Lost Art Press

Category: Virtuoso: The Tool Cabinet and Workbench of Henry O. Studley

Learn About ‘Register Calipers;’ Hunt One Up for Yourself

Posted on by Lost Art Press

register_calipers_IMG_4865

For those of you who won’t be able to attend Handworks in May, you can still find yourself a pair of Studley-like calipers for your shop with the help of the always-digging Jeff Burks.

Jeff did a little research on the so-called “register” calipers, which is the name that some manufacturers (but not all) used for this tool. Below are a good number of links that will help you search for the different brands.

The best link? The last one. It’s to a Japanese company that still makes this tool. Stainless steel. Several sizes. Hardened tips.

And metric.

The good news on the manufacturing front is that we are hopeful that a modern toolmaker will produce these for sale. The company borrowed our prototype and all our photos and measurements from the Studley version. So keep your fingers crossed.

I’ve been using our prototype in the shop for many months and find it to be a useful apron tool for handwork.

For the most part, I use it as an “adjustable mullet” – there’s a thumbscrew on the back of the tool that locks in a particular thickness. So when I’m raising a panel by hand, I lock the caliper at the groove’s width and use the caliper to determine when I’m finished.

I use the same basic procedure when cutting rabbets and surfacing stock by hand.

You can, of course, use a locking dial caliper to do the same job. Or a block of wood. This is just another way to do it.

— Christopher Schwarz

SK_calipers

Links from Jeff Burks:

Illustrated Price-List of W.C. Duyckinck, 1877

Illustrated Catalogue of General Machinery and Supplies – Cooke and Co., 1883

A book of tools: Chas. A. Strelinger & Company, 1896

1890 Seeger and Guernsey’s Cyclopaedia of the Manufactures and Products of
the United States has a listing for all the caliper manufacturers in the
U.S. (Scroll to bottom) One of these companies likely made the Studley
register caliper.

Using that list I found an auction for a register caliper on Worthpoint. The style matches the Studley caliper, though it appears to be one of the larger versions. This one was stamped with the name Wm. Johnson Newark NJ. This company was founded in 1834 and operated from a building complex called the Hedenberg Works.

1898 G.W. Davis patent register caliper that piggybacks the earlier design.

1899 Seeger and Guernsey’s added a category for register calipers with one company: Kraeuter Co. Newark, NJ – founded 1860 and also operated from the Hedenberg
Works.

Several books printed after 1900 contain illustrations of the register caliper:
1906 Henley’s Encyclopaedia of Practical Engineering.

1913 The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia: Volume 2

Niigata Seiki of Japan currently manufactures a stainless steel version of the register caliper under the SK brand name. They are available in multiple sizes with metric graduations and hardened tips.

This May: Iowa or Bust

Posted on by Lost Art Press

HOS_caliper

If you are a hand-tool woodworker, you owe it to yourself to ditch your job for a couple days and head to Amana, Iowa, for the Handworks event on May 24-25, 2013.

Of course, Lost Art Press be there with a big group of friends. We will have all our books to show. Tool chests? Sure. Beer? Probably. A stomach pump? No. A redheaded editor? Indeed.

But that’s not all.

If you have any interest in the tool chest of H.O. Studley, then Handworks should not be missed. Why?

1. Don Williams, the author of the forthcoming book on Studley, will be there to discuss his research in detail and provide a first glimpse at some of the thousands of incredible photographs Narayan Nayar has taken of the chest during our documentary trips in the last two years.

2. We will be selling there – and only there – 50 brass thickness calipers based off the original in the Studley tool chest. We’ve commissioned a machinist/woodworker/computer guy to make them for us, and work is proceeding.

Price: $45.

So go to the Handworks page here at Handworks.co. Register. The event is free. It’s going to be something that people talk about for many years to come – like the first Woodworking in America.

— Christopher Schwarz

Catch Up With Narayan Nayar

Posted on by Lost Art Press

narayan_studley_IMG_3989Narayan Nayar has revived his long-slumbering blog, etherfarm.com. Narayan is a frequent contributor to Lost Art Press products – he’s photographing the H.O. Studley chest, he created the chapter-opening photos for “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” and has helped me gain 10 pounds.

Narayan’s blog will surely cover woodworking, food and photography. So if you like any of those things, check it out.

— Christopher Schwarz

Books in the Works – January 2013

Posted on by Lost Art Press

GW-PREFACE

As promised, here is a quick update on the books we are working on at Lost Art Press.

“By Hand & By Eye” by George Walker and Jim Tolpin
Layout artist Linda Watts has just finished her part of the book – with a couple loose ends. Tonight, Megan Fitzpatrick and I are going to review her layouts and make sure everything looks good before we do the final copy editing and send it to the authors for their approval. I hope to have this book to the printer in about three weeks.

“To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry” by Don Williams, Michele Pietryka-Pagán and Philippe LaFargue
This project has been keeping us up late at night. I have a bit of editing to do on the last chapter. Don is taking some additional photography. And book designer Wesley Tanner is now laying out pages. We are running behind schedule, but we are all doing everything we can to get this book to the printer in February.

“Windsor Chairs: A Foundation” by Peter Galbert
Peter has completed his first draft of the chapters. He is revising the first draft and drawing the illustrations for the book. I’ve read through most of the chapters. As a chairmaker, I am very excited about this book. Peter is a gifted craftsman and has many methods that are new to me. We hope to have this book ready for Christmas.

“Saws: Construction, Tuning & Use” (Tentative Title) by Andrew Lunn
Andrew has been plugging away on this book. His first draft is mostly complete and it is pretty mind-blowing. I don’t know when this one will be done, but work continues.

“Build a 17th-century Chest” (Tentative Title) by Peter Follansbee
Peter is building chests – they look great – for this book. No word yet on when he’ll be done.

“Virtuoso: The Tool Chest of H.O. Studley” by Don Williams
Don and the photography team will make a return visit to the chest in March. Don has been researching Studley’s masonic history. No release date yet.

“Furniture of Necessity” by Christopher Schwarz
I’ve written three chapters now. But I have put all my personal writing projects on hold until I get Roubo and “By Hand & By Eye” to the printer.

“Campaign Furniture” by Christopher Schwarz
Ditto. I’m designing the second campaign chest for the book, which I’ll begin building next month. But progress is slow because… see above.

“Super-secret LAP book” by Cannot Say
I’ve hinted at this book for some time. This is a project we have been working on since the day we started this company. Things are finally coming together on this title, thanks to a computer script written by shop assistant Ty Black. This allowed us to process thousands of images automatically, shortening our timeline by at least two years. We are shooting to announce this book sometime this summer and publish it in late 2013 or early 2014. Don’t bother asking more about this book because we’ve all sworn a blood oath.

There are other projects still in the pipeline, but these are the ones we are actively working on.

— Christopher Schwarz