Lost Art Press

Category: To Make as Perfectly as Possible, Roubo Translation

Euromania: Apron Hooks, Shoulder Knives and Parrots

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While I am trying to keep a stiff upper lip in my basement shop by working on a British naval officer’s campaign chest, the rest of the house is in a European near-riot.

This morning the postman dropped off another proof of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry,” which I’m going to start plowing into as soon as I stop typing this missive to you.

A few minutes later, the same postman stopped by to make me sign for a package from France. What’s this? He shrugs his shoulders and ambles away. I rip the package open with a knife and suddenly remember I had won this item via French eBay.

It’s a brass apron hook that looks like a workbench that is adorned with a bowsaw, holdfast, mallet and handplane. The bauble is surprisingly small – the brass part is only 1-1/2” long – and quite detailed – I can see the pegs that secure the tenons on the front leg.

Now all I need is an apron that works with these hooks. That shouldn’t be too hard to rig.

Also in the Inbox is a very interesting e-mail from Jeff Burks with an early – 1502 – depiction of a shoulder knife in use.

“As far as I know this is the oldest image depicting a shoulder knife in use, “Jeff writes. “The original was an intarsia self portrait made by Antonio Barili in 1502. I believe this was installed at the chapel of Saint John the Baptist in the Duomo of Siena.

“Antonio Barili (1453-1516) was an Italian intarsia designer, civil engineer, architect and engraver and a native of Siena. From 1483 to 1502 he worked in Siena Cathedral, providing carving and intarsia. This particular intarsia work was destroyed during World War II.

“The Latin inscription on the intarsia reads: ‘Hoc opus ego Antonius Barilis coelo non penicello D excussi an MCCCCCII.’ This translates to: ‘This work have I Antonio Barili made with the carving knife, not with a brush. In the year 1502.’ ”

One interesting description of this self-portrait comments that Barilis seems to be guiding the knife with a pencil in his right hand. Curious.

— Christopher Schwarz

Monath’s ‘The Carpenter’s Craft’

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I never get tired of looking at old drawings from woodworking shops. They confirm some of things I know about woodworking, challenge some of my ideas and make me want – really, really want – a cool joiner’s cap.

This weekend, Jeff Burks shared a bunch of images with me from the book “Angenehme Bilder-Lust, Der Lieben Jugend zur Ergötzung also eingerichtet” by Peter Conrad Monath (1683-1747) of Nürnberg.

Jeff’s stab at the translation for the book is: “Pleasant Diversions with Pictures: Thus Fondly Arranged for the Amusement of the Young.”

Monath was a Nürnberg printer who was famed for his children’s books and adolescents’ literature. Among the plates in this book is “Das Schreiner Handwerck,” or the “Carpenter’s Craft.”

Things that are interesting to note about this Germanic plate (aside from the fact that there must have been a sale on those hats):

1. A shoulder knife in use. The user is working on one of these “slab workbenches” I discussed last week. He has a cool hat, but it is not as awesome as the hat on the guy ripping at the same bench, which leads us to:

2. Clamps in use on the bench. The more old images you see, the more you’ll find this simple wooden clamp, which is described in A.J. Roubo’s “L’Art du Menuisier.”

3. Sometimes mortising looks like you are singing an aria.

4. A nice Germanic bench with a shoulder vise and no stretchers in the undercarriage. Could be the fault of the illustrator. But who knows?

5. More sawbenches with curved legs. Gotta make some.

6. Vanilla Ice is a member of the undead. Check out the cap on the guy sawing on the sawbenches. He is either with the crips or the bloods. I forget which is which.

7. The casework on its back. It’s good to see this – this is how I work on casework.

One last detail: I really like how the two shoulder knives are crossed in the little illustration below in amongst the text.

As always, Jeff turns up the best stuff.

— Christopher Schwarz

Lie-Nielsen Event at Popular Woodworking April 5-6

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Hey buddy, wanna see some edited proofs of the A.J. Roubo translation? Read on.

Lost Art Press will have a booth at the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event next weekend, and yes, we’ll have the first 126 pages of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry” for you to look over. And if I can get it printed out in time, I’ll also have a nice color proof of “By Hand & By Eye” by George Walker and Jim Tolpin.

Details and directions to the Popular Woodworking Soviet-era bunker are here.

As always, the Society of American Period Furniture Makers will be there in force doing demonstrations. Even if you own every Lie-Nielsen tool made, these demonstrations are a great reason to go. The schedule of demonstrations is here.

Plus, lots of toolmakers to chat up and an opportunity to test-drive their tools.

We’ll have our full range of books and DVDs for sale at the show, including our newest book “With the Grain” by Christian Becksvoort. Plus my Dutch tool chest and the Milkman’s Workbench. And a partridge in a camphor laurel tree (Got to get Australia out of my head.)

This is always a great show. Free. Hope you can make it.

— Christopher Schwarz

To Make as Perfectly as Time Allows

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After seven hours we have completed reviewing the galley proofs (the mock-up of the book pages as they will appear in print) for the first chapter of “To Make As Perfectly As Possible: Roubo on Marquetry.” To put it simply, the layout design is sumptuous. Book designer Wesley Tanner is brilliant at making our efforts look beautiful.

Much like making sausage or enacting legislation, there is much to cause you to avert your eyes when gazing on the business of book making. To give you a peek at what is going on just now, let me recount our current labors.

In most instances for most books, the author(s) only have to review the galleys to make sure 1) it says what they want it to say and submitted in the first place, and 2) catch any typos or editorial mistakes. When translating and annotating a historic volume, it is a bit more complicated. Sometimes when working our way through the stack of pages we come to the conclusion that we were using a wrong word or phrase, and it has to be changed throughout to make it the best book possible. At the least, this causes editors and designers to gnash their teeth. In a worst-case scenario they might start poking little rag dolls with long straight pins.

We settled on what we believe to be an excellent procedure. Because we have to compare the galleys to both our annotated text manuscript and the original volume of 240 years ago, it is a long slog. In order to pull all the pieces together I read each line aloud slowly and clearly while Michele followed along by reading the original French text simultaneously. In the hour-upon-hour of reading this aloud, the full import of the project became apparent.

Through this multi-sensory experience of reading, hearing and speaking, the grandeur of Roubo’s monumental effort becomes clear. Honestly, for the first time – after silently reading the text (10, 15, 20 times?) I understood more fully several passages I already thought I knew, but I was wrong. As the old-time evangelists used to say, “Knowing something in your head and knowing something in your heart are not the same things.” The rhythm of reading it out loud at a steady but deliberate pace caused many descriptions to become a real practice, not simply an articulate description.

This delight of new understanding keeps the task of reviewing from being tedious. I am not used to reading out loud for several hours.

In the end the book will be one with which we will be pleased, yet know also that there will be changes we could envision to make it better. To tell you the truth, if we had the fulfill a deadline of 10 years from Tuesday, we would be working until 10 years from Monday to make it better, and still it would not be perfect.

Unfortunately that’s just the way it is, and we recognize that some readers will find typos or homonyms that no one else found, and others will not like the way we phrased a particular translation or will object to some sections we chose not to include. We will have to reconcile with ourselves that in a world of limited resources, we did the best we could.

Onto the next chapter.

— Don Williams

Update on ‘To Make as Perfectly as Possible’

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Today marks a major milestone in the production of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry.” Designer Wesley Tanner has sent us the first 126 pages of the book for us to mark up.

It is gorgeous work on Wesley’s part.

For those of you waiting on your copy, you’ve probably figured out that we’re running behind. We’d hoped to have the book out this month, but we’re still proofing the pages. Everyone working on this project wants this book finished, but everyone also wants it (apologies in advance) as perfect as possible.

So I’ll be editing this book in Australia this month. Don Williams and Michele Pagan will be checking the text (again) from their homes. I’ll post updates on the process when we reach another significant waypoint.

And no, I’m afraid we don’t have a price settled on either version of the book – we have to have a final page count to get a good quote from the printer.

Because I don’t have any more good information, I’ll merely distract you with this photo of a shiny object we do have in-house this week.

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— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. Tomorrow I’ll post an update on “By Hand & By Eye” by George Walker and Jim Tolpin. It’s near the finish line.