Lost Art Press

Category: Yellow Pine Journalism

Update on Lost Art Press Books: April 2016

Posted on by Lost Art Press

BOP_detail1_IMG_9607_1024x1024

A few people have asked for an update on the books on which we are working. I’m happy to fill you in, but please read the following paragraph with care before you comment or ask a question:

The updates below are for projects that are in our hands and we are actively working upon. We have about a dozen books that our authors are working on, either in the shop or at the keyboard. If I haven’t listed a project, that means I don’t have any information on it. Usually this means the author is still working on it. Or the author has temporarily abandoned it. Or something else has happened involving feral goats, the grays and banana pudding.

So if you ask: What about Andrew Lunn’s saw book? The answer is above. I don’t know because the book is not in our hands.

The projects are listed in the order in which I think they will be released. Of course, things change.

‘Woodworking in Estonia’ by Ants Viires
This book is kicking my butt. We have re-translated the newest revised version of the work, and it is as complex as translating A.J. Roubo. I’m about halfway through editing the final translated text (the book is already designed), and hope to have it done next month. Then it will go to press and be out in July.

This book is fantastic, though I suspect it will be a commercial flop for us. It is academic, nichy and discusses unfamiliar tools, projects and ways of looking at the world. Still, I think it’s important to publish and promote it amongst people who work wood (as opposed to historians). If you are willing to make the effort to dive into it, the rewards will be significant.

‘Roubo on Furniture’ by A.J. Roubo. Translation by Donald C. Williams, Michele Pietryka-Pagán & Philippe Lafargue
We are shooting for this book to be released in the fall, we hope in time for Christmas. The text is being polished and will be going to Wesley Tanner, the designer, in four weeks. As with “Roubo on Marquetry,” we plan to publish two versions: a standard and a deluxe.

We’re likely going to release the standard edition first. Then we will tackle the deluxe.

I have remained enthusiastic about this book since the moment I started working on it. There is stuff in this book that you won’t find anywhere else. And no matter what sort of woodworking you do (reproduction, contemporary, indifferent), this book is the big one. Every time I dip into the work I am humbled and amazed.

‘The Woodworker: The Charles Hayward Years:’ Joinery and Furniture
Meghan is in the midst of designing the next two volumes. With any luck we’ll have them out in early 2017.

‘Joiner’s Work’ (tentative title) by Peter Follansbee
Peter has finished the first draft of the text, and Megan Fitzpatrick (how many Megans are in my life?), is polishing it before we send it to the designer.

‘Roman Workbenches’ by Christopher Schwarz
Next month I’m driving to North Carolina to pick up the wood for the two workbenches that will be featured in our first letterpress book. Soon we should have a translation in our hands of an early 16th-century codex that will be the basis of one of the benches in the book. Hardware is being made. Research is being done. Stupid theories are being swapped.

So that’s about that. I wish I had information on the other dozen projects to share with you, but I don’t. So now back to editing “Woodworking in Estonia.”

— Christopher Schwarz

The Poisoner’s Tool Chest

Posted on by Lost Art Press

poisoner_AN00397100_001_l

A journeyman joiner in Kelso, having procured some arsenic for poisoning rats, mixed it amongst oatmeal, and laid it in his tool chest. His wife accidentally finding it, and not knowing the meal contained poison put it into their porridge on Monday morning last. Her eldest child who was about three years of age, upon taking the porridge, said they were bad, and would take no more, but she and a child she was nursing took a few spoonfuls of them, which they had no sooner done, than they were seized with violent reaching [sic] and vomiting, attended with a heat and pricking pain in the stomach. The husband coming in soon after for his breakfast, she told him what she had done, when he exclaimed, “You are all poisoned!” He immediately run [sic] for a doctor, who made use of every proper means to expel the poison, which was happily effected, as they are now in a fair way of recovery.

— from The Pennsylvania Packet Friday, Nov. 18, 1785, courtesy of Jeff Burks

Death by Handplane

Posted on by Lost Art Press

wlP1V6vW1uEURAqLb8IKTAfQb_u2CliQrxT06soeGS4

Thursday in the Afternoon an Inquisition was taken before Thomas Beach, Esq; Coroner for the City of London, on the Body of William King, a Carpenter; it appeared by the Evidence, that some carpenters being at Work last Tuesday Afternoon, in repairing a House of Mr. Dalmaboy, on Ludgate-hill, Words arose between one John Garnett, a Carpenter, and the Deceased, in Relation to the Deceased’s spoiling some Tools of Garnett’s; that the Deceased pushed Garnett against some Sash Doors there, and that Garnett took up a Hammer, and threatened to knock the Deceased down if he pushed him any more; that King retired towards the door, but Words still continuing between them, he returned to Garnett, and lifted up his Hand, as intending to strike Garnett, that then Garnett immediately took up a plane and struck the Deceased on the right Temple, who fell down speechless, and, notwithstanding he was immediately blooded, was seized with a Stupor, and was sent to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he expired early the next morning. As there did not appear any previous Malice between the Parties, the Jury found Garnett Guilty of Manslaughter, and the Coroner committed him to Newgate, to take his Trial at the next Sessions, which begins at the Old Bailey on Wednesday next.

— from the The Public Advertiser of London (Sept. 12, 1761) courtesy of Jeff Burks