Category: Uncategorized

Monday is the last day that items ordered from Lost Art Press will be certain to arrive before Christmas. After Monday, the chance that the package will make it in time will decrease day by day.

So now is the time to order that Letterpress “By Hammer & Hand” Poster (we have only 121 left). Or our new “Workbook.” Both are new in our store and great gifts for a woodworker.

If you are truly a last-minute shopper, you can always get them a digital LAP Gift Card. Or stop by our storefront at 837 Willard St., Covington, Ky. If we’re there, we’ll be happy to sell you something.

The crush of orders this year has been enormous (yay and also aieee!). Megan, John and anyone else we can pull off the streets are pulling shifts packing boxes like overgrown elves.

— Christopher Schwarz

Order “Cricket Tables” by 11:59 p.m. tonight EDT (Dec. 4, 2023) to get the free pdf of the book at checkout.

Derek Jones’s book is about the three-legged cricket table, where it came from, what the different variants are and construction details. And the search for the history of the table is also intertwined with the history of the author, who had a long and twisting career in the furniture and publishing world.

And, at the end, Derek shows you how to build three great examples of this vernacular table and sets you off with the basic geometry and hand skills to do the task.

“Cricket Tables” is 112 pages, full color and printed on white, 70# matte coated 8-1/2″ x 11″ paper. The pages are sewn, glued and taped for durability. And the whole thing is wrapped with 98-point boards that are covered in lime cotton cloth! Like all Lost Art Press books, it is produced and printed in the United States.

You can read more about Derek in this profile by the late Nancy Hiller.

Today is the last day you can purchase any of our Lost Art Press videos for 50 percent off. The sale ends at midnight Dec. 2. You can see all our videos here.

All our videos were made by working woodworkers. We’ve been making these videos for years with basic equipment. This sale will help fund new audio and video equipment for future videos. Though books will always be our first love, we know that many woodworkers learn best with the help of video.

Our current videos cover a wide range of topics, from turning to sharpening to building workbenches to building chairs. All the videos are easily portable from device to device. You can stream them on our website. Or download them to any device. We don’t add any digital rights management (DRM), so you’ll be able to put them on all your devices without any security or password aggravation.

One final note: We don’t do “fake sales.” This is our first-ever sale on videos in 16 years. After midnight, these videos will return to full price and remain that way.

Check out the entire collection here.

— Christopher Schwarz

First, if you are in the area tomorrow (Saturday, Dec. 2), I hope you can stop by our shop at 837 Willard St. for our Open Day. We do this only twice a year, and it’s a great way to catch up with other woodworkers and snag some bargains on blemished or discontinued products (basically 50 percent off – cash only).

Second, here are some quick updates on some products.

The Anarchist’s Square Kit: We had some problems holding the parts as we were milling the joints – the tolerances are a bit crazy. But we have it under control now and are in full swing with production. We hope to have the first batch for sale next week (if we’re lucky).

Crucible Lump Hammers: We are still waiting on handles. And our hopes are diminishing that we will have hammers before Christmas. Lee Valley still has stock. As does Highland Woodworking.

Crucible Engraving Tools: I just finished assembling 145 of these on Wednesday with the new round cutter. As of this morning we are down to 113 in stock. As I type this Megan is sending out replacement round cutters to those customers who received the too-pointy ones.

‘With Hammer in Hand’ Posters: We are down to our last 150 posters from the run of 500. The good news: We turned a profit on this poster. The bad news, at this rate we will run out of these posters by January.

‘Lost Art Press Workbook’: We’ve sold half of the 1,000-unit press run. We have just gotten into the black with this project, which allows me to unclench various organs.

— Christopher Schwarz

The Lost Art Press 2023 Holiday Open House is this Saturday (December 2) from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. at the storefront: 837 Willard St., Covington, Kentucky, 41011. Sure, we’ll have our full line of books, tools, apparel etc. available, but most exciting is that we’ll have a special guest, educator Jerome Bias, in the shop this week to teach a 6-board chest class, and who is working on a book that explores his family history through woodworking.

We’ll have cookies and holiday drinks (both adult and non-alcoholic offerings), and visitors can take home (free!) an old poster or two – long thought out of stock – from a couple boxes that magically appeared when we moved fulfillment to Covington’s Anthe Building. We’ll also have a shelf full of “blems” (books that are perfectly readable, but got a bit dinged on a corner or what have you), and a small number of beehive bottles of Piggly No Wiggly glue that we’re selling at a reduced price now that we’ve changed to cylindrical bottles. And who knows what else we’ll dig up before Saturday!

Speaking of the Anthe building, we’ll lead two tours thereof (starting from the shop on Willard): the first at 11 a.m.; the second at 2 p.m. The Anthe building is just more than a half-mile away at 407 Madison Ave., so if the weather allows, anyone who wants to can walk over (but there’s parking available if you prefer to drive).

We’ll be doing demos throughout the day – just ask if there’s a tool or technique you want to see/learn – it’s an in-person Open Wire.

Hope to see you on Saturday!

– Fitz

p.s. We won’t be doing an online Open Wire this week; it will return on Dec. 9.