The run of black-leather copies of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” came today – about three weeks early.
As always, the work done by Ohio Book is fantastic. I get excited to see the books, and I’ve seen thousands of them pass through my hands.
If you are on the list for this book, or the waiting list, you will hear from us this week. We still have a couple customers from the first run we are working with (Hurricane Irene is a major distraction when buying books).
— Christopher Schwarz
Roy Underhill’s woodworking school is a magical place, where the Works Progress Administration still builds beautiful stone bridges and Care Bears poop gumdrops.
But upstairs from the school is a place of great temptation. Many a woodworker has gone up there with money in the bank and come down with armloads of pre-Industrial Revolution objects. Yes, on the floor above Roy’s The Woodwright’s School is Ed Lebetkin’s Antique Woodworking Tools store.
He’s open when Roy’s class is in session, and it is a wonderland of rust and beech and brass.
Aside from the hundreds of moulding planes, bench planes and joinery planes on the walls, Ed carries stuff that is both unusual and extraordinary. Need mutton tallow? Ed has it. Hinges, locks and the most beautiful holdfasts I’ve ever seen? Yes, damn you. Ed carries stuff made by blacksmith Peter Ross, who makes hardware and tools that are of astonishing beauty.
I hesitate to even mention those holdfasts here. Oh well. It’s done.
Ed also has wooden things made by local craftsmen. There are a couple tool chests for sale — including a new one from Bill Anderson based on Roy Underhill’s design. A side table and blanket chest from Jerome Bias. Oh, and tools.
Walls of saws, from the rusty but restorable to those that have been sharpened yesterday. Backsaws, panel saws, handsaws. There are planes of every era in every corner. This week there was an entire collection of Stanley transitional planes that were sharp and ready to go. Oh, and you could buy the chest they came with.
Metal planes? Check. Wooden planes? Check. Badger planes? He has a whole shelf of those.
And let’s talk moulding planes, wooden joinery planes and the like. Ed seems to specialize in these. Two shelves of beading planes in every size? Yup. Nosing planes? Yes, a whole shelf of nosing planes.
I bought a few things. Even with my recent spates of reduce, reduce, reduce, I found a few things that I really needed. A good ogee-profile moulder. A pair of snipes bills in PERFECT shape. And some stuff to experiment with.
So when you go to The Woodwright’s School, bring your tools, but also bring your wallet. Ed is open for business.
You can contact Ed Lebetkin at 919-967-1757 or at EdLebetkin@gmail.com.
— Christopher Schwarz
I’ve received this question about 20 times since June 15 – including from my wife – so I suppose I should deal with it head-on instead of simply demurring.
Is Lost Art Press going to start a hand-tool magazine, whether printed or digital?
The answer? Not right now, at least.
The primary reason I left Popular Woodworking Magazine was because I had so many projects piling up here at Lost Art Press that I estimated it would take me five years of working nights and weekends to tackle them. And that’s just too long a gestation period for books that I consider to be essential to the growth of handwork in the 21st century.
I’m not just talking about the Roubo translation. That itself is a mountain of a publishing project, but that’s only one mountain in an entire range of monumental peaks.
Why have I been quiet on these? Because we are still inking contracts. But you can expect that we will have at least three new products before the end of the year – a DVD I’ll announce next week and two or three books that are unlike anything in print today.
The DVD is from me (sorry!) and is part of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.” The other titles are from other authors, people who should have written books long ago.
As we get these projects underway, you’ll hear more about them here. Promise.
Now about that hand-tool magazine: I’ve been in media – and media alone – since 8th grade. I’ve worked in almost every department except advertising, which I would stink at, and circulation, which is a tricky business.
I’ve launched two start-ups in my career – The Kentucky Gazette newspaper and Woodworking Magazine. Both of which are now shuttered. Those failures taught me a lot about what it takes to make a magazine that makes money and makes me want to read it.
1. All your waking hours.
2. A lot of money. And a willingness to lose money for a few years as you pull the magazine onto its feet.
3. A willingness to deal with unethical distribution schemes.
4. A willingness to throw away about 60 to 70 percent of your newsstand copies that don’t sell.
5. A certain level of optimism mixed with stupidity — I call it stupidimism. This trait helps overcome Nos. 2-4.
At this point in my life, I want to spend all my hours producing a hand-tool canon of high-quality books — a foundation that I or others can build upon. I want to get us beyond sharpening, basic plane use and hand joinery.
What’s beyond that? An entire world.
So I guess I’m asking for some patience. After I get this corpus of work complete and the technology catches up with my ideas, I think I’ll be ready to dive into the world of periodicals again. Or there’s always that llama farm.
— Christopher Schwarz
I’m getting a lot of messages from people who say they are having trouble with the “Tools for Sale” link on the right. They click on it, and they don’t find any tools for sale — except a Freud sawblade.
What’s wrong? Nothing.
When I put a tool up for sale, I put it in the “Tools for Sale” category. When it is sold, I put it in the “Tools that have Sold” category.
So if the category is empty, there is nothing for sale.
Hope this helps clear things up.
— Christopher Schwarz
SOLD: As a long-time customer and reviewer of Bad Axe products, I have entirely too many of these saws. More than I ever suspected, until I consolidated my two shops.
Up for sale: A perfect 10″ carcase saw. Walnut closed tote. Black spine and sawnuts. Filed 14ppi, crosscut. Sharp.
Retail price: $195
Price here: SOLD
Please read the following before sending me a message:
As always, there are rules. I hate rules. But these rules are in the name of justice for all the readers.
First, please don’t ask for a master list of tools or to come over to my house (yes, this happened last time). These tools will go up on the blog when I have time to post them. I don’t know how many there are (I’ve sorted more than 40 so far). I will definitely add more tools to my list as I go – I have several more boxes to go through.
In other words, please don’t ask for special favors. I cannot grant favors and be fair to everyone.
Want to see only the tools that haven’t sold? Easy. I’ve created a category for that on this blog. Click here and bookmark that page. When you visit that link, you’ll see only the tools that haven’t been sold.
While you can ask me all the questions you like about the tool, the first person to send me an e-mail that says: “I’ll take it,” gets the tool. Simple. To buy a tool, please send me an e-mail at christopher.schwarz@fuse.net. Shipping will be USPS and based on the actual cost to send it to your address. When you send me a message, please make sure you specify which tool you are e-mailing me about. This avoids bad trouble.
Payment: I can accept PayPal or a personal check. As soon as the funds arrive, I’ll ship the tool using USPS. If you want insurance, let me know. I’m afraid I can only ship tools in the United States. Shipping internationally is very time-consuming and paperwork-heavy. My apologies in advance on this point.
If you don’t like the tool when you get it, I’ll be happy to refund your money if you return the tool. But postage is on you.
— Christopher Schwarz