Lost Art Press

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Dictum: The New Woodworking Mecca

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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After almost three decades of woodworking and writing about woodworking (and its occasional excesses), I am not easy to impress. I’ve been to all the big woodworking shows (including IWF and AWFS multiple times). And I’ve been to factories and stores all over the world.

But Dictum’s new headquarters in Plattling left me fairly speechless.

I have worked as an instructor for Dictum for many years and continue to work for the company because it it is on the same ethical wavelength as I am. Dictum takes a long view with its business practices, in everything from the way it treats it employees, to the fixtures it chooses for its bathrooms.

So yes, I am biased. I am a huge fan of the company and its employees.

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This summer I got to visit the company’s new headquarters building after wrapping up a long day of teaching a workbench class. I can honestly say I’ve never seen a woodworking facility like this. Though I’ve never visited Google, Apple or Facebook headquarters, I imagine they might be something like this.

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Everything is modern, open, airy and friendly. All the tools are hanging on the walls and can be taken down for inspection or use. The showroom is (easily) as twice as large as Highland Woodworking, the largest woodworking store I’ve ever visited.

There are separate areas for the knives, the leatherworking tools, the woodworking hand tools and the machinery. And there is a large section of Filson workwear – a bit of a surprise but not really.

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After an hour in the showroom one of the employees took us of a tour of the warehouse and offices. I have never seen a cleaner or more efficient shipping operation (and I’ve seen a lot). And the offices and public employee areas made me re-think being self-employed (only a bit).

So if you are in southern Germany, a visit to Dictum is definitely worth the effort, whether it’s the company’s headquarters in Plattling or the store and school in Munich (which is where I’m teaching this fall).

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One more thing: If you’ve been reading this blog for longer than 5 minutes then you know this isn’t a sponsored post. Dictum didn’t give me any tools for free. They worked me like a dog and paid me a fair wage.

— Christopher Schwarz

Shun the Copycats

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Recently a new crop of Tite-Mark ripoffs have entered the market. They’re half the price of the real thing, have folksy American brand names and are made in Taiwan.

The easy knee-jerk reaction is to blame the Far East for these rip-off products. But I can assure you that Chinese and Taiwanese factories are not the first ones to blame. In my years of covering the Asian tool manufacturing market I learned how these products get made.

  1. A North American or European person seeks to rip off a product and make money by pirating someone else’s intellectual property.
  2. They send an original tool to one of the many Far East companies that specialize in tools and ask if the object can be made for $20 or some crazy low price.
  3. The factory says yes and makes it.
  4. (The final step is an important one) We buy it.

If I were still a woodworking journalist, I’d buy some of these copycat products and examine the way they were made to prove my point. But these days I don’t want to give these guys even one measly sale.

So honestly, if you care about the future of domestic hand-tool manufacturing in North America, don’t support these clowns. Otherwise, Godspeed to Walmart.

— Christopher Schwarz

Don’t Buy Our Hammer (But do Buy One)

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Sorry our lump hammer isn’t $5 and won’t wash your truck or cream your spinach.

And if you think that $85 or $90 is crazy for something made by hand in the United States in small batches, then I wish you Godspeed to Walmart.

So after you’re done telling the kids to get off your lawn, get on eBay and buy a used engineer’s hammer with a head that weighs 2-1/2 lbs. (or 1,000 grams for the metricated woodworker). Cut the handle down so it’s about 9” or so long below the head. Clean up the thing and re-wedge the head.

Then put it on your bench.

A metal hammer of this size will save your skin the next time an assembly freezes up during glue-up or won’t come apart. My lump hammer has rescued many workbenches, chairs and dovetailed joints from disaster because it can go almost anywhere and it always outpunches a wooden mallet.

Use it to set your holdfasts (and ignore the people who say you can’t hit metal with metal. Perhaps they’ve never driven a nail or worked on an anvil). Speaking of anvils, use the side of the lump hammer as a small anvil to set rivets or clench nails.

Then one day, when you’re feeling randy, try using it for mortising. Don’t swing it. Just drop it on your chisel handle. Set wedges with it. Swage hinges.

And because this isn’t a Ronco commercial, you can now use your imagination for some other bulleted items.

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You might be wondering: Why are we making a lump hammer if there are used ones (and cheesy new ones) available for less? For the same reason we make our own furniture when there are antiques and cheesy flat-pack furniture available for less.

And one more thing…. Nah, I’m gonna drink a beer.

— Christopher Schwarz

The Last Handful of Stickers

Posted on by Lost Art Press

DISOBEY-StickerMy daughter Maddy says she has about 50 sets of stickers left. So this is the last call for this batch.

With Maddy moving to New England, she had to give up her Post Office box in Ohio (if you mail money to the old P.O. box it will be returned to you automatically by USPS). But she has kept up her etsy store. A set of stickers is $6 delivered. She also ships internationally.

After graduating from Ohio State University, Maddy is now in the working world and supporting a new kitten named Chickpea.

Also, for those of you who pay attention to stuff, Maddy made it through college without a penny of debt. That was thanks to her hard work, help from her parents and your help with her sticker business. You paid for many books, turkey sandwiches and (likely) a few beers.

Thank you.

— Christopher Schwarz

Lump Hammers Are Almost Here

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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The first batch of Crucible Lump Hammers will be up for sale in our store very soon this month. This week I visited the Crucible Lab, where Raney showed me how the production run was progressing, and we discussed some of the details of manufacturing.

As we were talking, I noticed one of the Lump Hammers on his bench that had a natural hickory handle – no “shou sugi ban” charred finish. The hickory was soiled from Raney’s hands. I picked it up and was immediately reminded of Alan Peters’s lump hammer, which I fell in love with years ago.

After some discussion, Raney, John and I decided to make the natural hickory handle the standard finish on our handles. For those of you who wish to make the handle black, we are going to offer detailed instructions on how to do it with inexpensive tools and a few minutes of work.

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Why are we making this change? Several reasons.

  1. The natural handle has crisper facets and a better feel in the hand. Charring the handles rounds over the facets and noticeably reduces its circumference. Leaving it natural makes for a Lump Hammer that fills your palm and offers better feedback in use.
  2. The charring is functionally irreversible. If you want a charred handle, it is a simple thing to make a natural handle into a charred one. If we send you a charred handle, however, it is not possible to get back to the full-sized natural one.
  3. It looks right. We love shou sugi ban, but we also love the look of traditional Western tools. The natural handle looks like a new one you might find in an English hardware store (in the 1960s), and it will only get dirtier and more glorious with age.

For those of you who were keen on the black handle, we offer the following solutions. In the next week or so we will publish a video tutorial on how to char your handle with simple home center tools. If you are local to us, we invite you to stop by the Lost Art Press storefront on one of our open days (the second Saturday of each month) and I will personally char your handle for you and finish it with beeswax.

Next up: Details on pricing and availability.

— Christopher Schwarz