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.
Why are we making this change? Several reasons.
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.
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.
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.
The Lost Art Press storefront will be open this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with our usual mix of free woodworking instruction, discounted blemished books and tours of the building.
We also will host Nancy Hiller that same evening from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. for a free book-release party for her fantastic new tome: “English Arts & Crafts Furniture.” There are some spots available for the evening event; you can register here.
Nancy will be signing books and egging on attendees to beat the snot out of a special pinata she has made for the occasion. To enhance the beatings, we will be providing free alcohol and snacks (as well as plain-old water).
We’ve all been busy in the shop since last month. Brendan has a new three-legged backstool to show off (I think it resembles a cockfighting chair). Megan is building some fancy sawbenches for a customer. And I have finished a new Welsh stick chair design that you are welcome to try. I think it’s quite comfortable and really easy to build.
In other storefront news, Brendan and I have just finished building some new fixtures for the store. We have a stockpile of old No. 2 black cherry that we have transformed into a book rack to show off our new Lost Art Press titles. We have also built two “tool walls” that now cover the bookshelves above the bar.
These tool walls hold a lot of the communal tools for the workshop. Don’t worry, I haven’t given up on tool chests. We’ll remove the tool walls while the storefront is open, but we’ll have them there for you to see.
As always, Covington is growing by crazy leaps and bounds. We’re barely able to keep up. Just down the street we have a new pizza place, Alto, that we haven’t gotten to try yet. And across the street from Alto is Peppe Cucina, a great deli with very friendly service. The City Goat is just down the alley. And Flying Axes opened up around the corner. A bar where you throw axes (at targets). We went. It’s fun!
The printing plant reports that Joshua Klein’s “Hands Employed Aright” was put on a truck yesterday and is headed to our Indianapolis warehouse. If all goes to plan, the book should arrive next week, and we will begin shipping out orders as soon as our warehouse can set up a special assembly line to fill pre-publication orders.
If you would like to order a book that will go out with the first batch, there’s still time. Visit our store here. The book is $57.
All of us, including Joshua I’m sure, are excited and relieved that we’ve reached this point with the book, which took many years of labor for Joshua to research and write.
“Hand Employed Aright” is a rare peek into the life of an early American woodworker through his extensive diaries, his tools and the furniture he left behind. The book is gorgeously illustrated with Klein’s photographs, plus historical paintings and letters.
The last time the world saw a book such as this was Charles Hummel’s landmark “With Hammer in Hand.”
No matter what sort of woodworker you are, I think you’ll be fascinated by this intimate portrait of Jonathan Fisher as he built his life on the frontier in the 18th century.
Effective immediately, we are now charging shipping on all orders. The cost is about $7 per book and goes up based on weight.
Why are we making this change? For the last 32 months we offered free shipping on all orders. And after a detailed financial analysis, we determined that “free shipping” was costing us much more than anticipated. It was simply unsustainable.
We considered raising retail prices to cover this shortfall, but that wouldn’t be fair to people who buy our books through our retailers, such as Lee Valley Tools and Highland Woodworking, or at our storefront in Covington, Ky.
We wish we didn’t have to do this, but it is truly necessary.
Lost Art Press is a small business. The only people working on it full time are John and me. Kara, Meghan and Megan are all part-time contractors.
Yes we ship out 25,000 books each year, but we also split all profits with our authors 50/50. This is an unheard-of royalty in the publishing business, but we think it’s the only fair way to operate. As a result of this 50/50 split, Lost Art Press has slim margins, and it’s the reason why John and I also work other jobs to make ends meet in our households.
So this isn’t a ploy to squeeze more money out of customers. This shipping charge is a way to ensure that Lost Art Press will be around for a long time and continue to keep high-quality woodworking books that are printed in the USA in print.
As always, we thank you for your support. And if you have any questions, let us know at help@lostartpress.com.
The “Mayor’s Chair” in the archives of the University of Kentucky’s Museum of Art.
I’ve just finished my article for Mortise & Tenon Magazine about Chester Cornett’s “Masterpiece Bookcase Rocker.” I believe Cornett called his bookcase rocker a masterpiece for its expert joinery, its level of adornment and care of construction – but over his eccentric career there were more than a few momentous chairs, each of which distilled or showcased a particular set of skills. In the bookcase rocker, it was his use of traditional joinery and form to accomplish an outlandish and beautiful chair (and you can read more about it in the upcoming Issue 5 of Mortise & Tenon). But for one of his other momentous pieces, the “Mayor’s Chair” (actually made to be presented to President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated before that could be effected), Cornett showed his incredible talent with an entirely different discipline – hickory bark weaving.
The Mayor’s Chair is a feat of handcraft, with walnut posts and rockers, and hickory rungs. But beyond its base construction, every flat surface, from the lids of the baskets used as armrests to the panels below the seat and the seat itself, is woven in narrow hickory bark Cornett harvested himself from the hills of Perry County, Ky. And, where most weavers have the luxury of hiding splices and material defects on the bottom of the panel, most of these panels are visible from both sides, and thus have nowhere to hide imperfections. With a technical skill I hadn’t known Cornett to have (or hadn’t looked for), he wove each panel without defect, with all surfaces that are visible showing minimal splices and few (if any) defects or errors.
Beyond the beautiful execution of the standard herringbone pattern, Cornett displays a few other astonishing skills on the chair. For one, the octagonal seat is woven with the same pattern – a pattern not particularly suited to anything but four-sided panels. He solved this issue with a complex method of weaving over the proud corners of the bark, leaving a uniform, pointed edge that allowed him to adhere to the rectilinear pattern.
A near invisible splice, one of only a few visible on the chair.
It is also worth noting his ability as a technician. After looking at the chair for a few minutes, I realized I hadn’t noticed a single splice (typically on a hickory bark seat, splices are a noticeable but inoffensive reality). Instead, the splices are near invisible, so expertly are they done, and even then, few and far between. For one, this is impressive from a raw material standpoint – the strips Cornett harvested must have been first-rate, long and free of defects that didn’t necessitate the use of a large number of splices of shorter lengths. Second, the straightforward talent that it took to simply execute these fine splices, using only a buck knife (as he was known to do) is impressive.
Were the chair just an expert exercise of weaving, it would impress me. Maybe even more exciting than this display of technical skill, however, is its unforced incorporation into the form of the piece. The bark’s coloration and patterning beautifully complement the simple walnut posts. The usual outrageous adornment often found in Cornett’s large rockers, such as 6″ gothic finials and oversize carved pegs, are understated in this chair. This shows an understanding of understated design in a chairmaker to whom most assign the dismissive term of “folk artist.” In using simple pegs and a squatter, simpler finial, Cornett does nothing to overpower the design, showing his self-awareness and ability not only as a technician but as a designer and craftsperson intimate with his medium and its presentation.
In this chair, Cornett once again defied my expectations and preconceived ideas about what he was capable of. I expected to see a beautiful chair, yes, but like so many others, I had imagined the woven panels would be an over-the-top adornment by a chairmaker obsessed with pushing outrageous designs. What I found was an expertly executed chair, in both joinery, shaping and weaving, that is charming and inviting, not outrageous or overzealous. The more I spend time with Cornett’s chairs (there are two more on my shortlist to visit soon), the more I realize just how sincere his forms and abilities were. He was an eccentric character, for sure – but his chairs are nothing if not sound designs and solid constructions that grow from his eccentricity while solidly reflecting his immersion in a traditional craft handed down by skilled hands.
P.S. Thank you to Janie Welker at the University of Kentucky Art Museum for her time and patience in letting me come to view, photograph and drool over (not on!) the chair. I have found the custodians of Cornett’s work around Kentucky and the Midwest to be terrifically welcoming to this shaggy young furniture maker, and the UK Art Museum is no exception. Thanks Janie!
Effective immediately, we are now charging shipping on all orders. The cost is about $7 per book and goes up based on weight.
