Lost Art Press

Category: Campaign Furniture

A Man by Himself in the Jungle

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If you lost your self-respect you were not looked upon in a respectful and proper manner. So in order to maintain my self-respect I put on a dinner jacket and dressed for dinner and I said to my servants, who were quite likely to get a bit slack just looking after a man by himself in the middle of the jungle, “Now this is a dinner party and you will serve me my dinner as though there are other people at the dinner table.”

— Kenneth Warren, a British officer serving in a tea garden in Assam from 1906-1913

Broad and Simple Rules

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“1. Never encourage the manufacture of any article not strictly necessary, in the production of which Invention has no share.
2. Never demand exact finish for its own sake, but only for a practical or noble end.
3. Never encourage copying or imitation of any kind, except for the preserving of great works.”

— John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice (1854)

For more thoughts on Ruskin and thoughts on furniture design, visit James Watriss’s blog.

Planing: A Veritable Donkey’s Bridge

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Jeff Burks is a finish carpenter, dogged researcher and definitely a member of the “inner circle” of the world’s wood nerds. His healthy obsession with old books and trade magazines in particular has led me down some fun rabbet holes.

And this week, he has done it again with an article called “How to Plane a Piece of Wood,” which was printed in the June 10, 1892, edition of English Mechanic and World of Science and Art and likely penned by Joseph Gregory Horner.

The author of this fantastic piece of writing is one of the “cranky old dudes” who show up in these trade magazines from time to time to show young apprentices how it is done. I love the cranky old dudes (and they love to e-mail me).

So while your boss isn’t looking or you are pretending to listen to your spouse, download this article from Jeff’s web site, carpentryarchive.org.

Here’s the direct link for a pdf that Jeff made: http://www.carpentryarchive.org/files/english_mechanic_1892.pdf

It is, quite possibly, one of the most entertaining articles on planing I’ve ever read, and I’ll bet you a doughnut that you’ll start using the expression “a veritable donkey’s bridge” after you read it.

Thanks to Jeff, who has given me a lot to read this week. More to come, just as soon as I finishing packing these outstanding book orders.

— Christopher Schwarz

A Box Inside a Box that’s Inside a Box…

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Whenever visitors stop by, they look at the secretary I’m building, scratch their heads and say something like: “I don’t get how this works.”

So here is a photo of the secretary’s gallery inside the top drawer, which is missing its drop-front right now. I think this project is starting to look like something.

As I was fitting the gallery inside the top drawer and fitting the top drawer inside the carcase today, I had an odd thought: How do people do this process with only power tools? It’s not a snide remark, really, just my plain ignorance. I’ve never fit a drawer with power tools, so I have absolutely no clue how it’s done.

I think I know what my old boss, Steve Shanesy, would say: Build it right, and it will fit perfectly the first time.

But I know that’s not typical. Even a little bit of bow or wind can jam a drawer.

The only thing I could come up with is using a dull block plane and then sanding away the tool marks. And I once saw cabinetmaker Troy Sexton fit a drawer on a 8” jointer – no lie – and he wasn’t even wearing Depends.

Surely one doesn’t use a belt sander?

— Christopher Schwarz

Update on our Upcoming Books

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Now that “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” on its way here, we have many readers asking about the other titles that are in the works here.

Before I do that, let me say that we don’t operate like a traditional publishing company with a publishing schedule. We don’t release a book until everyone – me, the author(s), the layout artist – are happy. So I might tell you a date that we hope to have a book complete, but it will always be a guess.

So with that said, here’s where some, but not all, of our projects are this morning.

“Mouldings in Practice” by Matt Bickford. This will be our next book this year. The book is written and edited. The photos are processed. The hundreds of illustrations are converted to a publishable format. We have a design template, and the designer, Linda Watts, is starting to put all the pieces together on the page. I hope to send this book to the printer by the end of March.

“To Make as Perfectly as Possible” by Don Williams. As many of you know, this project stalled temporarily when one member of the translation and review team had to tend to some important personal business. Things are moving forward again, and the goal is to have this book ready for Christmas. Don has a new blog entry ready on the project that I will post this week.

“By Hand & Eye” (tentative title) by Jim Tolpin and George Walker. Jim and George are hard at work on this book – I’ve been following their collaborative process in GoogleDocs. This book is due in my hands in June. We hope to have this ready for 2012 as well.

We have lots more projects in the works, including two books that I’m writing myself and several projects that I can’t even talk about for competitive reasons. One of these books has been in the works here in my living room for two years and involved a network of helpers here in the city. It should be big – literally – maybe a five-pounder.

Now I’ve got to get back to the shop. I have to finish that secretary in less than two weeks. If I don’t respond to your e-mails quickly, that’s why.

— Christopher Schwarz