Katy has completed a batch of 25 tins of soft wax that is ready to ship. You can read all about it and order some here.
It’s great stuff for the interiors of carcases, as a topcoat over paint, a finish for leather and a lubricant for tools. We love the stuff. All the wax is made entirely by Katy in the workshop here. She mixes it up, packages it and ships it out.
— Christopher Schwarz
With the first class out of the way at the Lost Art Press storefront, I’m pleased to announce that there are still plenty of Band-Aids – to the best of my knowledge, only four were needed – whew! (And everyone left with an almost-done Dutch Tool Chest – yay!)
That means we’ll have plenty of bandages left for the upcoming classes. Most of these are two-days, over a weekend; Chris works in his shop almost every day, so those of us whom he has so kindly allowed to teach are trying to not trespass on his space and goodwill…too much.
The classes are limited to six people (the number of benches that will comfortably fit in the room), so there’s a 1:6 teacher/student ratio, plus the teacher has an overly qualified assistant (that would be Chris). All of the below are sold out; this is just to give you an idea of the sorts of things on offer, and to let you know that we might yet be adding a couple of 2018 sessions – so stay tuned.
April
7-8 Make a Shaker Silverware Tray, with Megan Fitzpatrick
21-21 Make a Sector, with Brendan Gaffney
May
21-25 Make a Welsh Stick Chair, with Chris Williams
June
2-3 Make a Sector, with Brendan Gaffney
23-24 Make a Shaker Silverware Tray, with Megan Fitzpatrick
July
21-22 Make a Laminated Fore Plane, with Jim McConnell
October
6-7 Make a Shaker Table, with Will Myers
— Megan Fitzpatrick
With “Ingenious Mechanicks: Early Workbenches & Workholding” at the printer, we are focused on getting three more books to the printer:
“Hands Employed Aright” by Joshua Klein
“Slöjd in Wood” by Jögge Sundqvist
“Cut & Dried: A Woodworker’s Guide to Timber Technology” by Richard Jones
And we are almost done with two streaming videos:
“Spindle Turning for Furniture” with Peter Galbert
“Make a Chair from a Tree” with Jennie Alexander
Luckily, those three books are in the hands of Kara Uhl, Megan Fitzpatrick, Meghan B. and Linda Watts. The videos are in the hands of John Hoffman and others. So I can focus on expanding “The Anarchist’s Design Book” for a late 2018 release.
The expanded edition will include projects that I’d intended to build for the book. But the book would have been so huge that it seemed crazy to add those additional projects. I guess I am now officially crazy.
The expanded edition will include the following staked projects: an armchair, a three-legged stool and a settee. And it will include the following boarded projects: a mule chest, a high settle, a settle chair and a sitting bench.
Note that if you bought the un-expanded edition of “The Anarchist’s Design Book” you will be able to download the expanded edition for free. (This will be true no matter where you bought the book, whether from us or from our retailers.) There will be no need to buy the expanded edition unless you want more ballast for your ship or insulation for your home.
— Christopher Schwarz
Several customers have asked why they are receiving emails from our store notifying them that there is an updated pdf of “Ingenious Mechanics” ready for download.
Is this a scam? A mailserver error? Did chipmunks chew a CAT5 cable?
No. There’s a new pdf available for you to download.
When we make updates to the pdfs that we sell on our site, we ask our software to notify all existing customers that a new version is available. There have been two updates to the pdfs this week.
The first update was to increase the resolution of the photos (we doubled it).
The second change was to add the cover to the beginning of the pdf.
We’ll probably have another update or two in the coming months as readers point out corrections or typos.
— Christopher Schwarz
After the death of Nancy Cogger of Londonderry Brasses, Horton Brasses acquired the company’s stock and is selling many existing pieces at 50 percent off.
Orion Henderson estimated there are more than 23,000 pieces of Londonderry hardware now for sale on the Horton site.
If this is all the information you need, get your credit card out and load up. Here’s the link.
I swooped in and bought about 50 pieces of campaign hardware for future commissions and a follow-up to “Campaign Furniture.” I was shocked at how much money I saved. Here’s the link to the campaign hardware section.
Londonderry is fantastic stuff, made using a lost wax casting process to copy original pieces. The good news is that the hardware looks bang-on original. The bad news is that it usually requires more finessing to install than modern hardware that is completely consistent in every single way.
Orion says that Horton will continue to carry some of the Londonderry pieces and bring them in as a special order. But you’ll never see these prices again.
If you aren’t familiar with Horton, it’s time to fix that situation. I’ve been a happy customer since 1997.
— Christopher Schwarz