Lost Art Press

Category: Woodworking Classes

Chairmaking Class with the Chair Chat Guys

Posted on by Lost Art Press
A comb-back by Klaus Skrudland.

This fall, we will hold a chairmaking class at Lost Art Press the likes of which I’ve never seen. Six students will be taught by three instructors – Rudy Everts, Klaus Skrudland and me – in a way that will allow students to explore stick chairs on their own terms.

Students will design and make stick chairs using a full range of methods available today, from entirely hand-powered all the way up to full-on electrified. (To be fair, we cannot offer the full gamut of techniques. We don’t have a CNC router, and we will not teach cutting tenons with buck teeth.)

Three chairs by Rudy Everts.

Put another way, we will help you develop a stick chair of your own design using the library of templates at our shop or new shapes. Then you can build the chair using the techniques that you want to learn. Want to split out your parts with a froe and shape them with an ax? Rudy and Klaus have you covered. Want to use a band saw to speed things along? Klaus or Chris will help. Want to batch process hundreds of legs for a production run? Chris will show you how.

Want to learn lathe work? We have you covered. Shaving with a drawknife and spokeshave? Yup. Saddling with an angle grinder? Adze? Scorp? Travisher? Yes, yes and yes. If we know it, we will show you how to do it.

The class should be a bit chaotic, intense and exhausting. Oh, and it will be Rated PG-13. If you have ever read Chair Chat™, then you know that salty potatoes are always on the menu. I also suspect it will be the most fun you’ve ever had while woodworking. Klaus and Rudy are both insanely talented and hilarious. Plus I know lots of jokes about the Tax Act of 1894.

An Irish-y chair by Klaus Skrudland.

If you are interested, here are the details. The class will be held Oct. 10-14 at the Lost Art Press storefront in Covington, Ky. The tuition will be $1,300 per student plus materials (you can bring your own or we can provide them for a fee).

We have room for six students. You must be fully vaccinated against COVID to attend (this building is my home and my business). To make things as equitable as possible, we will fill those six slots via a random drawing. In July, we will open up registration for the class. After registration closes, we will select six students at random. We will post more details about the drawing and the class in the coming months. 

But for now, just make sure that you don’t schedule any elective surgeries, weddings or “me time” for that week in October.

Klaus, Rudy and I are very excited about this class. I hope you will consider joining us.

— Christopher Schwarz

An armchair by Rudy Everts.
One of my comb-back chairs in cherry.

Oct. Woodworking Classes in Beautiful Central Kentucky

Posted on by fitz
Aspen Gollan holding a carved panel – one of the patterns she’ll teach in her class.

If you’ve a hankering to get back in the woodworking classroom – and in as safe a manner as possible – there are a couple openings in two upcoming three-day classes at the Pine Croft School of Woodworking (located in the sylvan setting of Kelly Mehler’s former school in Berea, Ky.).

Aspen Golann is teaching Introduction to Carving – Traditional Techniques & Contemporary Applications, October 8-10, and I am teaching the Dutch Tool Chest, October 15-17.

The Pine Croft school is run by Berea College, which has strict Covid protocols in place. Everyone – instructors and staff included – must show a vaccine card, and masks will be required at all times while inside. (I taught a week-long class recently that had lots of physical activity – several students and I had masks on the entire time, and we had zero issues planing, sawing or chopping.) Also, the shop has lots of lovely, large windows that look out onto rolling hills – I imagine in October we’ll be able to have those wide open. (I, for one, am gasping for cooler weather.)

And if you do come, consider taking an extra day or two to visit Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, just down the road. It’s what Chris calls “Decompression Village,” and what I call the site of more than a few tantrums when I was a little kid – we went there a lot. These days, I’m delighted by every trip there; I’ll certainly be stopping by while I’m in the neighborhood.

— Fitz

This Dutch tool chest is now my travel chest. It no longer looks this pristine (I like it even more, now that it has a few miles on it).

One Stick Chair Class (for a Good Cause)

Posted on by Lost Art Press

I am teaching one class in 2022 – a comb-back stick chair class at the Florida School of Woodwork in Tampa, Fla. The class runs Feb. 14-18, 2022. You can sign up and read the details here.

All my proceeds from the class are being donated to the scholarship program for the school to fund classes for people who cannot afford tuition. You can read more about that here and apply for a grant. 

Additionally, we are offering one full scholarship to this chair class for a female-identifying, non-binary or BIPOC student. You can apply for that scholarship via this link.

The Florida School of Woodwork is a great place to take a class. Kate Swann does a fantastic job of running a welcoming school. There are good workbenches, tons of good light and February is beautiful in Florida. While all of us will be building a comb-back chair, there will be lots of opportunities to personalize your chair. I’ll be bringing lots of templates so you can use different arms, hands, stretchers and combs.

Hope you can join us.

— Christopher Schwarz

Register Now for 2021 Woodworking Classes

Posted on by fitz

Registration is now open for:

• Build a Cricket Table with Derek Jones (July 30-31)
• Build the “Anarchist’s Tool Chest” with Megan Fitzpatrick (Aug. 2-6)
• Make a Carved Oak Box with Peter Follansbee (Nov. 8-12)
• Build a Dutch Tool Chest with Megan Fitzpatrick (Dec. 3-5)

If you have any questions about classes, send an email to covingtonmechanicals@gmail.com.

— Fitz

Register for Classes Tomorrow

Posted on by Lost Art Press

Registration for 2021 classes at our storefront opens at 10 a.m. (Eastern) tomorrow, May 17. We have only a few classes scheduled as we are trying to ease back into the new world. As you can imagine, a lot has changed both in Covington and with our business.

Some of our favorite restaurants have closed, but new ones have opened. We’re working on some new kitchen and bathroom facilities for visitors. And Brendan Gaffney has left us for Upstate New York.

One of the biggest changes has been the strange new barrier that has emerged between Ohio and Kentucky because of bridge construction. The old Roebling Suspension Bridge is closed entirely for repairs. The main bridge, the Brent Spence, is being fixed and repainted, so getting across the river is more difficult than ever because of continual lane closures and the giant condom that has enveloped the structure. As I write this, even our pedestrian bridge across the Ohio River is closed because a large stone fell from one of its piers.

It’s enough to make you consider taking the Anderson Ferry. Or swim.

So if you do plan to take a class, I recommend you stay on the Kentucky side of the border (no, you don’t need a passport, just bring a jug of corn liquor). There are lots of great hotels and Airbnbs in Covington that are walking distance from the storefront.

Here are the three classes we’re offering this year:

July 30-31: Build a Cricket Table with Derek Jones

Aug. 2-6: Build an “Anarchist’s Tool Chest” with Megan Fitzpatrick

Nov. 8-12: Make a Carved Oak Box with Peter Follansbee

Dec. 3-5: Build a Dutch Tool Chest with Megan Fitzpatrick

We hope to offer a few more classes before the end of 2021, but we are waiting to see if instructors will be able to travel. And if students are willing to sign up.

I’m not going to teach here or anywhere – at least for now. One of the after-effects of the pandemic has been how our publishing business has grown (almost four-fold). Keeping Lost Art Press running smoothly is more than a full-time job for me and John. 

Like it or not, however, I’ll still be helping the instructors out during the classes. That means making sure there’s enough toilet paper, helping students who need assistance and occasionally brandishing the “encouragement whip” when the dovetailing slows down too much.

If you haven’t taken a class here, it’s important to remember that we are not a school. We don’t have an ice cream machine or a masseuse. But we do offer high-quality instruction, tiny classes with only six students, excellent workbenches and a walkable historic neighborhood to explore. 

Plus Bean, the three-legged shop cat.

So if you are ready to travel and to attempt talking to strangers, I hope you’ll consider joining us. All we ask is that you be vaccinated against COVID-19. You can read more about that decision here.

— Christopher Schwarz