Category: Lost Art Press Storefront

The Lost Art Press storefront in Covington, Ky., will be open this Saturday with lots of interesting stuff to try and to see. Here’s what you’ll find if you pay us a visit.

• An authentic Douro chair. I’m studying this chair and its transit case for an upcoming commission. This chair is great fun. It fits inside its case. The case turns into a side table.
• Lots of blemished books for 50 percent off retail. (Cash only, on these, please.) I’m picking up a sizable load of returned orders and books with dinged corners from our warehouse for the Saturday event.
• Megan Fitzpatrick is finishing up a Dutch tool chest.
• Brendan Gaffney is building a beguiling bookcase using persimmon panels that use “recording.”
• The Electric Horse Garage is complete. We have HVAC, electricity, machines and no leaks. Our machine room is simple, but if you saw what we started with in September you might be impressed.

The storefront is at 837 Willard St. in Covington, Ky., and our hours Saturday are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

If you are looking for other fun stuff to do in the area this weekend.

• Go on a tour of the New Riff Distillery (in Newport next door to Covington). It’s a gorgeous facility. Plus you should stop at Braxton Labs, next door to the distillery, and try some of the unusual beers they are cooking up.
• Sunday is the final day for the Durer exhibit at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Totally free and totally awesome.
• Get a cinnamon roll or brioche tart at Brown Bear Bakery in Over the Rhine, my new obsession.
• Lil’s Bagels (the best bagels I’ve had outside New York) have opened a window on Greenup Street in Covington. Get there early because they sell out almost every day.

— Christopher Schwarz

The new roof on the Electric Horse Garage is complete. The electricity is in and flowing. The last bit of the puzzle (the ductless HVAC) will be installed on Monday.

That means we move the big machines next week, and I can begin the next chapter of my life.

Some details: Ignore the weird red trim on the front of the shop. That isn’t how it was supposed to look, and I’ll fix that next week. I also have to install some floor sweeps for the doors and hang the interior lights (LEDs). Oh, I have to assemble the 18” band saw. Build a mobile base for the mortiser. Finish the restoration of the old Powermatic drill press.

And touch up the paint inside. Repair the weird hole in the floor (can you see Zuul down there?). Trim and fill the weird pipes in the middle of the floor. Get some heavy anti-fatigue mats for the floor.

Crap.

Shops are never done.

— Christopher Schwarz

Megan Fitzpatrick and Brendan Gaffney will staff the Lost Art Press storefront this Saturday so I can have a weekend with my wife (it’s our 25th anniversary).

There have been lots of changes at the storefront, 837 Willard St. in Covington, Ky., since last month. The Electric Horse Garage will be up and running (the new roof goes on starting Tuesday). Plus, we are setting up the bench room for classes that Brendan, Megan and Will Myers will be teaching there this year.

We now have nine (!) different workbenches at the storefront for you to examine.

• My French oak Roubo bench
• The Holtzapffel workbench
• A Nicholson bench with angled legs
• Megan Fitzpatrick’s “Glue-bo” bench made with laminated beams
• A nice commercial Ulmia
• A cherry and cottonwood Roubo bench
• The Loffelholz 1505 workbench
• The Saalburg Roman bench
• The Herculaneum eight-legged bench

So if you are in the market for a workbench design, our storefront might be a good place to investigate.

As per usual, we will be selling our full line of Lost Art Press books, plus T-shirts. We are, however, quite low on blemished books right now.

The storefront is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the second Saturday of each month. Directions and a map are here. Our next open day will be Feb. 10 (I’ll be there!).

— Christopher Schwarz

I have never been so happy to hear from a roofer.

After 10 weeks of waiting for my number to come up, Brian the Roofer called to say his crew will begin the job Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning.

Barring rain or a visit from the Angel of Death, I’ll have a new roof by the end of the week and will then set up my machines. That should take a day at most. I don’t have a lot of machines, and they (with one exception) are easy to move.

The only thing left to do is install the mini-split to control the climate in the workshop. The wiring for it is ready – so it’s a one-day job. (And until the mini-split gets installed, I’ll simply freeze my butt off when I work.)

Ever since moving my workbench to the storefront almost two years ago, I’ve been slowed down by having two shops. Though I don’t do a lot of machine work, there were times that I had to drive home to use the drill press for a very particular hole and then had to drive right back to the storefront to continue working.

Though I don’t live far from the storefront (4.2 miles), the route always has a chance of jackknifed semis or cornholed motorists on the stretch that locals call “Death Hill.”

When I was planning out my new shop, I half-considered writing a series of articles about the process. Then I realized that I think most people make it a lot more difficult than necessary. And by putting a lot of effort into the shop, they actually make it more of a pain to use in the long-term.

If you’d like to read my brief thoughts on setting up shop, check out my entry at my other blog at Popular Woodworking Magazine. Here’s the link. (Side note: I’d like to offer a huge thank-you to all the people who read my blog there – the monthly pay I receive is an important part of our family budget. And according to the traffic numbers, 2017 was a good one for my blog there.)

Now back to dreaming of my membrane roof.

— Christopher Schwarz

When I purchased my shop building in Covington, Ky., I swore I wasn’t going to open a woodworking school. And, in all honesty, I still don’t want to run a school or return to teaching.

I will, however, allow my friends to use the space to teach classes.

So, in the coming weeks you can look for Megan Fitzpatrick and Brendan Gaffney to offer additional classes at our storefront. Brendan is especially keen on offering low-cost, one-day workshops for locals to introduce them to woodworking, sharpening and woodworking tools. Why? Almost every day people stop by the storefront asking if we will teach them how to build things. (Today, a plumber and a barber asked for classes.)

Megan has a full roster of classes that we have been planning for many months, including a Morris chair design that was made here in Cincinnati, Ohio.

In conjunction with these classes, we also plan to open the mechanical library up for the public to use. The library is still under heavy construction – Megan and I need to build a 12’-long run of shelves to house part of the collection.

So things are changing here – for the better. By the end of the year the Horse Garage will be a fully functional shop with a few good machines. We’ll have space for me to continue my research and build commissions. We’ll have space for Megan and Brendan to offer instruction. Plus rare old books to blow your mind.

One final note: All of our projects begin incredibly small in nature. Lost Art Press sold about 2,000 books its first year in 2007. (We’re up to about 40,000 a year now. That’s a pathetic growth curve for corporate America, but I have only two words for corporate America.) Crucible is still in its infancy, as are our plans for the storefront. I want things to grow organically and be bulletproof. No debt. No reaching for things beyond our grasp.

I hope you’ll join us on our slow journey.

— Christopher Schwarz