Lost Art Press

Roubo Holdfasts in the Works

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While visiting North Carolina this week, I visited the shop of blacksmith Peter Ross and saw a few of his dang-amazing full-size Andre Roubo-style holdfasts in the works.

I’ve been using this holdfast every day on my bench at home. It is an incredible piece of iron and a great asset when sawing, mortising or planing on my bench. And, best of all, it makes other holdfasts look like pipe cleaners.

Peter says he’s built about a dozen of these holdfasts since he made mine. And though they take a lot of physical effort to produce, the biggest challenge is in finding the material that is suited for a holdfast of this size.

These holdfasts are more expensive than smaller ones – about $385. But the craftsmanship is outstanding, and they function brilliantly. If you cannot swing the price of a full-on Roubo holdfast, I highly recommend the Joseph Moxon-style ones that Peter makes, which hold better in thick benches than any holdfast I’ve ever used, and they have a low profile. Those are more like $80 each. Read my discussion of them here.

You can reach Peter by phone or by e-mail through his web site: peterrossblacksmith.com/.

— Christopher Schwarz

Smythe disclaimer: You’re still reading these? OK, I paid full price. And shipping.

Roy Underhill Reading ‘The Joiner & Cabinet Maker’

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Lost Art Press is pleased to announce that Roy Underhill will be the voice reading our audiobook presentation of “The Joiner & Cabinet Maker,” which will be released later this summer.

Roy and I have spent the day recording the first part of the original 1839 text, and we will work on the remainder of the book this week. The audiobook will be available for download from LostArtPress.com or as a CD set available from us and our retailers.

The tentative price for the book will be $16 for the download and $20 (plus shipping) for the CD.

We’ve been recording the audiobook at Roy’s cottage in Graham, N.C., where we have taken over his office and covered all the walls with quilts and blankets from his house (apologies to Jane, Roy’s wife). Roy is doing somewhat of a dramatic reading of the text, using different voices for the different characters in telling the tale of young Thomas and his journey of apprenticeship in a rural English joiner’s shop.

The only hitch in the recording so far has been controlling some of the hard “P” sounds with the microphone. We fixed that using a wire hanger and a piece of Megan Fitzpatrick’s pantyhose that she donated for the recording.

You can download a short (and somewhat rough) clip from our recording session for free by clicking below.

JandC_sample

— Christopher Schwarz

Christmas in India

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“Here I must breakfast, tiffin, tea, dine, and sup. Here I must taste – oh! joy of little birds – boiled quails inoculated with green chillies. Here I must know what curry means. From here I must ride, drive, play golf – do what I like. Here, undisturbed, I can write, read, dream, and dose; and here for my special use is set apart that one secret of all Indian luxury and calm, the Indian chair.

“…Here is the easy chair, with a box of cigars by our side, a peg within call, and intellectual men of the world with whom to converse. We from home have doubtless much to say, but we have also much more to learn.”

— Clement Scott, “Pictures of the World” (Remington 1894)

Tool for the Outhouse Trade

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A trip to North Carolina would not be complete without visiting Roy Underhill at the Woodwright’s School and the black hole of my disposable income, also known as Ed Lebetkin’s tool store.

I came to drop off some Lost Art Press Books to for Ed to sell in his store, but I walked out of there owing him money. It happens every time.

The highlight of the visit was the corncob curved drawknife/scorp-like tool that Ed picked up at auction recently. I shudder to think of what dirty job it was relegated to.

I picked up a box of hardware – old brasses and iron chest handles. Plus a complete box of Jennings augers, an old center-finding tool and a homemade layout triangle that was too cool to pass up – I’m a sucker for shopmade layout tools.

Ed’s store is completely full of stuff at the moment, as you can see in the photos. And if you need a corncob scorp (or any other hand tool), drop him a line at edlebetkin@gmail.com.

When I wasn’t giving Ed all my money, I was taking pictures of carver Mary May for an upcoming feature I’m writing on her for Popular Woodworking Magazine.

— Christopher Schwarz

Southern-fried Furniture of Necessity

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I spent today at the research center of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) on a scouting trip for my upcoming book “The Furniture of Necessity.” MESDA’s research center in Winston Salem, N.C., is an irresistible magnet for this book because of the museum’s “object database.”

This database has 20,000 objects of furniture, metalwork, textiles etc. in it. And you can browse through it to your heart’s content – the research center is free and open to the public (true Southern hospitality).

I pored over the furniture archives today until the research center closed, and I scanned more than 150 photos and datasheets about pieces of furniture that were produced for the middle-class (whatever that is) – or people with austere tastes.

I got some amazing stuff, including some Moravian chairs that are shockingly contemporary. Plus some great stretcher tables, six-board chests, drop-leaf tables and chests of drawers. I’m afraid I can’t show you my scans because they are protected by copyright, but I will attempt to divert your scorn by writing about something else – Jerome Bias!

I got to have lunch with Jerome, a furniture maker and interpreter at Old Salem. Jerome wrote the great story in Popular Woodworking Magazine about Thomas Day and was the guy who introduced me to the research center at MESDA.

When I visited Jerome’s shop at Old Salem he was cleaning out the bottom of an oilstone box he was building using an old woman’s tooth router plane. We had lunch at the local shop of Martin O’Brien, a cabinetmaker, finisher and stone carver.

The barbeque was terrific, of course, but the conversation was even better. Martin does a lot of work on MESDA pieces and had some great insights into traditional finishing that made me stop chewing my food.

So that’s what I did on my summer vacation. And now I have earned a can of Fat Tire.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. I did change the title of this blog. Some readers pointed out that using “chicken” in the headline could be misconstrued. Not my intent. Ever. So I just changed it. This is not worth of comment please.