After a very easy transition colonoscopy-like-experience in moving to our new web site, I can now report that our site appears to be working fine, accepting orders and quite secure.
We have tested (and re-tested) the site during the last couple days and are confident that everything is moving smoothly. If, however, you encounter any snags in ordering, please contact us.
Thank you for your patience. The new site is, among other things, far more stable than our former Dixie-cup-and-rubber-band shopping cart. And it ensures we will be ready to expand in the future and add some great new products, such as a book from Peter Follansbee and Jennie Alexander than has been in the works now for a decade.
I’m finishing up the corrections today to “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” for the second printing. There are four significant factual errors we’ve corrected, listed below, and three clarifications to the text that might help you through some muddled language on my part.
We also cleaned up about 50 typographical errors. While that’s not terrible for a 120,000-word manuscript, we always strive for zero. Thanks to everyone who helped clean up the text.
Here are the four errors:
Page 122: I discuss how a panel gauge will make a line “perpendicular” to your true edge. It should be “parallel.” (Thanks to Gil Chesbro.)
Page 248: I recommend a 4- or 4.5-point panel saw filed rip. Those don’t really exist. I meant a 7-point panel filed rip. (Thanks to Carl Bilderback.)
Page 270 I discuss a “manmade soft-Arkansas oilstone” that I used to own. It should read “manmade coarse India stone.” (Thanks to Stephen Shepherd.)
Page 430: The drawing shows the dust seal on four sides of the lid; it goes around only three sides. The corrected illustration can be downloaded below. (Thanks to Bob Miller.)
Here are the clarifications:
Page 440: The illustrations of the sawtill show some kerfs as not running all the way through. Yet I clearly ran the kerfs for the sawblades all the way through. You can do it either way. Both are traditional and correct.
Page 446: I describe the bottom till as a little “smaller” than the other tills. This is confusing. It is a little smaller in length but it is a little larger in depth.
Page 404: The illustration shows two battens but I show three in the step photos. Either way is fine. Many of the traditional chests have two. Some have three. I tried three, but I drew two.
“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.
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.
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.
In the famous words of Westley: “Get used to disappointment.”
This week I am finishing the layout chores for “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” and we are on schedule to send it to the printer on April 15. Barring a plague of locusts, that means the book should be shipping the first week of June.
I’ve spent the last 14 months writing this book, and all I can say is that I cannot discern if it’s something worth reading or a stinking turd. I’m too close to it.
I can say that during the last couple months, I’ve given three presentations about the content of the book with mixed results. My favorite reaction to the content was at the Northeastern Woodworkers Association’s Showcase in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. It went something like this:
Him: Why would anyone want to use a tool chest when you can put your tools on the wall?
Me: A chest protects tools from dust.
Him: But having them on the wall is so much better. You can get them so much easier.
Me: But they will get dusty. Dust has salt in it, which attracts moisture.
Him: A chest is a dumb idea.
Me: OK.
Him: Really. A wall rack is better than a chest.
Me: OK.
Him: Really, a chest? Dumb.
The funny thing about the above conversation (and about a dozen more like it) is that “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” is not a book that is going to try to talk you into building a traditional tool chest. Yes, I cover the topic in great detail. I spent months studying traditional chests and have about 13 years experience using one.
Yes, there are complete plans for the chest. Yes, I really like my chest. And yes, I think that a proper tool chest is a great thing for your shop.
But I will be surprised if more than a handful of people actually build this chest. That’s because the tool chest is actually a metaphor for what this book is really about: Assembling a reasonable kit of tools so you can be a woodworker instead of a budding tool collector.
Oh, and it’s about cheese, craft beer and micro-farming.
But let’s say you just want to build a tool chest. Should you buy this book? Nah. In fact, I’ve boiled down the entire content of the book into a one-page .pdf that you can download by clicking here.
Thanks to our customers, 2010 has been a record year for Lost Art Press. The book “The Essential Woodworker” has sold like crazy – we had to go back to press for a second printing after only four weeks. We sold out completely of our first book, “The Art of Joinery,” and overall sales have been great.
To thank you, we’d like to offer you a small downloadable gift: Henry Adams’s “Joints in Woodwork.” What, you’ve never heard of it? Well read on.
We first learned of this document years ago when reading “Spons’ Own Mechanic’s Companion.” The authors of Spons called out this Adams’s document as the definitive source on wood joinery. So we have been looking for it for a few years now.
This fall, I finally found it bound into a series of papers presented by Henry Adams, a professor of engineering at the City of London College. Most of the papers dealt with steel structures, ironwork, fireproof floors and cisterns. But there is also a paper that Adams presented to the Civil & Mechanical Engineers’ Society on March 1, 1877, called “Joints in Woodwork.”
What’s neat about these papers is that they include these huge 11″ x 15″ foldout posters relating to each topic. Then there is a 33-page paper discussing the joints. After reading Adams’s paper, it’s clear that most of the audience was concerned with carpentry first and joinery second.
So there is a lot of discussion on 19th-century house construction. But if you look past that, I think you’ll find some really good information in here. Adams’s six principles for designing any joint are excellent, and I haven’t seen those published anywhere. The discussion of the material itself is also interesting, including how the medullary rays play a role in splitting.
But the coolest part of the paper is by far the poster, which contains all manner of joints that we (and carpenters) use to build furniture. And it’s done in a nice 19th-century style. I’m going to print it out on nice paper and hang it in my shop.
Using the links below, you can download both the poster and the 33-page paper. There’s nothing to buy, or register for or what not. Just click on the links and the download will begin.
