Category: Lost Art Press Storefront

With a bruised right rib and something seriously wrong with my elbow today, I thought about titling this blog entry: “Burn Horse Garage, You Sputum of Satan – Ptttttth, I Hate You – Love Chris.” Instead I decided to focus on the ridiculous aspect of this project: What I will do to create my workshop.

During the last 12 months I have failed to install the new screen door for the front of our house. It’s an easy job – probably only half a day. But apparently I’d rather spend weeks mired in rebuilding concrete block walls, heaving old mattresses to their doom and ripping out 40 square yards of disgusting detritus all for a 25’ x 30’ bunker to hold a few machines and a wood pile.

For the last three years I have neglected to make and install 5’ of moulding on the stairway of our home. It’s an insanely easy bit of work. I could do it with moulding planes or a router in an hour or two. Lucy would be so happy. But no, I’d rather rip out weird tile and ceiling boards for four days straight. (Asbestos? I hope not.) All for a dark cave that is as inspiring as a Communist debriefing room.

Our house’s lamppost and doorbell haven’t worked since the Clinton Administration. The risers of our stairs need a quick coat of paint. My office walls need to be painted after a plaster repair five years ago.

I’m a horrible person. And apparently I am also a sociopath because I don’t care. Today we spent hours restoring the jambs of the Horse Garage – resetting them to their original place in 1906. We filled all the nail holes with an all-weather putty. We sanded. Scraped. Primed and painted.

Honestly, this blog entry could be entered into evidence in a divorce proceeding.

And that’s fine. I deserve it.

As long as I get to keep the shop.

— Christopher Schwarz

Registration is now open for 2018 classes with Megan Fitzpatrick and Brendan Gaffney. The classes will be held in our storefront and are limited to six participants.

To register for Megan’s April 7-8 class on building a Dovetailed Silverware tray, click here. The class is $250 plus a small materials fee.

To register for Brendan’s April 21-22 class on making a Cabinetmaker’s Sector, click here. The class is $300, which includes all materials.

Full details on the classes can be found here.

We had our first inspection from the Covington fire department this week and were told to fix something I’ve been meaning to get around to for 18 months: an exit sign.

We had a lighted exit sign when I purchased “The Blaze” more than two years ago. But the sign was super nasty, painted in glitter and covered (somehow) with hair. Hair? What the…? I ripped down the sign when I removed the odd ventilation fan (also covered in hair) and about three metric miles of sub-code electrical wiring.

Today we installed a hairless exit sign that was 100 percent to code, and we’re adding an “anti-blowjob” light to the front door to boot. I feel this light needs explanation.

Our shop is on a busy street corner that is used by everyone from elementary school students to prostitutes. When the sun goes down, some of the prostitutes have decided to use our shop’s stoop for their customer service duties. When this happens, the neighbors call the cops, and I get a nastygram from the police about the illegal activity on my property.

If I receive a couple more of those police reports I’m told I might be declared a nuisance by the city.

And so I debated today as to whether I should install a light above our door or monetize the whole thing with a webcam.

We’re going with the light.

— Christopher Schwarz

Megan Fitzpatrick and Brendan Gaffney will each teach a weekend class in April at our storefront in Covington, Ky. Registration will open at noon on Friday, Oct. 20.

Just like with the Welsh stick chair class with Chris Williams, these will be small classes with only six attendees. Also, these are not money-making enterprises for me or Lost Art Press. All proceeds go directly to the instructor.

I’m allowing them to use the space for free because they are my friends, I think they each have something valuable to teach and the classes build the local woodworking community in Covington. Here are the details.

Build a Shaker Silverware Tray with Megan Fitzpatrick
April 7-8, 2018
Cost: $250, plus a small materials fee for wood & cut brads (likely around $30)

Make a classic Shaker silverware tray in this introduction to hand-cut dovetails. In this two-day class, you’ll learn:

• Dovetail layout using dividers
• How to use a backsaw to saw to a line
• How to wield a coping or fret saw
• How to pare and chop to a line with a chisel
•  Several strategies for transferring the tails to the pin board
• Techniques for fitting the joint
• Why dovetails work – and we’ll look at some examples of long-lasting period dovetails that look as if they were gnawed out by a beaver – “perfection” is overrated when it comes to the efficacy of this joint. (That said, you’ll also learn some “tricks” for fixing less-than-stellar dovetails.)
• How to lay out then cut and fair the handles (both the hand holds and the curved top edge)
• How to smooth-plane your surfaces
• How to use cut nails (to secure the bottom board)
• And of course, how to put it all together (and why I recommend liquid hide glue).

 

Build the Cabinetmaker’s Sector with Brendan Gaffney
April 21-22, 2018
Cost: $300, which includes all raw materials

In this two-day class, students will build their own Cabinetmaker’s Sector, my modernized design for the ancient geometer’s tool, used for drawing, drafting and (in my shop) the layout of dimensions and joinery on woodwork. The class will revolve around the skills of modern hand-tool makers, including careful marking and measuring, mixing metal and wood, hand shaping, finishing and (of course) how to use the tool.

Each student will be provided the wood and the necessary brass hinges and pins, everything needed to produce the sector. The first day will revolve around affixing the brass and wooden tabs into the tools, riveting the leaves together, flattening and lapping the tools and reviewing the principles behind the geometry of the sector. The second day will revolve around shaping the sectors, stamping and inking the sector marks, finishing the sectors and learning to use them in the shop. Every student will leave with a completed sector, plus the knowledge of how it works and how to use it.

Once you grab a sledgehammer, it’s hard to put it down.

What began as a mild demolition of the interior of the Horse Garage at our storefront blossomed/became infected. Now I am neck-deep in a major construction project that requires all my skills, most of my time and nearly everything in my bank account.

The reward, however, will be that I’ll have a place for the few machines I own, and they’ll be steps away from my bench room. Also, the butt-end of our property will look a lot more like it did the day in 1906 that they constructed the garage behind the store.

In addition to time, money and muscle, this project requires the cooperation of the City of Covington. We’re in an historical overlay district. Luckily, city officials here are helpful and supportive. I’ve yet to encounter an unreasonable roadblock. But you do have to submit paperwork. Lots of it. And I don’t like paperwork.

Today we proposed our changes and backed them up with archaeological evidence, drawings and a fully signed and dated form. If this gets approved, then I will be on a fast track to build four huge doors, assist in installing a new membrane roof and weatherproof the building before winter arrives.

I’m optimistic. Not only because of the huge carrot dangling in front of me – a nice room for machines – but because of the help of the local Latin American community. The restoration of Covington is being built with the backs of the immigrant laborers, and my building is no different. While I’m on the roof and lifting concrete blocks every dang day, this job would be a nightmare without the help of Manuel, Hugo and a number of other strong backs.

I am not trying to be political here, just honest. They work as hard as I do. They push me to take on as much as I can manage. And they do it all with a laugh and a smile.

As we lift these 50-lb. blocks up into place I can think only of my great-grandparents on the Schwarz side. According to my grandfather, they arrived in the Dakotas from Germany in the early part of the 20th century and were put to work making bricks. They saved enough to move to St. Louis and buy a boarding house. My grandfather was a paper salesman and freelance photographer. My father was the first Schwarz to go to college and became a physician.

And now I’m back to the bricks.

Circular irony aside, it feels damn good.

— Christopher Schwarz