With 165 Stick Chair Merit Badges remaining, we’re extending the deadline to earn one until they are gone (we’d much rather you have a little more time than to dispose of the ones that are left). When they run out, we’ll announce it here.
The merit badges are one to a customer, and the rules remain the same:
Build a stick chair with your own hands. (Not a frame chair, ladderback chair, Windsor/Forest chair, IKEA chair, folding chair etc.) A genuine, vernacular stick chair. (A stool without a back is not a chair. A backstool, which is essentially a side chair, is indeed a chair.)
Take a picture and print it out on any paper.
Send a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE) to us with the picture of your stick chair. (International readers are welcome to participate; you’ll need a U.S. Global stamp on the SASE.) Here’s how to address the envelope:
Stick Chair Merit Badge Lost Art Press 837 Willard St. Covington, KY 41011
I will in return insert a badge into said SASE, seal it up (with tape if it’s not self-adhesive…I’m not licking your envelopes!) and drop it in the post box on the corner near our shop, or – if it’s raining or I’m feeling lazy – at the drive-up box at Cincinnati’s main Post Office, which is on my way home.
From left: Christopher Schwarz, Thomas Lie-Nielsen and John Hoffman (the author) at Lie-Nielsen Toolworks’ 25th-anniversary celebration in Warren, Maine, 2006.
The picture above of three young friends was taken in 2006 at Lie-Nielsen’s 25th anniversary celebration in Warren, Maine. I was in awe of meeting Thomas Lie-Nielsen, and listened to everything he said about business and life. Also at the event was Christian Becksvoort who was a wealth of information. He is one of the few woodworkers who created and runs a successful woodworking business. As he said, “failure was not an option.” One thing he expressed that resonated deeply with me was he would never write another book because the publishing companies don’t play fair. As a kid in the 1970s who loved rock music, I saw documentaries about bands such as Grand Funk Railroad that had been taken advantage of by greedy management; right before a tour was supposed to start, management took all the equipment preventing the band’s tour from happening. I was hearing a similar story from Chris Becksvoort, a successful author.
On the long drive home from Maine I talked to Chris Schwarz about starting our own publishing company that would treat authors right. I thought that with current technology (this was 2006, mind you) we could enter the text into a system and hit the print button. I once heard Tom Lie-Nielsen say during a class, “I now know why tools cost so much to make.” I now understand there is a bit more to publishing than hitting a print button.
We started Lost Art Press in 2007 with “The Art of Joinery” by Joseph Moxon. Chris was still at Popular Woodworking magazine, and I had my full-time job. I had to get written permission to create a business that was not in conflict with my job and Chris had to get the OK from his employer to print the book. We published the book by offering pre-sales so that we had enough money to cover the print run. Tom let us come to his shows and sell it, and he remains a huge supporter of LAP. We are ever-grateful to him.
As business continued, I remember hitting $50K in sales and was over-the-moon happy. We created T-shirts and Chris created a thing called a “blog.” Now we use a lot of technology, and our blog continues to be the most important way to reach customers. Chris is a natural writer who actually wears out keyboards.
Our business is split between content and everything else. Guess which side I am on? I have only had two creative ideas in my life. The first was a block plane made from a concrete that would be covered in a slick poly material. Chris just looked at me. The second idea was steak-flavored soda. (Feel free to steal those ideas as LAP isn’t going down those paths.)
Chris, Tom and John in Amana, Iowa, 2023.
The second picture is from Handworks 2023, just a few days ago. what I am calling the “Middle” for LAP. As the picture shows I have become a model of style. My appreciation for others and this wonderful life continues to grow. It is amazing to me to see people wearing our T-shirts and buying our creations. As Chris said, “What a country where two drunks with laptops can create a business that works!”
On the drive home from Handworks 2023 I reflected on my life and how we got to where we are. I first and foremost thank you, our customers for your support. You are the best, and I think the other woodworking companies would agree; creators and makers have a wonderful quality that is sometimes lacking in “normal” society.
Special mention goes to Lucy May, Chris’s beloved wife who has held Chris up and helped me and helped LAP succeed. Thank you Madam President.
Thank you to our LAP staff: Megan Fitzpatrick, our first employee without whom we could not publish as many books; Meghan Bates my dear friend who takes care of our customers and provides a voice of reason when work and life have me needing advice; Kara Uhl for keeping contracts and other important items in line so I don’t go insane. Thanks to our newest employees, Mark Gilsdorf and Gabe Gavre, who have signed on to run the new warehouse. And thanks to Chris for being Chris, and bringing me along on this wonderful ride. He has become my other brother.
Thank you also to:
Tom Lie-Nielsen, a kindred soul, and his wife Karyn for their wonderful friendship and support when we were nothing.
Robin Lee, who is one of the kindest, visionary leaders I have met.
Chris Becksvoort for sparking us to create LAP.
All of our authors and our LAP family: Narayan Nayar, Dr. Timmy Henriksen, Dr. Sean Thomas, Justin Leib, Deneb Puchalski, FJ and Jameel Abraham and Raney Nelson.
Stay tuned. I promise to post every 10 years or so!
Please forward this to any budding author in your life.
It’s the last week of December, so our inbox is filling up with queries – people who want to write a book and would like us to publish it. We don’t accept unsolicited queries (it’s right here on our “About Us” page where it has been for years). But that doesn’t stop the mighty digital flow of “Dear Sir or Madams….”.
On the one hand, I’m happy that woodworkers still want to write and publish books. Heck, the fact that anyone thinks books should exist is encouraging.
But here’s the deal. If you are a first-time author, a query letter is like telling all your friends about your hot Canadian girlfriend from band camp last summer. There’s a huge chance that you are simply full of deluded crap.
I wrote my first novel, “Fish Eye,” in the 1990s. I got to the end, realized it was a piece of garbage and burned it. I would be embarrassed – even as a desiccated corpse – if it ever saw ink. I wrote my second book (on workbenches) starting in 2006. I wrote it, paid people to copy edit it, laid it out in InDesign and had it press-ready before I told anyone it existed.
It was accepted by F+W Media about 15 minutes after I submitted it (and is now published by Penguin/Random House). Book editors are stressed and over-worked. If you have an article, series or book that is both 1) compelling and 2) ready to go, then you are probably going to receive good news.
Note that I am not talking about fiction writing here. That world is one Inscrutable 8-Ball, and I have no good advice for you.
In the world of non-fiction and technical writing, however, queries are worse than garbage. They are promises of garbage. Mere whiffs of garbage.
And so I implore you: Just write your damn book. I mean COMPLETELY write it: photos, captions, bibliography, forward, afterword, colophon (it’s not about colons), table of contents and author bio. You don’t need me or some other publishing imprint to validate you.
Yes, this is a test. Most authors who decide to write a book will never finish it. I know this; you know this. By writing the book, you are ahead of about 90 percent of the potential authors out there who are pitching their next book idea to someone in the next bathroom stall.
And when you are rejected by every publisher?
Publish the book yourself. There are dozens of places that will print your book “on demand,” where you can order one copy or 40 (heck, the Cincinnati Public Library will even do it). We use Lulu for some in-house skunkworks projects. The quality gets better every year (though still nothing like a casebound, Smyth-sewn book). Give away digital versions of the book for free to people on the internet. Try to build an audience for your next book. Do that, and you will have a track record that other publishers might notice.
But if you do all that, then you might not care when publishers come calling. You might have started your own publishing imprint.
Templates are the foundation of my design process. While I occasionally make a full-size mock-up of a new design using cheap wood, it’s my templates that guide the process.
And when I teach a class, I encourage students to trace whatever templates they like onto the huge sheets of butcher paper we keep here. My first chair teacher – Dave Fleming – offered me the same courtesy in 2003, and I still have those templates today (stored in my basement).
Other teachers were not as forthcoming. They either said “no” or insisted on selling the information. Woodworking is a tough business, so I can’t blame them. But I’d rather lose a few dollars and see more people make their own chairs.
If you are just getting started, I encourage you to make a set of templates. If you’d like to experiment with one of my sets (drawn by Josh Cook), download the file below and print it out at your local office supply store. The plans are drawn at full-size – 100 percent.
I like to make my templates using 1/8” hardboard. It is inexpensive, doesn’t warp as much as plywood does and its edges stay crisper than those of MDF. I affix the paper drawings to the hardboard with spray adhesive (available anywhere). Then I cut out the templates on the band saw and refine the shapes with hand tools.
Hardboard is simply wood pulp and linseed oil, so it cuts cleanly and doesn’t wreck your tools’ edges unnecessarily.
I write a lot of information on my finished templates – resultant angles, notes from previous builds and details on angles and joints.
But the most important thing I write on the template is the date that I made it. That helps me figure out if I am moving forward or backward in time with my designs (either direction is OK).
The templates above are from my latest video “Build a Stick Chair,” which is available in our store.
To mark the launch of The Stick Chair Journal(coming in August 2022), we are giving away 400 Stick Chair Merit Badges to readers who have built a stick chair and can follow instructions.
This promotion ends when we run out of the merit badges or on Dec. 31, 2022, whichever comes first. (When the time comes, I’ll announce the end of the promotion on the blog and delete this blog entry.)
Here’s how to get your merit badge – one to a customer. Please read carefully.
Build a stick chair with your own hands. (Not a frame chair, ladderback chair, Windsor/Forest chair, IKEA chair, folding chair etc.) A genuine, vernacular stick chair. (Edit: A stool without a back is not a chair. A backstool, which is essentially a side chair, is indeed a chair. I deem that to be a “chair,” the thing needs a backrest.)
Take a picture and print it out on any paper.
Send a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE) to us with the picture of your stick chair. Here’s how to address the envelope:
Stick Chair Merit Badge Lost Art Press 837 Willard St. Covington, KY 41011
If you have never used an SASE, here how it works. There is an outside envelope addressed to us. A second envelope addressed to you that you put a stamp on. And a photo of your stick chair. Easy!
When we receive your envelope, we will add your photo to a cool collage I’m creating. Then we’ll slide a merit badge into your SASE, seal it and put it in the mailbox at Greer and 9th streets.
This is the *only* way to get a merit badge. You can’t buy one. You cannot twist our arms to accept an emailed photo. International readers are welcome to participate, but they’ll probably have to put a U.S. Global stamp on the SASE.
We are DIY people, right? You can figure this out without asking us to bend the rules, can’t you? Of course you can!
Please don’t send photos of 10 stick chairs and ask for 10 merit badges. They are one per customer. Please don’t ask our customer service people to do you a favor and mail you one. They can’t. Please don’t pester Megan to sneak you one. She won’t.
So put on your big-person britches, build a stick chair and earn your merit badge.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. Sorry if this post sounds condescending – the condescension is for the 1 percent. We have done promotions like this in the past where 99 percent of the participants follow instructions and have fun. The remaining 1 percent chap our hides asking for special treatment because “there are no sticks in my county” or “I have never seen an envelope” or “I’m a very important bossy pants, and you should send me one because of that.”