“Work is one of our most useful learning tools; children love to imitate adults at work. It is drudgery that needs eliminating, not work.”
— William S. Coperthwaite, “A Handmade Life” (Chelsea Green)
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Download a Free Chapter of ‘Mouldings in Practice’
Matt Bickford’s book, “Mouldings in Practice,” sets out to remake the way you look at, cut and apply the mouldings to your projects.
It is quite unlike any other book we have ever encountered. Why? Bickford grapples with a core idea that has plagued woodworkers for generations: Cutting mouldings by hand requires years of practice, patience and the acquisition of high-level skills.
After reading this book, I think you will say about that old idea: “Wow. That’s crap.”
To kick-start your education in cutting mouldings, we are offering a free download of a critical chapter of “Mouldings in Practice.” This short chapter lays out the basic principles of the book and shows the landscape that it covers.
To download the chapter, simply click here. You don’t have to register, give up some special bodily cells or even your e-mail address.
If you like what you see and read, you can order “Mouldings in Practice” with free domestic shipping by clicking here. This offer of free shipping is valid only until Aug. 8, which is when the book leaves the printing plant in Michigan. After that, you’ll have to pay shipping, just like any other stiff.
Long-time customers can tell you that this is the only sort of promotion we run on our products. We don’t put stuff on fake “sales.” The price is the price. This pre-publication special is the only one you will ever see on this book.
So take a look at the chapter and decide if you really want to continue making mouldings with that spinning, noisy, dangerous machine in your shop. Or if you want to make any moulding you can imagine with just a few simple tools and the ideas in “Mouldings in Practice.”
— Christopher Schwarz
New: ‘Chisel, Mallet, Plane and Saw’ by Tony Konovaloff
While reading John Brown’s columns in the 1990s, I learned about a West Coast woodworker named Tony Konovaloff who built furniture for clients entirely by hand. Brown, writing in Good Woodworking magazine, mentioned that Konovaloff was writing a book about the way he worked.
At the time, that seemed crazy to me. The biggest force in woodworking was Norm Abram’s “New Yankee Workshop,” and the Internet had yet to bring together all the nutty hand-tool woodworkers in the world. We had Roy Underhill, but his show seemed no match for Norm, who was everywhere.
But something that Konovaloff wrote back then stuck deep in my craw:
“The things I make may be for others, but how I make them is for me.”
Konovaloff’s book languished, slumbered, hibernated. But earlier this year, Konovaloff started a web site and made the finishing touches to the book, which had been in the works for two decades.
Like everything in his life, Konovaloff published the book on his own terms. He did the lay out. The photos. He had it printed by a local printer. He was determined to get the book published in the way he envisioned it.
Because his book embodies so many of the principles that we believe in at Lost Art Press, we have taken the unusual step of carrying the book – “Chisel, Mallet, Plane and Saw” – in our store. It is a great book. Opinionated. Based on experience. Succinct. To the point.
In its 146 pages, Konovaloff discusses both how he builds furniture by hand and why. He spent a year under James Krenov at The College of the Redwoods, but it would be a mistake to say his work is derivative of Krenov’s.
In the book, Konovaloff says his biggest influence is the Shakers. Yet, when you look at the cabinets in “Chisel, Mallet, Plane and Saw,” you cannot help but feel there is a modernist muscle that pulls each design taut. His work is clean and focuses on small and subtle details – tight-fitting drawers and doors. Subtle reveals and quirks. Precisely fitted frame-and-panel backs.
And yet, his stuff is designed for living – not for display.
The majority of the text of the book focuses on how he works – the minimum tool kit, the shop and the mindset for modern hand work. He uses basic tools, and yet Konovaloff stretches them to their limits to make drawer blades with sliding dovetails, haunched and mitered mortise-and-tenon joints and coopered doors.
If you appreciate things that are simple, well-built and fit for a contemporary home, we think you will appreciate “Chisel, Mallet, Plane and Saw” as much as we do.
The book is black-and-white with both photos and hand illustrations. Printed and bound in the United States. The book is available to ship immediately. Click here to order it for $35 plus shipping.
— Christopher Schwarz
New Lost Art Press T-shirts – Made in the USA
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
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