Category: To Make as Perfectly as Possible, Roubo Translation

Lost Art Press is hosting a special event during the Woodworking in America conference where you will be able to see (and touch) the original 18th-century volumes of A.J. Roubo’s “L’Art du Menuisier” and learn some of the publishing details of the forthcoming translation “To Make as Perfectly as Possible.”

The event will be at 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 2, in Covington, Ky. There is no admission charge, but you must register to attend because space is limited. (UPDATE: Registration is closed as the event is full).

One registration per e-mail address, please.

You will be sent a confirmation e-mail, directions to the event and a registration number indicating that you are indeed registered. You will need to print out this e-mail and bring it with you to the event to get in. We’re not trying to be jerks – it’s just a small space and there are fire codes to obey.

We will have Don Williams there, the leader of the team of translators and craftsmen during the last four years. Don will be happy to discuss details of the first volume on finishing and marquetry, plus show off some of the tools he built (such as his polissoir and shoulder knife).

Plus we’ll have Wesley Tanner of Passim Editions there, who is designing the Roubo volumes. He’ll be sharing some of the cool details of the design (ask him about the font. Seriously). Also, he’ll have all of our high-resolution scans of all the plates on hand for you to view while projected on a high-resolution screen.

Also, we’ll be bringing the original editions of Roubo for you to see and (if you are brave and careful) examine yourself. We have complete copies of the first edition that’s bound in calfskin, plus the 1977 reprints.

We’ll also discuss the publishing of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible,” which is in full swing right now. There will be two versions of the book coming out soon – a premium edition and a trade edition. We’ll have many more details to share at the event.

It’s all going to be very casual.

The event is a short walk from the Northern Kentucky Convention Center, where WIA is being held. We hope to have a fine selection of bourbons and craft beers on draft (this should come as no surprise). It will be a cash bar.

— Christopher Schwarz

Editing of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible” is in full swing this week, and our house has been overcome by the process.

The 1977 reprint volumes of “L’Art du Menuisier” have transformed our bedroom into a library. There’s no better way to page through the books (including the 18th-century originals) than on our bed with the boards supported by pillows.

All our extra hard drive space is filled with backups and more backups of digital images. I even looked for a hard drive at Kroger this morning.

To process the photos, manipulate the line scans, edit the text and compare it to the original, I have all our computer screens crammed with the book. Laptop is on my lap and the desktop is on my desk. A. J. Roubo’s shoulder knives are stacked on the dresser. Polissoirs are propping up an extra 4-terabyte drive.

And speaking of Roubo, are you going to be in Cincinnati for Woodworking in America next week? Are you free that Friday night? If the answer to both questions is “yes,” then stay tuned to the blog tomorrow for a special Lost Art Press event we’re planning.

— Christopher Schwarz

With sonorous stentorian solemnity I say to myself, “It is in, it is in.”

The complete draft of “To Make As Perfectly As Possible: Roubo on Marquetry”  – 94,000 words of translated Roubo, 350 Roubo illustrations, 15,000 Donwords and well over a hundred photographic images (actually I submitted about a thousand to select from) – now resides on the desk of Monsieur Christophe du Schwarz.  The end is still a long way off, but this is a huge hurdle for everyone involved.

There will be corrections. There will be additions. There will be subtractions. But now we know that there is definitely a light at the end of the tunnel. Let’s hope it is not an oncoming train.

I just spent my first Roubo-free weekend since I can remember. It was very, very nice. I built a Japanese planing beam from a perfect 8×10 southern yellow pine timber out at my mountain-side Fortress of Solitude, listening to a college-level course on Austrian Economic Theory punctuated by the angelic voices of Eva Cassidy, Alison Krauss, and Jennifer Warnes.  Now that is self indulgent escapism at its best.

Once Chris and Wesley Tanner, the book’s designer, and everyone else at that end of the rope get their hands on it, my nose will be back to the grindstone.

Currently I am reveling in the first glimpses of the 90 percent of our second Roubo volume that has been translated. (Waiting until now for this treat has been perhaps my second greatest exhibition of self control, the first of course being the time I was all alone with a prominent and particularly loathsome politician and refraining from wringing his scrawny chicken neck.) It is very, very good, but I have come to expect nothing less from Andre Jacob’s text and Michele’s translations. Reading deliberately through the recitation on the iconic bench of Plate 11 is a long passage I am savoring, and I expect you probably will too.

In one sense this second volume will be easier, as we are now in full groove, but in another it will be more difficult because of 1) the esoteric jargon-laced verbiage – it is mostly about tools, after all (as one note from Michele exclaimed, “Philippe, help!  I don’t even l know what these things are called in English.”), and 2) the sheer scale of it. Like Chris’ Roubo holdfast which could double as an anchor for a large ship, this volume will be huge. For example, the main chapter on tools and techniques will run almost 250 pages in illustrated translation. All tolled, :To Make As Perfectly As Possible: Roubo on Furniture Making” will be about 60 percent larger than the marquetry book. I could not see Chris when I told him that, but he might have reached for the antacids immediately thereafter.

I know this is just the calm before the storm, when the editorial process reaches through the ether and grabs me by the throat. But for now, it feels pretty good.

— Don Williams

It is better said that the general design of the piece to be covered with mosaic or marquetry, and the expense which one wishes to make is in fact considerably more expensive than simpler furniture described earlier. Because of this substantial increase in cost there is no allowance for any type of mediocrity in its execution, which makes it very pricey when being very well made.*

* Nothing is so common as to see veneered pieces of cabinetry of all types, but nothing is more rare as to find them perfectly made. This is due less to the fault of the workers than that of the collectors, who for the most part are without taste and without knowledge, and even worse, unable to pay for good work and who take indiscriminately that which is presented to them, providing only that it costs very little. From this comes the greatest quantity and the worst quality of marquetry and cabinet work, where, even without speaking of scrimping on materials, the style is absolutely the worst in relation to the theory and practice of the art. The former is totally unheeded for both the sections of marquetry and the ornamentation with mosaics. For the most part these are badly designed and without taste, and rarely designed and made for the space that it occupies. [Often these sections of marquetry were purchased “off the shelf” from catalogs or brokers in marquetry appliqués. If the fit was not perfect, lower-class furniture makers, or more appropriately furniture makers with lower-class patrons, cut and fit these compositions to fit the space on a cabinet whether or not it was aesthetically appropriate. – DCW]  I do not pretend to say here that you cannot find pieces of cabinetry and marquetry very well made. I am very far from thinking that. On the contrary, I know that there are excellent artists in this line of business, to which I give all the fairness possible, but sadly that number is not many, and it cannot be otherwise for the reasons that I give above in this footnote.

— A.J. Roubo, “L’Art du Menuisier,” Part III Section III Chapter XII, pp. 866-7