Lost Art Press

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New Lost Art Press T-shirts – Made in the USA

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The latest T-shirt design from Lost Art Press is now available in 100-percent lightweight cotton and made completely in the United States.

The front of the shirt features the compass from Joseph Moxon’s “Mechanick Exercises,” which is our company’s symbol. The back of the shirt features the slogan: “Cutting Deals Since 1678.” What’s the joke? (Hint: “Deal” is an old word for dimensional softwood.)

The shirts come in navy blue and are printed on American Apparel shirts made in Los Angeles. We’ve been experimenting with these shirts during the last few years and have concluded they are even more durable than the heavyweight imported T-shirts we’ve used in years past. Plus, these American Apparel shirts are lighter in weight (less sweating), more breathable and less scratchy.

Switching to a USA-made shirt increased our costs by $1 compared to the imported shirts, but I think you’ll say, “I’ll buy that for a dollar” when you put it on. Shirts in size medium, large and XL are $16. XXL shirts, as always, cost $2 more.

The shirts are a deep navy blue, but they look almost black on some computer monitors. Trust us, they are blue.

To see the shirts in our store or purchase one, click here.

— Christopher Schwarz

October 1951

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For him there need be no looking back wistfully to days when the toil of workshop or factory or office desk perforce kept his life filled. He will have in his skilful fingers the power to recreate his life anew so long as the power to work remains with him, something in which he can be happy and absorbed and be for ever learning, something too which will enable him to add to the attractiveness of his home and give pleasure to his friends. For woodwork is indeed a homely craft, adapting itself to all sorts of conditions. It can be plain or decorative, it can range from indoor and outdoor furnishings to a child’s toy and the humble window wedge. It can embrace both the classical elegance of an inlaid cabinet and a strictly utilitarian kitchen fitting, and each thing in itself be so honestly and truly made as to be perfect of its kind. It can give a man scope for his fancy and every kind of ingenuity. It will both exercise his patience and add to his serenity, for there is something very kindly about wood. It can keep the spirit of creation alive in him till his tools are put away for the last time, since to us all “the night cometh when no man can work.” But at least he will have lived. And who knows what new possibilities will dawn for him when the night ends?

— The Woodworker, October 1951

New American-made Lost Art Press Hats in Stock

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We now stock American-made Lost Art Press hats from Bayside Apparel, a Tacoma, Wash., company. These hats are navy blue, unstructured and feature our dividers embroidered in white thread with white piping on the bill.

The hats are adjusted with a steel clasp and fabric tab. These are 100-percent cotton caps and are the nicest American-made hats we could find. They are a bit more expensive than our previous caps, but we bought a large quantity of these Bayside-brand hats to get the price down somewhat. As a result, this hat costs $17 – or $1 more than our earlier Chinese-made hats.

They are available for immediate shipment and can be purchased here from our store.

— Christopher Schwarz

Roy Underhill Reading ‘The Joiner & Cabinet Maker’

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Lost Art Press is pleased to announce that Roy Underhill will be the voice reading our audiobook presentation of “The Joiner & Cabinet Maker,” which will be released later this summer.

Roy and I have spent the day recording the first part of the original 1839 text, and we will work on the remainder of the book this week. The audiobook will be available for download from LostArtPress.com or as a CD set available from us and our retailers.

The tentative price for the book will be $16 for the download and $20 (plus shipping) for the CD.

We’ve been recording the audiobook at Roy’s cottage in Graham, N.C., where we have taken over his office and covered all the walls with quilts and blankets from his house (apologies to Jane, Roy’s wife). Roy is doing somewhat of a dramatic reading of the text, using different voices for the different characters in telling the tale of young Thomas and his journey of apprenticeship in a rural English joiner’s shop.

The only hitch in the recording so far has been controlling some of the hard “P” sounds with the microphone. We fixed that using a wire hanger and a piece of Megan Fitzpatrick’s pantyhose that she donated for the recording.

You can download a short (and somewhat rough) clip from our recording session for free by clicking below.

JandC_sample

— Christopher Schwarz

Chris Isn’t Here

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I’m traveling for the next 10 days to a wide variety of Southern destinations to do research for a couple books, interview some woodworkers for articles in Popular Woodworking Magazine, record an audio book and eat my entire weight in grits.

So if you send me an e-mail, it’s unlikely that I’m going to get it immediately and even less likely that that I’ll be able to answer it until I return on May 28 (or so). So if you have a workbench emergency, you’ll have to contact Scott Landis. For handplane emergencies, contact Garrett Hack. Toolbox emergencies, Jim Tolpin.

If you miss me, then click on over to Rob Campbell’s blog “The Joiner’s Apprentice,” where he just posted an interview with me. The direct link is… here.

— Christopher Schwarz