Author: Lost Art Press
Binge, Purge and Then….
I try to keep my tool kit as small as possible. So if I don’t use a tool for a few years, I try to get it into someone else’s hands so they can use it. Sometimes that means selling it or giving it away.
Back in 2010 I sold off a bunch of tools to both cull the herd and pad our savings account – I was preparing to quit my day job. One of the tools I sold was a Bridge City SS-2 Saddle Square because it wasn’t getting much use. Plus I had the Veritas Saddle Square, which was less expensive and did the job.
During the last couple years I realized that the Bridge City version would come in handy for my work, especially for marking around bevels and chamfers on my chairs. For a while I made do with a brass butt hinge. And I briefly considered making a wooden-hinged saddle square. But then I broke down and bought a Bridge City SS-2 from eBay.
The SS-2 was new in the box. Unused and in its original wrapper. Obviously it was owned by a collector and was intended for someone else’s tool collection. I recycled all the nice packaging and tossed the square into my waist apron (apologies to the tool collectors, but I think I just made your mint SS-2 a little more valuable).
There have been a few other tools that I have “rebought” over the years. Most recently, I bought back a Wayne Anderson miter plane from the estate of Fred West. Fred had bought the tool off me many years ago and kept it in his collection. It still has my edge on the iron (that was back when I was experimenting with tertiary bevels, so it was easy to recognize).
I must be getting old and soft. I got sentimental and simply missed that beautiful plane. Let’s hope my memory starts to fail so I simply forget about all the other tools I sold. This could get expensive.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. I’m sure that some of you are thinking that Crucible should produce a saddle square. Honestly, not many people need this tool for their work, so I think it would be as profitable as a woodworking poster.
This is Not a Breakup Letter
I’ve been writing a woodworking blog almost every day since two-thousand-and-good-god five (2005). I pretty much have the hang of it now. And I’m happy with its mix of content, the variety of authors and its “voice,” for lack of a better word.
I have no desire to throw a monkey wrench into the works.
And yet, I’m 54. I have fewer years ahead than behind. And there are things that I desperately want to attempt, as both a writer and a woodworker. So for 2023 I will conduct an experiment. I’ve started a blog called “The American Peasant” on Substack.
If you’ve never heard of Substack, it’s a blogging platform that offers a paywall and is writer-friendly.
“The American Peasant” is the working title of my next book, and the blog will document its development in weird and somewhat dark detail. I’ll be posting the process behind the process. Draft chapters. All the construction drawings and SketchUp files and cutting lists I make for the projects in the book. All the dead ends that have no place in the book but are interesting to visit. The tools I am developing and modifying for this book. Plus the raw research – how I find information, chew it up and poop it into a book. Also, all the business decisions (and mistakes) that go into making a book in the hardest way possible.
I’m sure you have questions.
Q: Why not just post all this stuff here on this blog?
A: I want this blog to carry forward as it is. What I’ll be writing on “The American Peasant” will be raw, personal and less polished. The reader might encounter naughty words. Difficult ideas. And Unfiltered Schwarz. Here’s a concrete example: This book began when I took some psychedelic mushrooms on a German farm. Lost Art Press should appeal to a large swath of woodworkers. “The American Peasant” will not. For the first month or so, “The American Peasant” will be free for everyone so you can figure out if it’s for you.
Q: Why put it behind a paywall?
A: “The American Peasant” will be a lot of work for me. We try to give away as much information as possible at Lost Art Press for free. And we pay our authors generous royalties that are unheard of in corporate publishing. That’s why I have to teach classes and sell furniture – to make ends meet in my household. In other words, Lost Art Press is not some cash cow. The revenue from “The American Peasant” will go into the coffers at Lost Art Press to continue to support the difficult way we do business. Plus, I think the content will be well worth it.
Q: How much will it cost?
A: I’m still working on that. Probably $5 a month.
Q: How does it work?
A: It’s an email subscription service. Once you subscribe, you’ll get an email containing the entire entry every time I post. You’ll also be able to search the archives of past entries.
Q: You said this is an “experiment.” What does that mean?
A: This might fall flat. If it’s not worth the effort, I’ll pull the plug after a year, and readers will get a refund.
Q: When will it begin?
A: Now.
— Christopher Schwarz
Wipe Your Way to Better Flush-cutting
I feel a little stupid posting this as I cannot believe I haven’t figured it out before. Likely it’s so obvious that no one thought to tell me.
When using a flush-cutting saw (a saw with zero set), I always noticed that the first cut was relatively easy. Then each subsequent cut became more difficult.
“Hmmm,” I thought. “Perhaps the blade is heating up in use. And that heat is swelling the wood fibers in the cut, increasing friction
And while that swelling might be true to a small degree, something else was going on: a lack of lube.
Right before I put any saw away in my tool chest or hang it on the wall, I wipe its blade with oil to protect it from rust.
So when I pick the saw up the next time, it’s lubed. The first cut I make with it is full lubricated. Each subsequent cut removes more of that lube.
Now when I use my flush-cutting saw, I wipe its blade with an oily rag after every cut. And miracle of miracles, it works like crazy.
— Christopher Schwarz
10 Biggest Mistakes We’ve Made
As Lost Art Press enters its 16th year of operations, I am amazed we are still here. We have made so many errors – some of them nearly fatal. Likely the reason we are still operating is that we are too dumb to quit. If I had to “make” every LAP book with a photocopier and a stapler, I’d probably do that before closing our doors.
If you run a small business (or hope to), some of our mistakes might serve as warning flags for you. Here’s a partial list. The complete list would be as long as a book.
- We trusted a FedEx salesman as to what our shipping costs would be when we signed up with the service. In less than two months, the company’s shipping costs almost drained our cash reserves. We now take a very granular approach to evaluating shipping costs and know exactly what we are paying for every shipment. Lesson: Don’t trust – *and* verify.
- We ordered too much inventory during the pandemic. Everyone made business mistakes during the last few years. We panicked when printing times went from five weeks to six months. And then we sank too much money into inventory. Good thing we’re not Lost Art Meat (books don’t spoil). We had our first “sale” over the summer to help correct the inventory problem. But it remains a drag on us.
- We listened to customers and produced “The Book of Plates” – a volume of all of the illustrations in A.J. Roubo’s “l’Art du menuisier.” The printing bill was more than $135,000, which was more money than we had in the bank at the time. Somehow we managed to pay the printing bill. And then the book’s sales were terrible. Plus the book was so huge (size-wise) that we were spending hundreds of dollars a month just to store the unsold books. We managed to eke out of that situation and break even.
- Every single poster we’ve made (except one) has been a loser. We would have been better off lighting the money on fire and using that for heat during the winter.
- Our lovely Ebbets Field Flannels hats. So many were returned with a single message: “That Brim!” The hat was too fashion-forward.
- Teaching too much. In 2012 I was teaching on the road for 18 weeks. I hadn’t yet learned to say “no.” I missed my daughter Katherine’s birthday four years in a row as a result of my teaching schedule. It almost made me crack.
- Public email. I had a public email address for about 15 years. A lot of things about it were good – I enjoy conversing with woodworkers. But a small percentage of people were what Roy Underhill calls “Time Thieves.” People who exist only to drain you. One night when I was teaching at Roy’s I received an email from a reader asking insanely detailed questions about moulding planes that would take me more than an hour of writing to respond. The next morning Roy remarked that he had received this awfully long email from a guy asking all about moulding planes. It was the same guy. At that moment I decided that not every email deserved a response. And within a year (at John’s urging), I shut down my public email address. Editor’s note: Please don’t send them to me instead. – Fitz
- Working for free. While I was an editor at Popular Woodworking, we often spoke to woodworker’s clubs for free to help get the word out about our magazine, and we were paid by the magazine to do it. After I left the magazine, the clubs kept calling. And kept asking/demanding free LAP books for Christmas give-aways and club picnics. I learned to say “no.”
- Every future poster that I will rationalize and print and try to sell.
- Taking our eyes off expenses for even a moment. Anytime we weren’t paying 100 percent attention to our expenses, we made a small (or large) error. We now have a company motto: Expenses are like fingernails. They always need to be trimmed.
OK back to making books and dreaming up a money-making poster. Hmmm, squirrels with tool belts? Who wouldn’t want that hanging on their shop wall?
— Christopher Schwarz