Category: Lost Art Press Storefront

I have four tables of tools priced and ready to move during our Saturday open house at 837 Willard St., Covington, KY 41011.

There’s a little bit of everything: bench planes, moulding planes, saws, drills, marking tools, a glue pot and sharpening equipment. I’ll open the door at 10 a.m. (no earlybirds, please. We like to treat everyone the same).

All tool sales are cash or check.

My favorite tool table is the “free to a good home” table in the center of the room. This table has a lot of the tools I started woodworking with in 1993. There’s my first backsaw, which includes the replacement handle I made but never attached. My first three plastic-handled chisels. My first mallet. And a bunch of silly stuff people have dumped on my doorstep (a hammer made from a faucet?).

I also pulled out a couple pieces of prototype furniture that have been in the shed for the last few years. When I sell prototypes, I sell them for the cost of materials only. They are not perfect. Repeat: Perfect they are not. But they are fully functional. There’s a six-board chest (one of the failed prototypes for “The Anarchist’s Design Book” that I’m selling for $100). And a walnut wall cabinet with rat tail hinges, a prototype from Woodworking Magazine, for $150.

We will also have our usual full line of books, for which we can take credit cards, plus blemished books, free posters and free stickers. Plus Katy will have a batch of wax for sale.

I do hope someone shows up tomorrow because I don’t want to have to move these tools again.

— Christopher Schwarz

I’ve been digging out the nether regions of our household this week to collect tools to sell at our Covington, Ky., storefront this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Directions to our store here.

So far I’ve gathered up about 70 items, everything from a Lie-Nielsen No. 4 to a set of oilstones to a set of turning tools. I’ll also be scouring our basement where there is stuff all the way back to 1993 when I took my first woodworking class.

I won’t be selling any junk. And prices will be incredibly fair. (Side note: There will be junk, but I’ll be giving it away. Come claim my first plastic-handled chisel!)

All tools will be sold cash or personal check (sorry, no credit cards). If there’s anything left after Saturday, I’ll post it for sale on our blog later this summer.

Some of the items I’ve set aside for Saturday:

Saws – premium backsaws and totally usable vintage handsaws. Some coping saws.

Planes – A few premium planes. I gave all my vintage ones away to the Baby Anarchists last fall.

Hammers: For joinery, adjusting, malleting etc.

Nice vintage miter jack.

Winding sticks of my own make

A Stanley 386 jointer fence

… and this is what I can see on top of the piles.

It’s all first come, first served. No exceptions. Please don’t ask me to mail anything to you. Pretty please.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. And of course we’ll have all our books for sale, plus some blemished books for 50 percent off retail, free stickers and posters and free woodworking advice….

The most amazing and inspiring photos of woodworking shops feature a wall (or many walls) of tools neatly arranged and ready for use. Eugene Landon’s shop in Fine Woodworking is one. Patrick Edwards is another. And Ron Herman is a third – one I’ve witnessed in person.

Like anyone who builds, I feel an odd ache when I see these photos. I want to grab every tool in every nook and put it to use. I want to see what they can do. I imagine that I could build almost anything if I had all those tools. And they were all sharp and tuned, with arrow-straight soles and tight-fitting wedges. Shavings would fly….

The truth, however, is different.

During the last 20 years I’ve seen a lot of “tool walls” and picked through them. Wooden planes are a trick to maintain. I own about a dozen of them and I fuss over them constantly to keep them working.

So when I step up to a wall containing 300 tools, I’m not surprised to find them lacking. The wedges don’t fit. The irons need work. The soles are bendy. Yes, they could be fixed with love. But by the time you fixed plane No. 300, then plane No. 1 would be out of truth.

This isn’t just a problem with people who own wooden-bodied planes.

When I meet a woodworker who owns a lot of metal planes, they tend to have lots of Nos. 4, 5 and 6 bench planes (who needs three No. 6s?). And about 63 block planes. Many of these tools simply followed the owner home. They didn’t intend to own a stable of 20 bench planes; it just happened.

The truth is this: It’s easier to acquire tools than it is to get rid of them.

Even if you try to reduce the number of tools you own, people dump them at your door. I know this problem well. Sometimes I think I run the Schwarz Home for Wayward Saws. (Or perhaps saws have intercourse and reproduce like rabbits.)

So every year or so I make a pile of tools that have somehow accumulated in my house and make an effort to get rid of them. I’ll give them away if I can. Or I’ll sell them.

I say all this for two reasons.

No. 1: You don’t need four smoothing planes or six A2 gazintas. And holding onto excess tools robs other beginning woodworkers from using them. You are – in a small way – hurting the craft. Sell them or give them away. Today.

No. 2: In that spirit, Lost Art Press is holding a tool sale at its headquarters during the next open house on Saturday, July 9. We’ll have hand tools (and some power tools) from myself, John Hoffman, Megan Fitzpatrick and Popular Woodworking. All will be cash and carry and priced to move.

Details and lists of tools to come. Mark your calendar.

— Christopher Schwarz

Though I’ve been up to my neck in “Woodworking in Estonia” and building a Danish Modern Campaign chest, I’ve been sneaking in a little work on our Willard Street storefront.

Most of that work is happening in my savings account. We need a new roof. And because we want one that will last longer than we will, it’s going to cost us about $19,000. Good thing Katy works at a grocery store and gets a discount on generic ramen.

I’ve been working on our facade a bit; I removed the furry (yes, furry) exhaust fan and rebuilt the top of our entrance to have three windows. This improvement lets in even more light. Then I hired designer Nicholas Moegly to paint our street numbers on the new center window.

The numbers are hand-painted and then gold leaf is applied in what is called a Boston gild. I’m still sweeping up little scraps of gold (I have a little PTSD from the glitter).

Nicholas’s work is outstanding. You can see the street numbers from a block away and they look a lot classier than the plastic Blaze bar sign we inherited. We should receive our new custom entry door in the next week or so. And after I install that and the fire exit signs, I’ll hire Nicholas to paint our logo on the new door – once I get city approval.

The other progress is in the stables. Today I finished building a braced and ledged door for the stable’s entrance to the courtyard. This doorway was formerly secured with a tarp. The door was a blast to build because I did it all by hand.

I also built and installed a new door frame and I’ll hang the door on massive strap hinges tomorrow.

With the stables secure, I can start to lay a new wooden floor and (after replenishing the savings account) reconnect the electric service to the stables.

— Christopher Schwarz

The Lost Art Press storefront will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. this Saturday, June 11, for those of you who have woodworking questions or would like to browse our complete selection of new books or our limited selection of blemished books.

We’ll also have free stickers, free posters and (I hope) some of Katy’s soft wax for sale at the store.

I’ll be working on a contemporary chest of drawers in some highly figured oak that has some unusual joinery and will be featured in an upcoming issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. With any luck I’ll be finishing the plinth, which is constructed like a post-and-rung chair.

Just a reminder that we can accept credit cards for all our books except the blemished ones, which are cash only. The store’s physical address is 837 Willard St., Covington, KY 41017.

— Christopher Schwarz