Lost Art Press

Category: The Anarchist’s Tool Chest

4,770 Pounds Later

Posted on by Lost Art Press

“The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” arrived via truck this afternoon. The book looks great. I, however, look like a boiled hobo and am on my second set of clothes this afternoon. Here’s the story:

The books left the Michigan printing plant on Tuesday – one-third of the press run went directly to wholesale customers. The other two-thirds came to my house.

Getting a semi-trailer – even a small one – into a dead-end street in a residential neighborhood is always a game of chicken. Literally. But I’ve unloaded more trucks than I care to remember, starting with my days in a liquor warehouse and up to my current job at Popular Woodworking Magazine. I can’t drive a forklift, but I can do everything else.

Today, my truck driver was having a bad day. I was the last delivery, and someone had pooped in his All Bran (not that you can tell the difference when someone voids in that stuff). He drove down the street and he didn’t like what he saw. Cursed a blue streak. Drove away.

He called me from a nearby grocery store and told me to come pick the books up there.

I told him he would be the first driver in 15 years who failed me. He hung up.

About 15 minutes later he pulled up and we made nice. We pulled the three pallets off his truck and deposited them on my driveway.

“I hope you have a lot of tarps,” he said as he walked back to his cab.

The sky was suddenly dark. I grabbed a knife, ripped through the plastic around the pallets and began humping boxes into my sunroom. Ten minutes later, the sky opened up. Stupid rain.

I covered what I could with tarps and then brought what I could inside – more than 140 boxes. After getting two pallets in the house, the rain was too strong to fight. I covered the third pallet as best I could and peeled off my clothes. While I waited, I cut the wet cardboard off the books and surveyed the damage.

So far, it looks like none of the moisture got into the books. Only one book and one box was damaged in transit. That’s not bad.

Tomorrow we’ll set up a shipping station in my sunroom and start signing and signing and mailing the books. Right now, I’m going to drink a beer (Pliny the Elder – thanks Nate!) and take a close look at the printing job.

— Christopher Schwarz

If you don’t have your copy of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” yet, you can order it here from our store for $37.

Video: A Chest Divided

Posted on by Lost Art Press

There is something appealing about a chest that has French-fitted compartments for each tool. Protecting it. Cradling it. Showing it off.

In my first tool chest I built the top of the till with a bunch of French-fitted compartments for chisels, block planes, a shoulder plane and drill bits. And for the first year I was well pleased. All the tools were in the right place and easy to get.

But then I realized that flexibility was more important than permanence. It wasn’t that my tool kit changed, but the projects I was building required a different set of tools. Sometimes I needed my grandfather’s carving tools handy. Bench-building requires lots of boring operations. Dovetailing needs quick access to chisels, saws and marking & measuring tools.

But not every project has dovetails.

With the chest I built in late 2010 I decided to skip the French-fitted dividers and live with open and flexible tool storage until I concluded that a certain tool needed – deserved – a permanent holder, such as a saw till.

I now have all my tools loaded up into my chest at home – the 48 tools in my core set plus a few that are on my list of “good-to-have tools.” This short video shows what the chest looks like with all the tools in place. There’s room for everything, plus then some.

And I’m sure I will eventually put in a few wooden dividers in the sliding tray to cordon things off, but they will be added sparingly, like dog holes in a workbench.

Printing update: The pressroom made up the plates for the book on Friday and we are now on schedule to have the books shipped to us on May 23. So if you want to order “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” with free domestic shipping, be sure to do that before May 23.

You can order the book with free domestic shipping here.

— Christopher Schwarz

Pre-order ‘The Anarchist’s Tool Chest’ and Receive Free Domestic Shipping

Posted on by Lost Art Press

“The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” is now at the printer and we, like some of you, are tapping our toes as we wait.

So to pass the time, we are offering a free download of the prologue and first chapter of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” in .pdf format. This is a small sample – the book is 480 pages. I didn’t mean to write that much. It just happened.

Here’s a link to download the file:

ATC_sample

Also, I know that many of you enjoyed the quotations that I posted here on the blog while I was building the chest. Many of them are from Charles H. Hayward when he was editor of The Woodworker magazine. As I came across those quotes I typed them into a document.

I only managed to use a few of the quotes in the book. But all of them are in the file below – including some that weren’t even posted on the blog – for you to download and enjoy.

Anarchist_Tool_Chest_Quotes

And finally, we are now taking pre-orders for “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.” If you order before the book ships – we hope by early June – then you will receive free domestic shipping. The book is $37 and all copies that we sell through our store will be signed. You can read more details and place your order here in our store.

Note that we are planning on issuing a hand-bound leather edition of this book. There will only be 26 of those, and each will be lettered and signed. Details are to come, but we expect the leather edition will be available in July and will be about $200.

Thanks to all of you who have written encouraging notes during the last 14 months as I worked on this book during nights and weekends. I hope that the result doesn’t disappoint.

— Christopher Schwarz