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Errata: Staked Low Stool in ‘The Anarchist’s Design Book’

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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While building the Staked Low Stool this weekend during a class, I discovered a significant keystroke error in my text. I also noticed an inconsistency between the cutting list and the text.

So yesterday I rebuilt the stool to confirm there weren’t other errors (there weren’t).

Here are the two known errors:

  1. On page 92, the correct resultant angle for the stool is 21°, not 11°.
  2. On page 99, the correct size of the legs is 1-1/2” x 1-1/2”, not 1-3/4” x 1-3/4”.

We will include an errata sheet inside every copy of the expanded “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” That sheet will also include a url for downloading a corrected chapter. The chapter will be updated electronically for customers who purchased the pdf.

Technical Updates to Our PDFs

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This week we pushed out updates to almost all of our books that are available via pdf. So…

No. 1: Please don’t worry, the emails aren’t a scam. They are indeed from us.

No. 2: What changed? This is a technical update – we didn’t change the editorial content. Instead, we added Bookmarks and interior navigation links to make the pdfs easier to use. When you open the pdf, you can click on the icon that looks like a bookmark on the left side of the screen and you’ll see all the chapters listed there. Click on a bookmark and you’ll jump to that point in the text.

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We also added interior links from each book’s Table of Contents. Go to the Table of Contents in any of the new pdfs. Click on the chapter you want to read. You will go there.

We also added the image of the book’s cover to the pdf (if it was missing). This is a cosmetic change.

No. 3: Why did you do this? To make the pdfs easier to use for you and us.

No. 4: I bet you added DRM or other sneaky stuff to watch me in the shower. No, we did not. We just made the pdfs easier to use. We also reset the counter for your downloads. So if you had reached your limit, it’s now reset to zero.

No. 5: What if I didn’t get an email for a pdf I own? Chances are that the notice was sent to an email you aren’t using now. You can log into your account at our store and you’ll see all your downloads that are available. If that doesn’t work, you can send a note to help@lostartpress.com.

— Christopher Schwarz

The Inspiring Conclusion of ‘Welsh Stick Chairs’

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Editor’s note: It’s difficult to pinpoint the moment that John Brown became a personal hero. Was it when I first saw his chairs? When I read his early columns for Good Woodworking? Or was it when I read his book “Welsh Stick Chairs?”

During the weekend, Toronto carpenter Marc Stonestreet mentioned how inspired he was by the conclusion to “Welsh Stick Chairs.” He even insisted that his wife read it. Of course, I went back and read it again as a result. I’ll never forget the line about asparagus.

If you have ever wondered if John Brown’s writings are for you, this short chapter is likely the answer.

— Christopher Schwarz

Conclusion

WSC_1000_cover_IMG_6705We are approaching the de-Industrial Revolution, or New Age. Empires disintegrate. Nations re-emerge. We must look back and see how it was done before, not to copy, but to learn. Some of us hope that Wales will again become a Nation. We must look at our history, and each of us in our way pluck something from it and revive it. How did my forefathers go about their life? What equipment did they possess? What was the spirit of the making? I have no doubt the word ecology was as strange to them as it was to me a few years ago (what is the Welsh for ecology?). They preserved their environment because they didn’t have the monster tools to wreck it. No flails for them, they laid their hedges. Now I have the knowledge they didn’t have and I try to preserve my environment. Science is destructive, it has wrecked the land, but only those old fundamentals, agriculture and handicrafts, can restore it.

We have come full circle. Good quality goods can be made as cheaply by hand as in a factory. The ‘March of Time’ has overtaken the tycoons. The costs of production, rent, rates, wages, holiday pay, maternity pay, insurances, and above all capital plant, have soared. The craftsman with small workshop, some good tools and a woodstove can compete. The industrialist’s answer is to make nastier and cheaper goods, with less labour and more automation. People are beginning to despair about the rubbish; they want better and are willing to pay for better.

We are entering the age of the craftsman, where skills will be what matters. An age when the man who can grow asparagus will be more important than the man who can spell asparagus.

You may think that this is a long way from the Welsh stick chair, but I have plenty of time to think about things. I live in a beautiful place, I work at some­ thing I love, I make enough money to live, and my demands on the world’s resources are very meagre. What is so unusual about this idyllic circumstance is that there is plenty of room for more to join.

— John Brown, “Welsh Stick Chairs”

Back in Stock: ‘The Solution at Hand’ and ‘With the Grain’

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Quick note: We have replenished our inventory of Robert Wearing’s “The Solution at Hand” and Christian Becksvoort’s “With the Grain.” Both are now available in our online store and will soon be available again through our retailers.

WTG_case1_IMG_5583“The Solution at Hand” hand was our sleeper hit of 2019. We love Wearing’s writing, but we weren’t sure how people would react to a book comprised entirely of his jigs for handwork (you sold the sucker out in record time). And “With the Grain” is now in its fifth printing with us. That book has been a huge hit with people who are interested in getting into woodworking and want to learn about trees and how they work.

In other news: Our fingers are crossed that “The Anarchist’s Design Book” will ship from the printer this week. There’s still time to get a free pdf of the book if you order it before this new edition ships out.

After the book ships, it will cost $12.25 more to purchase both the hardbound book and the pdf. Long-time customers know that this is the only discount we offer on our books.

— Christopher Schwarz

Can You Explain Why a Board Twists?

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Today I was working on the layout for “Honest Labour” and had to revisit the 1936 volume of The Woodworker magazines. I stumbled on this delightful and ingenious way to explain and demonstrate how wood twists as it dries. Read the original text below and check out the illustration.

— Christopher Schwarz 

Every woodworker knows that a certain shrinkage in wood is inevitable, and most know (to their cost) that a board will sometimes twist. Probably the majority connect the two phenomena, and say that a board twists because it shrinks. But this is only a half truth. It is true that the twisting would not take place if the wood did not shrink, but it is quite possible for a board to shrink without twisting. In fact, every well-seasoned board does so. Shrinkage has to be accepted as inevitable, and the fact that a board has remained flat goes to prove that the shrinkage can take place without twisting.

To revert to our subject, however, assuming that a board has twisted, that is become hollow, who can explain why this has taken place? An excellent practical demonstration of what happens is shown in the accompanying photographs. First a piece of paper about 6″ wide and 2′ long is folded up across its width in a series of folds, rather like a fan. The whole thing is then opened out at one side so that a circle is formed (like a double fan) as in Fig. 1, and the joining edges are glued together.

Across the face of this a series of lines is drawn with a brush and black ink. The lines at A are meant to represent the cuts that would be made in a log to produce plain (flatsawn) oak. That at B is a solid square of timber, whilst the C boards represent figured boards (quartersawn) cut radially from the centre.

Now shrinkage takes place around the annual rings, and it is obvious that if a log were never converted it would have to split, because the shrinkage would mean that the length of its circumference was becoming less. In the demonstration it is assumed that the splits have taken place at the two sides, and consequently two cuts are made at these two points. The spring of the folded paper will cause the whole to assume the shape shown in Fig. 2, and this is precisely the shape a split log would assume.

The originally straight lines of the conversion of the plain (flatsawn) boards A are now all curved, the square at B has shrunk badly at one side, whereas the figured (quartersawn) boards, C, remain straight. Thus we can see why plain oak is so much more liable to twist than figured oak, and why the boards always twist with their edges away from the heart. Thus in a twisted board it is always safe to say that the rounded side is the heart side. Furthermore, by an examination of the end grain is is always possible to say which is the heart side, and which way it is liable to twist if at all.