In “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” I tried to show how woodworking journalists are treated like geese being prepared for foie gras. During my 15-year tenure I was force-fed tools, jigs and meaningless innovations (see also Bench Cookies) to fill the great void that is the autumn issue.
What I didn’t get to explain in that book were the market forces behind this Golden Corral of injection-molded garbage. Why does this happen? And more importantly: Why does it work?
Some of you won’t believe me, but that’s because you are probably a beginner and therefore an indiscriminate sponge.
When people begin woodworking, most go through a phase (I did) in which they soak up every single piece of information they can find. Many will subscribe to multiple woodworking magazines, buy astonishing numbers of woodworking books, seek out catalogs and advertisements for woodworking tools, and buy anything they can afford that looks remotely useful.
This is when people are vulnerable. They need guidance. Unfortunately woodworking is a mostly solitary pursuit. And so we spend incredible, astonishing and shocking amounts of money on equipment, books and instruction. And most of it is of questionable worth.
Because of this phenomenon:
Some of you might be thinking I’m exaggerating my experiences. I’m not. The good news is that the Internet did a Half-Nelson on most of these stupid business practices. When people now go through their “indiscriminate sponge” phase, they do it on YouTube and soak up as much ridiculousness as they wish.
Eventually they will be able to ignore the tool-chugging nincompoops and focus on what’s important: Building basic skills using simple and robust tools (and maybe a few well-built machines).
Honestly, it’s a good thing to be a bit jaded about the woodworking tool and publishing industries. It makes you a better consumer and encourages them to do better. So please, for the sake of the future of the craft, don’t buy the Bench Cookies.
— Christopher Schwarz
Handworks 2017 was a blur of faces, handshakes and hugs with people I haven’t seen in ages. It also was a chance to meet a new crop of hard-core woodworkers, people in their 20s who are determined and talented – it was unlike anything I’ve seen before at a woodworking show.
In the cacophony of questions, comments and criticism came an unfamiliar young voice that startled me.
“How is it that you see your anarchism as separating you from politics,” he said, “when what you do is so political?”
It’s the kind of question you expect in a 400-level PolySci class, not a barn. So I stopped and tried to answer the question. Note that I’m terrible in these situations (which is why I’d be a slip-and-fall lawyer at best). Eventually I said enough words that the questioner (mercifully) let me go.
The guy was Dan Clausen, who writes the Pequod Workshop blog and is a literature PhD candidate at the University of Nebraska. He’s a thoughtful guy I’ve been following for a while, and he is able to cut through a lot of the BS in hand-tool woodworking. Today the “Full Stop” quarterly republished one of his essays titled “The Anarchist in the Woodshop,” which you can read in full for free here.
It’s an essay about the things that we don’t say about our work here at Lost Art Press. It might alarm some and comfort others. But the bottom line is Dan is a pretty keen observer and got it right. Check it out.
— Christopher Schwarz
Nick Offerman, actor, humorist and longtime woodworker whose most recent book, “Good Clean Fun,” was dubbed part memoir/part technical guide with “zen-like life lessons” by Esquire, recently read Nancy R. Hiller‘s “Making Things Work.” And loved it.
His review:
“These poignant, honest, sometimes heartbreaking and sometimes hilarious but always masterful stories are so much more than woodworking anecdotes – they are nakedly human moments, rendered with the hard-won sagacity of the purist. A necessary read for any aspiring craftsperson, but just as requisite for the clientele. I can’t decide in what retail section this book should be displayed – fine woodworking? Sure, that’s easy, but the integrity of Ms. Hiller’s voice, the tenacity of her principles, and the respect with which she endows honest, hard work compel me to suggest instead the shelves of philosophy, self-help, etiquette or even religion, goddamnit.”
We rarely carry books from other publishers in our store – we’re picky. But Offerman’s review illustrates why this book was an easy addition to our collection.
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
Editor’s Note: Briony Morrow-Cribbs, who illustrated “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” has just completed a run of 50 letterpress prints on the evolution of the expansive bit for a client. As part of the process, she has 50 prints to sell. Read the story about the process below. Details on ordering the print are at the end. Briony does fantastic work, and we love this print (I have one in my office).
Last winter, when I completed the illustrations for “The Anarchist’s Design Book” by Lost Art Press, I was hopeful I would be invited to do similar illustration projects. While I love creating my own art — my growing menagerie of strange and beautiful beasts and botanicals — there is something extremely satisfying in rendering clean, precision-based objects. In making these illustrations, the emphasis shifts away from “what do I want to say” to “how do I best convey the purpose and physical aspects of this object?” So it was to my delight that Eric Brown of Dayton, Ohio contacted me last February about commissioning an illustration of a portion of his collection of expansive drill bits dating from 1852 to 1874.
If you are not familiar with expansive or expansion bits, they are specialized drill bits for cutting large holes in wood, which use a combination of a center pilot bit with an adjustable, sliding blade or cutter. In addition, there is a set screw that locks the cutter into a desired position. Made before the invention of power tools, expansive bits were originally to be used with a brace, or other hand drill.
Eric’s expansive drill bit collection consists of over 300 individual pieces and he has managed to find patent numbers, dates and other information about the bits. After some discussion, Eric and I decided to start with six of the oldest patented bits and include text about their patent numbers and creators.
Initially, Eric was interested in having an edition of prints made from a photopolymer etching plate. (Photopolymer etching was the process that I used for The Anarchist’s Design Book. If you’re interested in knowing how I made these images, you can watch this movie). However, after several test strips and a lot of fussing around with laminating plates and figuring out etching times, I decided that a more straightforward approach to creating a large image combining both text and illustrations would be to create a relief plate. (In relief printing — woodblocks, linoleum blocks, photopolymer relief plates etc. — the raised surfaces are inked and the incised or lower areas stay white. On the other hand, intaglio images — engravings, etchings, collographs etc. — are inked by filling in the recessed surfaces and wiping the surface clean). This decision to create a relief plate meant that I could easily combine my hand-drawn imagery and computer-generated text, and it also meant that the image could be printed on a Vandercook letterpress which would make printing an edition a much quicker endeavor than repeatedly hand-inking and wiping a plate in order to produce each print.
PROCESS
The process began with photographing Eric’s six drill bit pieces and compiling a full-sized image in Adobe Illustrator of all the bits and their accompanying text. After that, I printed out images of the bits that had been enlarged by 130% and created a stippled ink drawing on vellum, carefully rendering shadows, blemishes and stamped type.
Photograph of L.H. Gibbs expansion bit
Ink drawing of L.H. Gibbs expansion bit
Following the rendering of each image, I scanned the drawing back into the computer at a high resolution to create a bitmap image that I then moved into Adobe Illustrator in order to create a vector-based image.
Finally, when all of the drill bits were rendered, scanned and processed, I sent the full-size, completed vector digital file to Boxcar Press. Boxcar Press is a shop in central New York that sells letterpress materials and offers letterpress printing services, and also has the awesome ability to create letterpress relief plates from polymer material. The plate comes with a double-stick adhesive on the back that allows it to adhere to a thick base-plate that raises the relief plate until it’s perfectly type-high and ready to be printed on a letterpress.
Polymer relief plate ready to be inked and printed
For the first printing of the illustration, I used a makeshift base plate from a ¾” piece of MDF topped by an ⅛” sheet of acrylic. While I was able to produce enough prints for the initial edition, the instability of those two materials meant that the printing of the plate was inconsistent. After receiving a solid ⅞” aluminum base plate from my boyfriend for my birthday, the printing of the second edition suddenly became much easier.
Abe getting ready to print using the Vandercook press at The Putney School.
This print can be a great addition to any home or shop. You can order a print via this link.
Special thanks to my boyfriend, Abe Noe-Hays, for helping me to set up and print both editions of the image. While neither of us are expert letterpress printers, Abe’s mechanical aptitude made the job not only manageable but also enjoyable. Thank you, Abe!
