The folding bookstand in A.-J. Roubo’s “l’Art du menuisier” is nice, but not nearly as fancy as the one I unearthed today while reorganizing my office.
This bookstand is shown in “L’Enseignement Professionnel du Menuisier” (book 1) by Léon Jamin. Jamin is listed at an “ancien collaborateur au Roubo,” but I don’t know enough about Jamin to say what that really means.
I purchased an original copy of the plates from this 19th-century book for professional woodworkers, and it is a delight to page through. One of the owners of the book performed all the recommended exercises on the backs of the plates, which are almost as fascinating as the plates themselves.
In this plate, No. 32, the author is illustrating how to draw the bookstand in perspective. The three images here are joined to one another at the edges, making for a complete exploration of all the details of the bookstand.
I don’t own a copystand (yet) for my camera, so I have included three high-resolution scans here for you to play with. Feel free to stitch the images together.
Now that I have completed the first and most intense step of editing and annotating the raw transliteration manuscript for “To Make as Perfectly As Possible: Roubo on Furniture Making,” aka R2, my attentions will turn to and eventually be dedicated solely to the full pedal-to-the-metal effort to bring VIRTUOSO to fruition.
This does not mean our labors on R2 are done; far from it. Instead it means that my time with it will be episodic but perhaps even more intense periodically than the last half-year of my nearly all-Roubo-all-the-time life as Michele, Philippe and I revise and reconcile each other’s modifications to the work. In addition, I need to integrate the observations and suggestions from my readers Bob, Mike and Martin on things that need to be clarified or augmented.
But, the first draft is complete and sitting in the 3″-thick file folder next to my chair, awaiting only my entering of the last sections into the computer for sending off into the ether. About two-thirds is already there, with the remaining third flowing in several sections at a time almost every day.
This process will continue behind the curtain for months through the Lost Art Press editing, Wesley’s design and our galley-proof-review process some time next autumn, when we will once again wash our hands of the project in order to consign it to you and to move on ourselves.
In the meantime, beginning next week I will be stomping down on the gas for the Studley manuscript, weaving the many threads already extant with ones yet to be spun out of my notebook and Narayan’s photo gallery then deposited onto the screen, crafting a volume we hope will achieve some interest in the market.
This will be an exciting and somewhat disorienting time, as I will be ratcheting way back on the energies necessary for R2 to refocus and allow myself a pretty complete dedication to this new franchise. If I find myself crafting impossible syntax into 300-word sentences I will know that the reorientation is not yet complete. All of this is occurring against the backdrop of a time when Lost Art Press seems to be going into hyperdrive with excellent and desirable new volumes in the coming few dozen months.
This new endeavor includes many exciting opportunities, twists and turns, and I will certainly apprise you of them as they emerge.
International customers can order the download by sending $19 to john@lostartpress.com via PayPal; a download link will be sent to you.
We chose to use the PDF file format because of the graphics-heavy nature of this book. So far, we have yet to find an ebook conversion service that can provide a file that we think is acceptable. We will keep looking.
As always, all of our files are completely free of “digital rights management” hoo-ha. No passwords. No keys. You can even extract pages from this PDF. The reason we can do this is we have an honest customer base; fraud has been almost insignificant.
I hope you enjoy Roubo on the go in your portable device.
Being a tad old fashioned in many respects, I need a physical piece of paper to read and write on when editing, revising and annotating “To Make As Perfectly As Possible: Roubo On Furniture Making,” or as we call it here, R2 (as opposed to a local luminary, RG3). I am nearing the three-quarter mark of working my way through the raw transliterations for the first time as a serious venture, as opposed to the merely voyeuristic jaunts as they would arrive from translator Michele Pagan.
Today I printed out the final chapter of R2, titled whimsically (?) by Roubo as “Of Whole Cabinetry or Assembly in General,” which is another way of saying, “All the stuff about furniture making that I could not figure out where else to put.” To suggest that this single chapter is eclectic and substantial is to damn it with faint praise.
I generally format these working manuscripts to approximate the finished size of the printed book; not exactly, but it does give me a sense of the immensity of the tome. I will probably avoid contact with John Hoffman when the day arrives for him to start mailing a mountain of books twice as hefty as the 4-1/2 pound R1.
Among my 258 pages (!) of working manuscript for this chapter alone are included the odd mix of discussions on tools necessary for accurate assembly, making and using spring-pole lathes, screw-thread cutting, fluting of columns, drilling, making and using a ripple molding cutter, locksmithing, filing, hinge-making, tilt-top tables, building a printing press, the renowned folding book stand, and the design and construction (but not use) of a fancy French “necessary.” And those are just the topics I can recall off the top of my head.
After the intense run-up to the release of TMAPAP:ROM I had little opportunity to revel in the grandeur of the project. By the time I arrived in Cincinnati for the premier, to paraphrase BB King, the thrill was gone. Chris’ comments of wanting to light it on fire did not miss the mark by much.
Now that R1 is no longer resting on my neck, and believe me it was heavy, I am finding a bit more spring in my literary step.
