Lost Art Press

Curse You, Ed Lebetkin!

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Whenever I teach at Roy Underhill’s The Woodwright’s School, I always spend a few hours at Ed Lebetkin’s tool store upstairs. (It’s even more tempting now because there is also a store selling wine and craft beer at the top of the stairs. Get drunk! Buy tools!)

Anyway, most of the time I’m in the store I’m helping students pick what they need from the thousands of tools Ed has in stock.

And without fail, I always buy something myself. Usually it’s just a piece to study and resell, such as an all-iron marking gauge I bought last time.

But this time, I picked up something for keeps for my tool chest – a set of four clamps that look blacksmith-made. These will replace the small, ugly and modern little clamps I’ve had for many years. We used these little antique guys all last week in the class while knocking stock down for the tool chest we were building. They are sweet.

Perhaps my kids will get F-style clamps in their stockings this Christmas….

— Christopher Schwarz

Horton Hardware for the Schoolbox

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At long last I’ve found my favorite pieces of hardware for the Schoolbox in “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker.” It only took me about 10 tries.

The hardware shown in the photos is from Horton Brasses. (Yes, I paid full retail. As always.) It consists of some heart-shaped iron chest lifts (CL-5S) and a pair of iron butt hinges (HF-30).

Both pieces of hardware are worth the price. The hinges have thin leaves and give you a tight seal at the back without any swaging. And they have nice facets on the barrels and some file work on the edges of the leaves.

The lifts have a lot of the same details.

I added both to a walnut version of the Schoobox I built earlier this month at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking while teaching a class on traditional joinery. This week, I hope to finish up the project.

Perhaps with a polissoir.

— Christopher Schwarz

Will Myers’ Moravian Workbench

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While I have a Benchcrafted end vise on my workbench, I still have a soft spot in my heart for homebrew wagon vises.

I started with a lame homemade wagon vise I made from a veneer press screw. Then I made a better one using a tail vise screw on my Nicholson workbench. Then I “perfected” that one by reworking it a bit – a story I still need to write up for the blog some day.

But last week I saw Will Myers’ homemade wagon vise. His is better.

He put the wagon vise on a near copy of a portable Moravian workbench in the collection at Old Salem in Winston-Salem, N.C. I wrote about this bench here. The original Moravian bench didn’t have a tail vise, so Myers concocted his own using a left-hand-thread Acme rod, some nuts, pipe and other assorted bits he welded together. It’s remarkably simple and works remarkably well.

He brought his bench by The Woodwright’s School last Thursday for the students to examine and use for the afternoon while he settled up some business with Ed Lebetkin in the tool store upstairs.

The bench itself is fantastic, built using common or reclaimed materials, yet with a furniture-maker’s eye and hand. The wood selection and joinery were superb.

I’m not going to yammer much about the bench because Will has done this for me by publishing an extensive article on its construction – including the making of the wagon vise – at WKFineTools.com. Check out the entire article here.

— Christopher Schwarz

White Star Line Tool Chest

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For many years, Roy Underhill has owned a slant-top tool chest that has a ridiculous story attached to it that involves 248 children, Greenland and, oh never mind. I should make him tell the tale.

The chest is interesting to me because it’s similar to a chest drawn in “Grandpa’s Workshop” and one I’ve seen a few times in the wild. However, I can’t recall any old books that talk about this form, and I’m away from my library this week.

I would really like to build the chest from “Grandpa’s Workshop” to see what it’s like to work out of it. But until I dig up some good historical examples to work from, we’ll just have to admire some of these details from this chest from Roy’s collection.

I call it the “White Star Line” chest because it has a label on the left end identifying it as belonging to a second-class passenger. The chest is overbuilt in almost every way. The stock used throughout the main carcase is a full 1” thick – the interior parts and base moulding are thinner.

The front and back are dovetailed to the ends with boldly sloped tails, while the thick lid is held flat with breadboard ends.

And the hardware is impressive. The strap hinges are bolted through the top and slant lid. The hasp is a massive twist of iron.

Inside the chest there is one sliding till, dovetailed at the corners, and the bottom 9” of the chest is divided into two compartments. The rear compartment is 7” from the back wall of the chest. And there is a sawtill on the lid that looks sized for a single panel saw.

Some dimensions:
Overall height: 17-1/4”
Width: 44-1/8”
Depth: 19-1/4”

If you know of chests that look like this but are a little taller (like the one shown in the illustration), I’d appreciate any details at chris@lostartpress.com. Update: One reader sent me a photo of a very similar Dutch chest from “The Toolbox Book.” So that was very helpful.

— Christopher Schwarz

2 Reviews of ‘Mouldings in Practice’

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We do not solicit reviews of our books. We do not send out free “review” copies in hopes of snagging a kind word, which is standard practice at most publishing companies.

So when people review a Lost Art Press book – for better or Lumberjockey – it’s because they bought the book with their own money. I completely respect those reviews. I read them. I take their ideas seriously.

This morning, two reviews of “Mouldings in Practice” by Matt Bickford came over the wire on my RSS feed. One is from George Walker, a columnist for Popular Woodworking Magazine and the author of a forthcoming book with Lost Art Press. You can discount his opinion if you like, but I wouldn’t. George is one of the more thoughtful woodworking writers working today.

Here’s the link to his entry.

The second review is from Brian Eve, an American woodworker in Munich, Germany. Brian has taken a couple classes with me, but I wouldn’t call him a fanboy. He’s always busting my chops about something I’ve done and is more passionate about the craft than most American woodworkers – the dude works out of a tiny storage closet.

In any case, here is Brian’s review.

Sales of this book have been quite strong, which is surprising. “Mouldings in Practice” covers a niche inside a niche, but it’s about a part of the craft that hasn’t been fully explored, such as dovetails, ultimate router tables or things built in a weekend.

— Christopher Schwarz