abandoned my “Furniture of Necessity” book. Suzanne “the Saucy Indexer” Ellison, simply won’t allow it.

While my days are spent in teak and mahogany making campaign furniture, Suzanne has been feeding me a steady diet of vernacular forms that I browse late at night when I’m too pooped to work in the shop.

Her latest missive is an exhibition book from 1982 for an exhibit titled “Common Furniture” at the Stable Court Exhibition Galleries. The book is a gold mine.

My favorite piece – one I should build for the book – is a Welsh stick chair that I haven’t seen before. I fell hard for Welsh stick chairs thanks to the late John Brown. This particular example isn’t in his book, though some similar chairs are.

From the exhibition book:

Welsh, probably 18th century, second half, Ht. 32 in.

Hewn elm seat, whittled ash legs and splats, the armbow cut from a naturally curved elm branch. The seat and upper frame betray traces of three paint layers – red, light and dark green. At one time there were two (or possibly 3) rear legs. Rugged chairs of this type are commonly found in Wales, the Isle of Man, Scotland and Ireland (where they are today quaintly called ‘famine’ chairs) and could fairly be described as a native ‘Celtic’ pattern. No documented or dated examples are known and they probably developed independently of the Windsor chair tradition, being produced well into the 19th century. This one was acquired in the Cwm Tudu area of Cardiganshire.

Lent by Crispin.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. The title of this post is the name of a great song by Rhett Miller, the lead singer of the Old 97s.

A 17th-century Shavehorse?

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Habit de Tonnellier

While up in the Boston area last week, Peter Follansbee, the joiner at Plimoth Plantation, commented on the lack of images of shavehorses from the 17th century.

That kind of question mark interests me.

Earlier I had stumbled on some engravings of people whose body parts were the tools and materials they worked with. The print, Habit de Menuisier Ebeniste, showed a cabinetmaker made from his tools.

Jeff Burks (naturally) turned up the plate shown above and several more that were similar. This one shows a cooper with a shavehorse at his feet. Here’s what Burks says about the artist and what is known about the plate:

These were by Nicolas de Larmessin II (printmaker; French; c.1645 – 1725). Engraver; brother of Nicolas de Larmessin I. Father of Nicolas III. Worked most of his career for his elder brother, and later his widow. Seems to have published little himself.

The dates attributed to these engravings vary from 1690-1700 and beyond. I don’t think anybody really has a concrete date for them. It also appears that they also don’t agree about how many were in the original set. Some say 77, some say 97, and there were copycat artists who came after, plus reprints of the originals, sometimes hand-colored.

The image is from Gallica. And we will keep looking.

— Christopher Schwarz

12 Rough Roorkhee Chairs

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roorkhee_material_IMG_5949

I spent the morning digging through some very old 8/4 and 6/4 mahogany at Midwest Woodworking. This material will be for my June class on building a Roorkhee chair at Kelly Mehler’s School of Woodworking in Berea, Ky.

If you are in the class, you are in for a real treat. This material is beautiful.

And if we are cautious and quick we might have enough time and material to make a Roubo folding camp stool, too.

— Christopher Schwarz

roorkhee_rear_IMG_4041