Lost Art Press

Kindle Version of ‘The Anarchist’s Tool Chest’

Posted on by Lost Art Press

“The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” is now available in a completely DRM-free format for Kindle for $16.

This is exactly the same book – same words, photos and drawings – we have been offering since June 2011. But with the ePub version you will be able to search the entire book, write electronic notes in the margins, change the font size and (of course) carry it with you anywhere on any Kindle or Kindle app.

This Kindle version of the book is served by Lost Art Press – not Amazon – so you will be able to easily backup the file and freely move it among your electronic devices.

Unlike many electronic book files, we chose to make ours without DRM – the acronym for “digital rights management.” Many Kindle files with DRM are a pain to use. You might be restricted from copying the file for backup, or even simply copying and pasting passages from the book.

Frankly, DRM doesn’t jibe well with the philosophy of the book, the author or Lost Art Press.

Because you will download the Kindle version from us and not Amazon, you have to move it onto your Kindle manually. This is an easy process (even easier than adding a book to the iPad). Amazon offers this tutorial:

Transfer Files to your Kindle via USB

To purchase this electronic book, simply add it to your shopping cart. After you check out you will immediately be given the link to download it. If you are an international customer, the process is different. Send $16 U.S. to john@lostartpress.com via PayPal and we will send you the link manually.

Click here to visit our store and order the Kindle version.

— Christopher Schwarz

A Never-ending Debt to John Brown

Posted on by Lost Art Press
Photos courtesy of Rodolfo Lassparri

“The customer is always wrong,” Felix Klipstein in the John Brown column #129, December 2002

I never got to meet John Brown, the Welsh chairmaker, artist, writer and author of “The Anarchist Woodworker” column in Good Woodworking magazine. But he is with me in the shop every day.

I saw one of his Welsh stick chairs in Good Woodworking in the 1990s, and it changed me in an instant. I knew that the chairs he’d dug up from the rustic countryside and dragged into the modern shop were exactly the type of chair I wanted to build.

Yes, I like Windsor and ladderback chairs. But Welsh stick chairs, which look more primitive and animal-like, are far more interesting to build.

I wanted to take a class with Brown, but I missed out on his short visits to the United States. And going to the United Kingdom in the 1990s to learn to build chairs was just a crazy idea with my salary and my young family.

So I sought out closer chairmakers to learn about Welsh chairs, which took me to Cobden, Ontario, and Paint Lick, Ky. Yet it has always been Brown’s chairs that I have been studying and striving for.

This fall I finished two chairs that are influenced by chairmaker Don Weber (I love the rake and splay of his legs), by Brown (the four-spindle back is classic Brown), and a little Schwarz. I lightened the arm bow, altered the seat plan and designed the crest rail from scratch.

When I sat down these chairs for the first time, I wanted to smoke a cigarette – and I don’t smoke. But Brown did (check out his book “Welsh Stick Chairs” for some great photos of this). So I might be getting close.

Thanks John Brown, wherever you are.

— Christopher Schwarz

If it’s Too Expensive, Click Here

Posted on by Lost Art Press

OK, we know that “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” is an expensive book when compared to literature by Rachel Ray, Stephen King and L. Ron Hubbard. But it is quite expensive to manufacture a book in the United States compared to China – about four times as much.

Plus, I need to keep my kids eating the panda-flavored ramen they love so well.

So some people can’t afford the hardback version of the book. That’s OK. We have an ePub version for $16 – but you have to have an expensive reader to enjoy that version.

If you can’t afford either, then it’s time to head over to James Maichel’s new blog, the “Woodworking Scroll.”

To kick off his blog, he’s written an entry about “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” and is giving away a copy of the book to one of the people who comments on the post.

And because we have a few returned copies of the book sitting in my basement, we are willing – thrilled! – to say we will match his offer. So two people will get copies of the book.

Also, for your information, James sent me a series of questions and asked if I would answer them, from the prospect of me opening a woodworking school to what sort of pizza I like. Those answers are here.

In any case, check out James’s blog here and enter to receive a copy of the book.

— Christopher Schwarz

The Candy-Bottom Wuss Girl Guide to Drawboring

Posted on by Lost Art Press

I admit it: I can be a total weenie when it comes to drawboring. Unlike Peter Follansbee I am overly fearful, cautious and timid.

When Peter drawbores a joint, he uses no glue. He uses no clamps. He uses hand-tapered oak pegs. And he details it all in his forthcoming book with Jennie Alexander, “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree.”

Today I was assembling an early 18th-century-style table that has a lot of features that are similar to a 17th-century joint stool.

But this table (like the original) is in cypress. Not oak.

And I, unlike Peter, am a wuss.

The video shows how I go about the process with the crutches of glue and clamps.

— Chrissy Schwarz

P.S. The music to this video can be downloaded from the Free Music Archive.