Lost Art Press

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The Year Without an Email

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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It’s now been a year since I closed my public email address, which is probably the biggest life change for me since Lucy and I had kids or I quit my job. As a result of the extra time granted me, I finally finished “The Anarchist’s Design Book” and we have two more books about to go to the printer.

Sometimes I get asked: Do you miss anything? The contact with other woodworkers? The intellectual stimulation that comes from defending your ideas and opinions with others? Insight into new areas to research?

The answer is no, and that’s because we have a discussion forum. If you have a question about woodworking techniques, tools or projects shown in our books, you can get quick answers by posting it on our forum. John and I are on there everyday to check in and are pretty darn prompt.

I quite like it because you’ll also get thoughtful viewpoints from other woodworkers. And we learn stuff, too. Check out this thread on soft wax – John Corey alerted us all to a domestic source for turpentine and rosin. I placed an order about five minutes after reading it.

You might be asking yourself: How is this different from answering emails?

Oh, it’s way different. For your amusement, here is a sample of typical email topics that made me pull the plug on public email. These are not exaggerations:

  1. Begging or bullying me to write a positive review of a product. “Hey we noticed we have a bunch of extra O1 dinglehoffers, could you blog about these so we can sell them off?”
  2. Ten-page questionnaires (not exaggerating) seeking business advice for a woodworking, tool-making or publishing business.
  3. Requests to publish a spouse’s romance novel.
  4. Detailed requests to compare, for example, five different workbench designs and their suitability for their particular work. After I answer, they come back six months later saying: “I decided to build a totally different design and now I hate it. Could you help me fix the problem?”
  5. Asking to come spend a day in my shop to hang out and have me teach them. For free, of course.
  6. Endless requests from people wanting me to assign a value to a relative’s tool collection, tool chest or workbench.
  7. Requests from woodworking clubs for me to speak. I’d be expected to pay my own travel and hotel expenses. “It will be great for your publishing company!” Oh and could you give us a whole set of all your books for our club’s library?
  8. Requests to publish a spouse’s book on the genealogy of their family.
  9. Books on weaving, knitting, miniature horses and spelunking.

I’d list more examples, but my fingers are already shaking a bit just recalling the nine items above.

So there’s no junk on the forum. Have a question (not about underpants gnomes)? We’ll answer.

— Christopher Schwarz

Shipping is Now Included in All Our Prices

Posted on by Lost Art Press

OFFICIAL_LAP_-LogoTo make things simpler for customers (and ourselves), we have built in the shipping costs to our prices for all domestic orders. That means when something costs $25 in the store, that is the total price you will pay for it to be delivered via FedEx SmartPost anywhere in the United States.

To make this work, we’ve had to change some prices on our products. Some went up by a couple dollars, some stayed the same and some went up $5 to $7.

This is a change that John and I have wanted to make for a long time, but it always seemed like it would really pinch for a few years as we changed the way we priced our books. In 2015 we decided it was the right thing to do to make things simple – both for you and for us.

As Lost Art Press has grown, our shipping options have become more complex. John was spending a lot of time trying to manage our shipping algorithms to account for temporary fuel surcharges, delivery zones and other assorted crap.

By building the shipping cost into a book, shirt or DVD, it frees up a lot of time for both of us to work on what matters. Also, it makes ordering simpler for you. The price you see is the price you pay. Period.

This new policy applies to all products – books, DVDs, apparel and posters – shipped domestically. For apparel that we ship overseas, we still have to charge shipping. There was no way around that.

About Pre-publication Orders
Those of you who are long-time customers are probably wondering: What will this do to pre-publication orders? Since 2008 we have offered free shipping for the first 30 days on new products.

As of now our plan is to offer a free pdf download of the book with every order during the first 30 days. If you look at the cost of shipping vs. the cost of the pdf, I think you’ll agree that is more than fair.

We hope you like these changes and it makes ordering simpler.
— Christopher Schwarz

Face Our Past: For Better or Worse

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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With “The Anarchist’s Design Book” in the rear-view mirror, I am double-clutching to get our Charles H. Hayward project to the printer as soon as possible.

After eight years of toil by a dozen people, we are almost there. I have only about 40 hours of work to do in order to get it to press. So I am eschewing the shop as much as possible (except for this sweet little diversion).

Our book on Hayward covers his entire editorial stint at The Woodworker, from the 1930s to the late 1960s. It was a period of incredible change in our craft, and you can see attitudes shift as the hand tools are put away and the machines begin to dominate.

However, Hayward loved handwork and insisted on filling the pages of the magazine with it even to the end of his tenure. So I think you will adore this book when it comes out.

Tonight I’m editing the section on glue blocks (yup, an entire section on glue blocks) and was struck by one of the articles called “The Weakest Link.” It’s one of those articles when you can see the old ways start to slip away.

What is “The Weakest Link?” It is joinery.

The article explains how joinery can weaken an assembly instead of strengthening it. Hayward points to studies in the United States that dealt with a door made up of a framework skimmed by plywood panels. (See Fig. 2 above.) Adding joinery to the piece does not add strength to the door, according to scientific studies. So perhaps we can or should skip it.

The assembly is dang ugly, however, no matter how strong it is.

In the same article, Hayward goes into immense detail in discussing glue blocks and offers details you don’t often see. For example: You should plane off the corner of the glue block just a shaving or two) that goes into the corner of the assembly to add strength. Duh. Why have I not thought of that?

To be sure, about 90 percent of the material in this book is about the best practices in woodworking – many times better than what is typical today. But it is interesting to see standards start to slip. Invariably what causes them to slip might surprise you: it’s science.

— Christopher Schwarz

Details on ‘The Anarchist’s Design Book’

Posted on by Lost Art Press

ADB_Cover_mock_up“The Anarchist’s Design Book” will be available in the Lost Art Press store on Jan. 15 for pre-publication ordering. The book is expected to ship from our warehouse on the week of Feb. 28, 2016. (Note: All dates are subject to change because of the weather and factory schedules.)

The book will be $47, which will include domestic shipping. I am personally signing the first 1,000 books sold through our store. If you order before March 31, you also will receive the pdf version of the book for an immediate download.

We don’t know which of our retail locations will carry the book or when it will be available in their stores – that is their business, of course. So we ask your patience on that question.

“The Anarchist’s Design Book” is the result of four years of difficult work researching early furniture forms, building them, redesigning them and then building them again (and again).

The book will be 456 pages and printed in an 8” x 10” format, making it larger and longer than “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” from 2011. The book will have sewn signatures to make the book extra durable, and a hardcover with the same cloth as used on “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.”

As with all of our products, this book will be produced and printed entirely in the United States.

One of the interesting wrinkles with “The Anarchist’s Design Book” is how we are making the “book block,” which is the sewn pages minus the cover. Books from the 17th century were traditionally painted on their edges (red or black were common colors) to protect the paper from dust, water and other environmental factors that harm paper.

We’ve decided to do the same thing with “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” which was not an easy thing to do. We’ve had to switch printing plants and alter our printing process to make it happen. We’ve also decided to personally absorb this cost – this book really should be about $55.

Why? Because it’s cool and we want to do it.

We thank you all for your patience with this title and hope you find it worth the wait. We don’t have any other details on the book’s availability outside of our store or our country. As we have those details, we’ll post them here.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. My next book is going to be 64 pages and be about a snail who finds love in an unlikely location.

Build. Destroy. Rebuild.

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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After weeks of ripping the interior of our new building to shreds, we’re finally starting to put the pieces back together in an 1890 fashion.

Last month we ripped out 30 cubic yards of “improvements” to the Lost Art Press headquarters, including miles of wiring (that we completely recycled), rotted, black and crumbling subfloor (to the landfill) and ridiculous stud walls and 1995-era bar construction (mixed – we recycled what we could).

Today the plastering started.

We’re using a secret late-Victorian recipe that uses Plaster of Versailles (Versailles, Ky., not that cheap crap from Paris, Ky.) and Boba Fett tears. Plus a bit of Seattle Cement (Portland Cement is for weenies).

Lucky for us we managed to salvage about 95 percent of the original plaster on the walls. We had a small section that had to be drywalled because there was no lath. (And no money for lath.) So we expect to restore the interior as close as possible to the 1890 interior.

Meanwhile, I’m designing the entry door and transom windows that will replace gaping holes now filled with plywood and a cheap window AC unit. Because we are in an historic district, all my designs have to be approved by the city’s historic preservation staff and appointees.

Tomorrow we meet with window contractors to do some work that I don’t have the time for. I’m bringing my wife, Lucy, because buying windows is like buying used cars. I’ve had to chase off a few vinyl salesmen with a broom during the last 20 years. If you sell vinyl windows, I’m sorry (sorry that you sell vinyl windows).

I also need to meet with a kidney salesman. We need traditional solid-wood oak floors and I have an extra kidney.

And now back to editing and growing that third kidney.

— Christopher Schwarz