Today I received my copies of David Savage’s “The Intelligent Hand,” and I was so relieved I thought I might cry.
This has been one of the most emotional projects I’ve worked on. Apologies for discarding the veneer of normal blogging communication, but this book has been a crap-tastic lightning rod for this entire cruddy year.
When my father died in February, I was crushed for many reasons. We had so many plans for things we were going to do together – take a carving class with Peter Follansbee, visit St. Petersburg and finally master bread-making.
A few months after my dad died, we lost Jennie Alexander. The future of a project we had worked on for five years – the third edition of “Make a Chair From a Tree” – was thrown to the lawyers.
So when I dove into editing and designing “The Intelligent Hand,” I was hell bent on getting it published before cancer claimed David. And I wanted to equal David’s effort. He gave us everything – his original watercolors, his archive of photos and a manuscript that ripped my heart open. The design and editing had to match it.
Luckily, I had Megan Fitzpatrick to help me. We’ve worked together so long that she knows exactly how little I will compromise. And so she is as pigheaded as I am when it comes to making things look right and read right. And she knows when to say: %$&* it.
Our warehouse has begun shipping “The Intelligent Hand,” and if you ordered a copy through our website, you should have your copy soon. It’s not perfect. We compressed a year of editing and design work into about three months. But it is good. Damn good.
Christian Becksvoort’s new book “Shaker Inspiration: Five Decades of Fine Craftsmanship” is now available for pre-publication ordering. The book is $43 and will ship in November 2018. All customers who order the book before it ships will receive a free pdf download of the book at checkout.
About the Book
Not too many woodworkers can claim five decades of business success, but Christian Becksvoort is among them. In “Shaker Inspiration,” he shares not only his woodworking knowledge and some of his best professional techniques for producing top-quality work, but also the business advice that helped him establish and sustain his long career in a one-man shop.
Plus, he shares measured drawings for 13 of his own well-known furniture designs and seven Shaker pieces that he’s reproduced. Whether or not you, like Christian, are inspired by the Shaker tradition, you’re sure to be inspired by one of the best-known names in woodworking.
“Shaker Inspiration” begins with information that all woodworkers need – the nitty gritty of how to successfully make trees into furniture. This requires a firm grasp of wood movement – one of Chris’s specialties – and he shares many of the tricks he uses to ensure his pieces remain sound through the seasons and generations.
The lessons are both big and small, from the advantages to working with a single species to how to calculate how much a drawer front will move inside a house with forced-air heat. Every page of this section is filled with little shop tricks that Christian has used to become a productive woodworker, from how to remove dovetail waste to how to align a drawer front and drawer side perfectly when dovetailing.
After all the great information on the technical side of things, Christian dives into discussing the business side of things. He pulls no punches in discussing the difficulties of life as a furniture maker and designer.
Getting started, you do whatever it takes to pay the bills. We’ve all done our share of kitchens and built-ins, and replaced porch railings. After more than five decades, I can do the woodworking almost in the dark. It’s the business end that’s a constant challenge, and it keeps me on my toes.
He offers straightforward advice on setting up your shop, from the roof to the heat pump to the sign you use to announce your business to customers. Even how to set up relationships with suppliers and subcontractors. It is a sobering section, but if you ever want to set up a woodworking business, it’s the type of information that is almost impossible to come by.
Finally, “Shaker Inspiration” dazzles you with three sections of photos and measured drawings. The last 60-odd pages offer a collection of Christian’s original designs, reproductions of Shaker pieces he’s made (and made famous) and photos of the original Shaker pieces that have inspired him the most as a craftsman and a designer.
In addition to a beautiful photo and details about the piece, Christian shares a construction drawing of each project that will allow intermediate woodworkers to produce their own version.
“Shaker Inspiration” is 166 pages and produced entirely in the United States. The 8.5” x 11” full-color book is printed on heavy coated paper. The pages are sewn and glued for durability and covered in cotton-covered boards. A tear-resistant dust jacket completes the package.
About Christian Becksvoort Christian Becksvoort has five decades of experience working in a variety of custom, architectural and furniture shops. In 1986, he opened his full-time studio. He works alone, designing, building, finishing and – in some cases – even delivering custom furniture.
Much of Christian’s furniture is inspired by the Shaker tradition, with clean, unadorned lines and fine craftsmanship. He typically works in native, sustainably harvested cherry, and he uses a simple oil finish. And while he is known for several signature designs, each of Christian’s finished pieces is tweaked at least slightly to be unique (with the exception of a set of chairs), and built specifically to meet his customers’ needs (while exceeding their expectations).
Since the mid 1970s, Christian has been privileged to do restoration work for the last active Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake, Maine. He is also a long-time contributing editor to Fine Woodworking magazine.
I’m still in Germany, but Brendan Gaffney and Megan Fitzpatrick will open the Lost Art Press storefront to the public today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The store is located at 837 Willard St. in Covington, Ky.
We’ll have our complete line-up of books available for sale, plus some blemished books (cash only on blems). As always, Brendan and Megan are happy to discuss any woodworking topic you might need help with, or to demonstrate a technique at the bench.
And if you want to talk smack about me, I won’t be there. So go nuts.
I’ll be back home on Sunday night and will definitely be in the store for the Nov. 10 and Dec. 8 open days. I hope you can visit.
Illustration from “The Boy Craftsman: Practical and Profitable Ideas for a Boy’s Leisure Hours (with more than 400 illustrations by the author and Norman P. Hall)” by A. Neely Hall (Boston, Lee & Shepard, 1905)
“Persistence and the courage that goes with persistence are needed, but as the work grows so does the interest. We end by finding ourselves entering upon a new and most illuminating heritage, illuminating because only by the intent, patient work demanded by a craft do we really discover ourselves, our possibilities, our strength, and our weaknesses. By committing ourselves to it we grasp a chance to develop as personalities, ready to act, to accept challenges and have a kind of endurance. We learn to reason our way out of the bad patches and with the help of a little ingenuity to rectify our blunders. Better still, we learn how to avoid them. Best of all, we discover the amount of quiet satisfaction that grows in us once our creative instincts have found an outlet. Fine furniture is always a joy to behold. It is a greater joy still to make it.”
Registration is now open for the following first-half 2019 Lost Art Press classes (do sign up for the waitlists if you don’t immediately make it in):