Yes, we are indeed sold out of our share of letterpress posters from “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.” But don’t despair. Read on before sending us a(nother) nasty-gram.
We sold 500 posters over the weekend. Another 400 posters – personally autographed like the ones we sold – are going to Lee Valley Tools this week for that company to sell. Another 50 (also signed) are going to Classic Hand Tools in the United Kingdom. And we’ll have 50 on hand to replace any that are damaged in shipment (and maybe have a few to sell at our storefront on May 14).
We don’t know when Lee Valley and Classic Hand Tools will begin selling the posters. That’s their decision. We have no say as how they operate (obviously).
Some readers have asked us to do a second run of posters. John and I have decided against that for several reasons. We have books to publish, and lots of them. Also, John and his neighbor are rolling and mailing these posters, and it’s remarkably time-consuming. Finally, these posters are not profitable. We kept the price low to say “thanks” to customers for supporting us all these years. If we continued to publish posters like this, John and I would have to take second jobs at Arby’s.
Working with wood has always seemed like it’s something more than just refashioning dead vegetable matter into useful items.
Unlike metal, wood has a way of reminding us of the time it took for every stick to grow. Pick up a door stile and look at the end grain. Count the annular rings and you know it took 40 years to make that part for a cabinet door. A door panel might take 100 years to grow. I have a piece of slow-growth huon pine in my shop that is about 4” wide and took more than 300 years to grow.
If you respect your elders, we all need to tip our hats to the scrap bin every day.
But I don’t think of time and lumber as mere linear things. Perhaps it’s my affinity for Buddhism, but I have always suspected there is a circle behind the work I do. But that the circle is so big that I am like a gnat walking along the rim of a dog bowl and unable to see that my path curves upon itself.
This week I’m reading a fun little book that has been fertilizing my circular logic. “The Lost Meaning of Classical Architecture” by George Hersey (The MIT Press) seeks to unpack historical architectural terms – torus, dentils, triglyphs and echinus, for example – and explain their connections to early Greek and Roman culture.
While Hersey explores a lot of fascinating ideas, the ones that stuck in my mind relate to Greek ritual sacrifice. Temples are in many ways a man-made grove of sacred trees, according to Hersey. Temple columns represent many things, including both a sacred tree and the human body.
In a ritual sacrifice, the animal victim is taken apart. Certain parts, such as the head, thighs, feet and horns are given special treatment. Some parts are eaten. Then the victim is reassembled on the altar. The head might be hung on a stick and draped with the skin. The bones might be arranged as they were when the animal was alive.
Without getting too deep into the religious aspect of it, the animal was the vessel of god during the sacrifice. And reconstructing it could represent that it has been reborn, or is immortal or wasn’t killed in the first place.
Whew. Should I insert a fart joke here?
When I make a piece of furniture, I am struck by weird and uneven aspects of the process. We take this massive entity – a living thing that took hundreds of years to grow, and we quickly girdle it and end its life so fast that it can take a week for the leaves to get the message that they’re dead.
We work these bits into ever-smaller chunks, getting down to the parts that are the strongest or most beautiful.
Then we rebuild these small bits into ever-bigger and more massive assemblies. We join them so they are as strong as when they held the forest canopy aloft.
And if we are successful, our work might last as long as the tree itself lived. It feels a lot like the description of Greek ritual sacrifice in Hersey’s book.
The implications of this view of the craft are personally staggering. Are we priests of a pagan religion? Are we recreating trees to give them immortality? To prove we never killed them?
Or is it as simple as when you spend hours at a bench every day sawing and planing a material for 20-plus years, that you get a little funny.
You can order the letterpress posters featuring plans for “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” from our store for $20 – all orders include free domestic shipping.
The 18″ x 24″ poster was printed in dark blue on heavy #100 paper by Steamwhistle Letterpress of Newport, Ky. on a Vandercook 425 proofing press. See a video of the press run here. All of the posters are individually signed by me.
The construction drawing was made in soft pencil by Randy Wilkins and then converted to a polymer plate for the Vandercook 425.
We printed 1,000 posters. We don’t anticipate printing another run of these, so get them while you can. All posters ship in a rigid cardboard mailing tube.
Note: International customers will be able to purchase this poster through Classic Hand Tools and Lee Valley Tools (while their supplies last). We are still in the process of shipping these posters to them, so please give them some time to get things sorted out and ready to take orders.
My daughter Katy has an entrepreneurial spirit that is similar to when I started selling “bark jewelry” to neighborhood kids at age 10. Unlike me, Katy is committed to making something useful.
During the last few months, Katy and I have been making soft wax, packaging it in 4 oz. tins and selling it in the Lost Art Press storefront. We sold out of her first batch and have been busily making more this month so we can offer it online.
What is soft wax? It’s a traditional beeswax that is mixed with a significant quantity of solvents to create a wax that is soft and dissolves easily into raw wood. It is best used on the insides of drawers or casework. It imparts a softness and a smell that is pleasing. It also helps lubricate drawers and even wooden vise screws in the workshop.
How do you use it? Easy. Wipe the wax on with a clean cloth. The wax will absorb quickly into raw wood. After five minutes, buff the area with a clean cloth. You are done.
The beeswax provides a thin layer of protection against stains and spills. The solvents (particularly the Georgia turpentine we use) imparts a complex and earthy smell to the work.
All the soft wax is made here in my shop in Fort Mitchell with Katy in control. We melt the cosmetic-grade beeswax in a double boiler so it never reaches more than 140° (F). Then she adds the solvents and dispenses the wax into the metal containers using a turkey baster.
After the wax cools, Katy cleans the containers, adds the lid and affixes the label, which she designed herself.
Each tin is $12 plus domestic shipping.
While we hope you will try the soft wax, the bigger hope is that you will see its value and make it for yourself. That’s why we provide the recipe we use here. It easy to make.
If you are interested in trying soft wax before you make some yourself, Katy’s etsy store can be accessed here. She’s made about 40 tins in the last couple weeks. If we sell out, she’ll make more.
Thanks in advance for your business and your patience as Katy launches her first business.
Jim McConnell of the Daily Skep blog and I traded blog entries recently in the Cincinnati Time Store Tradition. I think I got the better part of the bargain with Jim’s thoughtful essay here.
