I will announce here on the blog when we get the books and when they hit the mail trucks.
Of those 500 books, only about 50 are unspoken for. So if you want one, with free domestic shipping, visit the Lost Art Press store. This book is not something we will stock on a regular basis. When Amazon gets it, everyone else in the market is done for.
Similarly, we have only about 100 letterpress “With Hammer in Hand” posters available. They are $25 with free domestic shipping. Once these are gone, they are gone. They are gorgeous. But don’t take my word for it, read it from Jameel Abraham at Benchcrafted.
It was my first book and took three years of my life to write and design.
It is still an excellent reference for anyone looking to build a first workbench.
It was produced and printed in the United States.
I still agree with (almost) every word of it (except an error I made in a caption).
And while I quite like this book, it hasn’t done much to help our household during the last eight years. Though it sold quite well, I was paid a flat fee for the writing and have received no royalties since it was released in 2007. I’m not bitter about it in the least. That was the deal they offered me, and I gladly accepted it.
However, all that changes with the release of the revised edition next month. I spent the first part of 2015 revising every chapter and adding material throughout – including two additional chapters on new versions of French and English workbenches – with complete construction drawings from Louis Bois. The book is now longer, stronger and I’ll receive royalties on every copy sold.
Lost Art Press has committed to carry 500 copies of the book, which is being printed in the United States to high standards. All 500 copies that we are selling will be autographed personally (not via bookplate) and will be shipped domestically via USPS with free shipping. The cost is $34.99 and can be pre-ordered through our store. The book should ship sometime in late October 2015.
You can place an order for one of these books from our site here. The price is $34.99.
Should you buy this book if you already have the first edition and a great workbench? Probably not – the core ideas are the same, though sections of the book have been expanded greatly to cover advancements in workholding. But if you like to support the work we do at Lost Art Press or know someone who could benefit from a book on workbenches, then we are happy to send you one.
On my day off from teaching at David Savage’s shop, David and his wife, Carol, insisted on taking me over the border to Cornwall to see Cotehele, a fantastic family home on the Tamar River that has been remarkably unchanged for more than 400 years.
The house had some remarkable original furniture, including six collapsible tables that they suspect were made on-site. But I have only 15 minutes to write this so we’re going to look at the workbenches in the house’s workshops.
Cotehele House was built about 1300 and rebuilt by three generations of the Edgcumbe family between 1485 and 1560. The house is mostly Tudor, and is largely untouched since its last remodeling in the 1650s.
The workshops on display are recreations, as is typical in historic properties. So don’t make too much out of where the benches are sitting or what’s on them. In the saddler’s shop they had two workbenches. One was clearly a woodworker’s bench that looked very similar to Peter Nicholson’s drawing of one circa 1800.
The bench has had a hard life. One interesting aspect of the bench is that when you stand before it, you cannot easily see the rear apron, just like in Nicholson’s “Mechanic’s Companion.” But the apron is there.
But what isn’t there are the “bearers” under the top that Nicholson discusses. Still, the bench seemed sturdy enough to still work on. Some people might think it a bit low – my guess is that it’s 27” or 28” high. The benchtop was about 10’ long.
In the wheelwright’s shop they had a second Nicholson-pattern bench on display, this one is interesting because of the storage lockers built into either end. You access the lockers from doors at the ends. What’s interesting about this particular bench was the lack of holes for anything – pegs, holdfasts etc.
This bench was a bit taller than the one shown in the saddler’s shop. But it was also about 10’ long.
There was lots more to see in the house, but that will have to wait for another day. I’ve got a tool chest to finish.
Visit my blog at Popular Woodworking Magazinehere for a full-resolution version of the full plate from the above detail. And it’s not a discussion on man-boobs. Promise. (Look at those! Wow.) Maybe that’s not a man?