France was the first country to adopt the metric system, so a French-style workbench drawn in metric seems appropriate.
I’ve uploaded the SketchUp drawing for the workbench we just completed at the Dictum GmbH workshop to the SketchUp 3D Warehouse. You can download it (free, of course), from the warehouse here and play around with it.
The model includes nine scenes that show the construction process, step-by-step.
— Christopher Schwarz
You can now purchase “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker” – complete and unabridged – for your Kindle, iPad or any other reader that accepts ePub files.
The price is $16. You can purchase the Kindle edition here. The ePub version for iPad iPhone and other ePub reader is here.
Like all our electronic products, these are supplied without any form of Digital Rights Management – DRM for short. DRM restricts you from moving the file to other devices, or requires a password, or is just generally a nuisance.
We do not care for DRM. And I am pleased to say that pirating of our products has been minimal. So thank you for being ethical citizens.
“The Joiner and Cabinet Maker” was a complex book for us to convert into an electronic edition, thanks to the hundreds of illustrations and the copious footnotes. I am happy to report that the book is complete with all the footnotes – you access them by clicking on the superscript number in the text. You will then be taken to a section of the book containing all the notes. The function works quite well.
One last note: Several customers have asked if we will be offering package prices on the book, electronic book and the forthcoming audiobook version read by Roy Underhill. After much debate, we have decided to keep all these products separate and simply offer each at the best price possible. We think $16 is a fair price for a DRM-free book of this complexity.
— Christopher Schwarz
This morning I’m finishing up all the small drawers for the gallery in this campaign secretary. The dovetails are little buggers, and the mahogany drawer front material is really dark stuff.
So I stole some of my daughter’s sidewalk chalk.
Chalking your knife lines and gauge lines makes your lines really easy to see, even in walnut. I usually rub some chalk onto the board coarsely, knife in my lines and then rub the chalk into the lines. This removes it from the face of the board and leaves it in the crevices.
However, today I learned something new, thanks to the kinda-creepy mind-reading power of carpenter Jeff Burks. He sent me a nice little article from an 1869 edition of The Manufacturer and Builder on dovetails.
There are some interesting tidbits in there, and in the discussion of chalk it implied you could pencil over the chalk. As I am somewhat dense at times, this had never occurred to me. So this morning I chalked my pin boards, knifed in the pins and then penciled in the vertical lines on the inside face.
It worked great.
Thanks dead guys. You’re the best.
You can download and read the entire article here.
http://www.carpentryarchive.org/files/dove-tail_joints_1869.pdf
— Christopher Schwarz
OK, after a technical hiccup, we have this worked out.
The 60-minute movie about the tools in “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” is now available for instant download in our store for $8. The download includes all the extras available on the DVD: the slideshow of the step photos, the SketchUp file and a text document that further explains some of the tools I chose and why.
This purchase is available for domestic customers through this link. International customers can also purchase this by sending $8 via PayPal to john@lostartpress.com. You will then receive a link to download the files.
Note that this download is a big file – 700 mb – so it will take some time when you order it. The download is one file – a zipped file. After you download it, it will decompress into a folder containing the video (an .mov file) plus the extras.
— Christopher Schwarz
For your reading pleasure: A short excerpt on mortising from the forthcoming book “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” by Jennie Alexander and Peter Follansbee.
The file is a pdf and requires Adobe Acrobat 6.0. It’s a fairly small file at 1.4 mb, so even the dial-up users should be able to nab it without too much trouble.
Yes, those are real color photos in the book. And yes, the page size really is 9” x 12”. And yes, it’s a Lost Art Press book.
And a gentle reminder: If you want to order this book and not pay domestic shipping you have only two weeks left before this offer expires on Feb. 27. Read more about “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” in our store here.
— Christopher Schwarz