Lost Art Press

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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’

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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.

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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

Marco Terenzi’s Incredible, Small World

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The latest issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine features a profile I wrote on Marco Terenzi, a young Michigan woodworker and toolmaker who specializes in making small – really small – stuff.

I got to spend a day with Marco in his shop, which he has had since he was 9, and get a close look at his work. Marco happens to be an incredibly quotable person, so the interview was fun, and learning how he got into this line of work was quite a tale (think: soldering iron and pen turning).

The article is in the February 2016 issue, which you can purchase here. Or spend a few extra dollars and get a year’s subscription to the magazine here.

Below are some extra photos from my visit with Marco that I didn’t have room for in the article.

— Christopher Schwarz

A 1974 Furniture Experiment

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When you think of people who have poked the furniture manufacturing establishment, Enzo Mari should be near the top of the list. His 1974 “autoprogettazione?” exhibit, plans and book proposed that ordinary people could make their own furniture using dimensional lumber, a crosscut saw and a hammer.

No ripping. No angle cuts other than 90°. No joinery other than nails.

Mari, a noted furniture designer, offered his plans for tables, chairs, beds and shelves free to anyone who asked for them. They were later compiled into a book, “autoprogettazione?” (Edizioni Corraini, 2002), you can now buy.

A couple friends who are familiar with Mari have asked if “The Anarchist’s Design Book” was inspired by Mari’s important book. The answer is: Not really. “autoprogettazione?” is, by Mari’s admission, almost entirely about the process and not the result.

When the book was released, lots of people built the designs to save money, to “get back to nature” or finish out a cottage in a rustic style. Mari says that those people missed his point.

“Obviously (my) proposal was only intended as a practical critical exercise,” Mari writes. “Obviously objects have to be produced using machinery and the most advanced technology and only in this way is it possible to have items that are good quality and economical.”

So what was his point? Mari was trying to engage the everyday person in an exercise that would show them how things are designed and “to teach anyone to look at present production with a critical eye.”

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After completing “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” I took a fresh look at “autoprogettazione?” And I also started reading a few novels like drinking from a firehose. (I try to avoid others’ writing while I’m writing for a variety of complex and stupid reasons.)

Some of Mari’s designs are actually quite successful, particularly the tables, shelves and armoire. I’m not wild about the chairs or beds, however. They do not shake off their pallet DNA enough to inspire me to pick up the tools.

And in the end, I think the act and the result are of equal importance, not only for myself but for the future of our material culture.

— Christopher Schwarz