Lost Art Press

Category: The Anarchist’s Tool Chest

On Fancy Tool Chests (and Box Tarts)

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When I work in the shop or on my laptop, I find that I do a lot of staring.

As I assemble a project, I often catch myself just staring at the parts or the assemblies for many long minutes until I shake myself out of the fugue state. I don’t know what the heck I’m doing. Processing things? Getting used to their shape? Evaluating? Brain farting?

But I do the same thing when I’m writing. I end up staring at a lot of photos and sentences at times. Again, it’s like my brain is on “pause.”

The end result, however, is that I get some small insights from my mouth-breather behavior. At least, I think I do.

I did a lot of staring at tool chests and tools as I wrote “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” (which is perhaps why it took 14 months to complete). As I gazed on the beautiful inlaid chests and then the chests with pedestrian guts, something clicked in my head.

The fancy chests were mostly in books. The plain chests were mostly ones I had seen in person.

In fact, the only real fancy chests I had encountered “in the wild” were at John Sindelar’s Tool Museum. Sindelar has a taste for tools that range from the refined to the outrageous. But he doesn’t collect many plain things.

Tool chests that are plain – both inside and out – are what you will find at flea markets, antique store and at many tool meets. They are painted on the outside and plain pine on the inside. The only vibrant color inside is usually the stains of hard use.

After much staring at chests, I realized that simple and plain chests are the dominant form, easier to build and just as useful as a chest that is inlaid with pearl and ebony.

And while my tool chest is as plain as I could manage, that doesn’t mean I dislike the fancy chests. Far from it.

This weekend while at Sindelar’s museum I made a visual inventory of his chests on display (he has many more in storage, including an awesome one with secret compartments).

By far, my favorite chest in Sindelar’s collection is the one he calls the “seven tarts” chest. The interior of the chest is moderately elaborate, with some inlay on the sliding tills. But the highlight of the chest is a series of seven frames planted on the inside of the lid. Each frame features a photo of a different woman (real or sculptural). It’s not pornographic (unlike Sindelar’s mermaid brace), but it is charming.

I’ve included some of the chests on display this weekend at the museum for you to peruse in the gallery above. Just remember while you are staring at these chests that you aren’t going to find this stuff at a garage sale. So keep staring.

— Christopher Schwarz

Where the Heck is My Book?

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The good news: The U.S. Postal Service is delivering copies of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” at a quick clip. We dropped the first load into the mailstream on Saturday afternoon and already we are hearing from people who have received it.

That is remarkable considering we sent the book via Media Mail and that Monday was a holiday. I guess John Hoffman’s flirting with the postal workers on the dock really paid off (and yes, Pat, I can get you John’s number).

Today I dropped off two more huge loads of books – all my car could carry – and we are almost caught up on sending out all the pre-orders. The only thing stopping us is that we have depleted the local supply of boxes that fit our book.

Other news:
• I’ll be getting estimates of the costs for our leather-bound version of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” tomorrow. If you are on the list, you will hear from us shortly with an update.

• I began milling the pine for the 6’ dividers we will have in our booth at Woodworking in America.

• I will find more boxes tomorrow, even if I have to go to an office products superstore and donate several pints of various bodily fluids. I’m a quart high on bile right now, anyway.

— Christopher Schwarz

New ‘The Anarchist’s Tool Chest’ T-shirts

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The latest T-shirt from Lost Art Press is a little different than the five generations before it. Emblazoned on the front of the shirt is the silhouette of the English square in the shape of an “A” – the motif throughout “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” book that resembles the symbol used by anarchists. This “A,” however, has 19th-century style.

The rear of the shirt is printed with the title of the book, which I made with one of those crappy plastic label-making gizmos popular in the 1970s. I scanned the labels at a high resolution, then enlarged and distorted them in Photoshop.

All in all (and I rarely say this), I am pleased with this design.

So here’s the bad news. You know we won’t lie to you. For this run, we switched back to the 50-percent cotton, 50-percent polyester shirts made in Central America. It didn’t have to do with money — we are happy to pay for quality. It had to do with customer feedback. Customers were split on whether they liked the American-made shirts, which were more lightweight, or the Central American ones, which are beefier.

In the end, I made the call. I like the way the foreign-made shirts feel and age. My design, my choice. I am continuing to look for a good domestic supplier and have a line on a company that even grows its own cotton. I have high hopes.

The shirts are $15 plus $4 shipping. As always, we have to charge an extra $2 for the XXL size. If we do another run of these shirts, we will be sure to get a few medium and small sizes – another customer request.

Click here to order a shirt from our store.

— Christopher Schwarz

Shipping Now: ‘The Anarchist’s Tool Chest’

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The first loads of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” are in the mail stream now, and we are all ready for a beer. Or even a roofie.

We got a few hundred orders boxed up Friday night after work (and barbecue) and spent all day boxing up the rest. Now it’s time for some tater-tot casserole and crispy pork belly. And a roofie.

If you are looking to buy this book from one of our retailers – Lee Valley Tools, Lie-Nielsen Toolworks or Tools for Working Wood – those books are on their way to their warehouses. We can’t say when the book will show up in the catalogs, but it should be soon.

We also had one walk-in customer. A local woodworker who had pre-ordered the book asked if he could pick it up.

And after promising that he wasn’t going to skin me and wear the dried flesh like a mask, we said OK.

Thanks to everyone who placed an order before we shipped. Your faith in us is heartening. And I’m glad we shipped before June, which is what we promised.

One special thanks from everyone goes out to Phil Hirz, who cleaned up the entire data base of pre-orders, and allowed us to push out these orders this weekend instead of next week.

— Christopher Schwarz

4,770 Pounds Later

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“The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” arrived via truck this afternoon. The book looks great. I, however, look like a boiled hobo and am on my second set of clothes this afternoon. Here’s the story:

The books left the Michigan printing plant on Tuesday – one-third of the press run went directly to wholesale customers. The other two-thirds came to my house.

Getting a semi-trailer – even a small one – into a dead-end street in a residential neighborhood is always a game of chicken. Literally. But I’ve unloaded more trucks than I care to remember, starting with my days in a liquor warehouse and up to my current job at Popular Woodworking Magazine. I can’t drive a forklift, but I can do everything else.

Today, my truck driver was having a bad day. I was the last delivery, and someone had pooped in his All Bran (not that you can tell the difference when someone voids in that stuff). He drove down the street and he didn’t like what he saw. Cursed a blue streak. Drove away.

He called me from a nearby grocery store and told me to come pick the books up there.

I told him he would be the first driver in 15 years who failed me. He hung up.

About 15 minutes later he pulled up and we made nice. We pulled the three pallets off his truck and deposited them on my driveway.

“I hope you have a lot of tarps,” he said as he walked back to his cab.

The sky was suddenly dark. I grabbed a knife, ripped through the plastic around the pallets and began humping boxes into my sunroom. Ten minutes later, the sky opened up. Stupid rain.

I covered what I could with tarps and then brought what I could inside – more than 140 boxes. After getting two pallets in the house, the rain was too strong to fight. I covered the third pallet as best I could and peeled off my clothes. While I waited, I cut the wet cardboard off the books and surveyed the damage.

So far, it looks like none of the moisture got into the books. Only one book and one box was damaged in transit. That’s not bad.

Tomorrow we’ll set up a shipping station in my sunroom and start signing and signing and mailing the books. Right now, I’m going to drink a beer (Pliny the Elder – thanks Nate!) and take a close look at the printing job.

— Christopher Schwarz

If you don’t have your copy of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” yet, you can order it here from our store for $37.