Lost Art Press

Coming from Lost Art Press: ‘Mouldings in Practice’

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If you look at all the writings on handplanes during the last 300 years, there is too much written on bench planes, just enough on the joinery planes and practically nothing on the moulding planes.

Within the next few months we will be balancing the scales with the publication of Matt Bickford’s “Mouldings in Practice.” Everyone who has helped me edit this new book has been both fundamentally changed and inspired by the text. Matt has taken a somewhat mysterious task – cutting mouldings by hand – and boiled down the process so it is straightforward and repeatable.

Sticking mouldings does not require great skill. It does not require years of training. Instead, Matt reveals the process to be one of accurate layout and cutting rabbets and chamfers. If you can master those simple tasks, you are halfway home.

Matt does this with hundreds of illustrations and step photos that demonstrate how every step of the process works, and what things look like when things go wrong.

The book, which is tentatively titled “Mouldings in Practice,” is divided into two parts. The first half discusses the tools and the principles. Matt shows you how a great variety of mouldings can be stuck with a limited number of hollows and rounds – you do not need a full set or even a half set of planes to get started. And he also discusses the roles of snipes bill and side rounds in sticking moulding.

There also is a section of the book for you to work on – one of the keys to good mouldings is learning to draw them accurately in profile. More on this section of the book later.

The second half of the book – which Matt is working on now – is a workbook of common and gorgeous moulding profiles. This part of the book is designed to go into the shop with you (we are investigating a special binding so the book lays flat on the bench). Each moulding profile is broken down into the basic steps so you can follow along on the bench.

These profiles are taken from actual pieces, and this section of the book will also teach you how to group your mouldings on your furniture pieces in a pleasing way.

Pricing and Availability
We don’t have a firm release date yet for this book – likely December 2011 or January 2012. And because of the special binding, we also don’t have a price. But I can tell you that it will be a large format book and it will be in full color. We hope to offer this book also in electronic formats, including ePub and Kindle.

While you wait for this book to hit the shelves, I highly recommend you visit Matt’s blog, Musings from Big Pink, where he documents some of the work in his shop.

— Christopher Schwarz

So Aren’t You Inconsistent on Tool Chests?

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This week I have been taking a fair amount of flinged poo – both private poo and public poo – about my involvement with Don Williams’s forthcoming book “Virtuoso: The Toolbox of Henry O. Studley.”

The flinged feces goes something like this: As the author of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” which argues for a simple and flexible chest, aren’t you a hypocrite for getting the masses excited about a chest that espouses an opposite viewpoint?

The Studley toolchest is an icon of our craft for several reasons. It is the Farrah Fawcett poster-child for the wall-hanging tool chest set. It is a socially productive application of obsessive behavior. It is, on one level, tool pornography. And it is a touchstone to a different kind of tool chest that was made by patternmakers.

If Studley and I were to sit down and have a beverage, I think we would agree on some things and disagree on others. He and I see eye-to-eye on the fact that you should have a limited set of quality tools – the best you can afford. We agree that all these tools should be in a chest that is easily accessible from the bench. And we would agree that making your own tools – or modifying stock tools – is good practice.

Where we seem to disagree is on the way we achieve these goals. Studley fitted every tool into a single-purpose slot. Studley put every tool in its place. And with great gothic style. I prefer the flexible school – I want my tools to be “free range,” for lack of a better expression.

Perhaps our personality differences could be summed up like this: When growing up, Studley probably preferred that his peas and gravy remained separate. Me, I like a melange of peas, gravy, bread crusts, cranberry jelly and bits of bird flesh in every fork-full.

But despite these small differences, I actually feel a kinship with the man. I’m not a mason. I’m not a piano-maker. I am not as nimble (more on this later). But we both like sharp tools that are made well and feel good in the hand.

And who doesn’t?

— Christopher Schwarz

Fine Art Prints from ‘The Anarchist’s Tool Chest’

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We have a handful of fine art prints that are based on images from “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.”

There are two images made by Narayan Nayar in his studio: One is a collage of 22 images from the book, plus a silhouette of the square on the cover. The other image is a photo illustration that Narayan made using photos of the chest, construction drawings, rough sketches and historical research materials.

The image size of all the prints is approximately 20″ x 30″. We are selling it two ways: Unmounted on some uber-sensuous paper and stretched on canvas.

Here are the details on the unmounted paper print. It is printed on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308, one of the finest giclée papers in existence. This matte paper seems to absorb light and draws you in like nothing else. The detail, depth and tonality of images printed on it and its velvety texture make it the gold standard in the fine art print industry.

These sheets are 24″ wide by 36″ tall and can be framed like a poster. The HPR prints are $80 plus $12 for shipping and packaging – these prints come in a protective bag and are rolled in a tube.

You can order these HPR 308 prints here.

The canvas gallery wrap is first printed on a coated cloth canvas, dried, given a protective coating then stretched by hand onto a wooden frame about 1-1/4″ deep. Images made on canvas have a unique character derived from the surface irregularity of the canvas and the dimensionality of the wrap.

The coating applied to the canvas after the print is made has a slight sheen to it and protects from UV degradation. The wraps can be hung as-is or inset in a frame, offering a very different look on a wall than a traditional framed paper print. These canvas prints measure approximately 20″ x 30″ and have a black border. They’ll come in a protective sleeve but are a bit unwieldy because they’re mounted on rigid stretcher bars. They cost $120 plus $14 for packaging and shipping.

You can order these canvas prints here.

Once these are gone (we have only about 10 of each kind), we probably will offer these prints through some third-party vendor. This batch of prints is made by hand, one at a time.

— Christopher Schwarz

Shopping Notes: New Shirts, New Edition

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As promised, here are a couple updates to the products in our store. As of now, all of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” books shipped from Lost Art Press are the second printing. We have no more first editions left. If you are a mule for first editions, I recommend you check out some of our suppliers.

Also, we now have red “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” T-shirts in our store. These are American-made shirts and are available in sizes small up to XXL. They are $20 each — get them now before we run out. Once these are gone, they are gone.

More news to come on the ePub edition of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.”

— Christopher Schwarz

H.O. Studley, Empty and Awesome

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While examining Henry O. Studley’s toolbox, the most impressive moment was when all the tools had been removed and set aside. At that moment, I understood Studley as a joiner, not just a somewhat obsessive tool collector.

The box alone is a remarkable piece of work. Studley’s attention to detail extended to every surface that could be seen or touched. Don Williams – the author of the forthcoming book “Virtuoso” – and I spent a long morning measuring the major components of the chest. And as my hands passed over the woodwork, I felt I finally knew the man.

The visible screws were clocked; the others were not. Layout lines from his gauge and knife were clearly visible on many joints. His dovetails had a dramatic sweep – easily 14°. The inside components of the box were neatly dovetailed at key points.

But most of all, his design – his vision – was consistent. As I was calling out the details of the toolbox’s construction I began to understand Studley’s work patterns. Here are some preliminary insights I have cobbled together.

• The man loved coves. Many of his shopmade tools have tiny small coves at key transition points. All his gauges, for example, have small 1/16” x 1/16” coves on the ends of their beams. His mallet had this same cove in brass on the head. And on and on.

• He liked square ovolos. Many of the transitions on the chest are marked by square ovolos – a curve with two small fillets. This is the transition he would use between major elements of the toolbox.

• Small coves and fillets filled in the gaps. In many areas, Studley used ebony coves with small fillets to fill in the inside corners of his design.

• Surprisingly few ogees. The chest has a fair number of ogee shapes, but many of these are hidden to the casual eye. The cubbyholes for the planes had lots of ogees, but you can’t see these until every tool is removed.

• Gothic, gothic, gothic. Many of the curves and shapes have a gothic flavor. That’s pretty unusual in wood (it’s much more typical in stone). All his chamfers on his gothic arches are perfection. Absolute perfection.

• No plane tracks anywhere. I looked for them.

You can see a slideshow of the details of the toolbox without tools here on Flickr.

After poring over the toolbox with a tape measure and calipers, I am firmly convinced that Studley was not just notable for his collection of tools. He was a craftsman worth remembering, documenting and celebrating – which is exactly what we are doing with “Virtuoso: The Toolbox of Henry O. Studley.”

— Christopher Schwarz