Lost Art Press

On the Matter of a Hand-tool Magazine

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I’ve received this question about 20 times since June 15 – including from my wife – so I suppose I should deal with it head-on instead of simply demurring.

Is Lost Art Press going to start a hand-tool magazine, whether printed or digital?

The answer? Not right now, at least.

The primary reason I left Popular Woodworking Magazine was because I had so many projects piling up here at Lost Art Press that I estimated it would take me five years of working nights and weekends to tackle them. And that’s just too long a gestation period for books that I consider to be essential to the growth of handwork in the 21st century.

I’m not just talking about the Roubo translation. That itself is a mountain of a publishing project, but that’s only one mountain in an entire range of monumental peaks.

Why have I been quiet on these? Because we are still inking contracts. But you can expect that we will have at least three new products before the end of the year – a DVD I’ll announce next week and two or three books that are unlike anything in print today.

The DVD is from me (sorry!) and is part of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.” The other titles are from other authors, people who should have written books long ago.

As we get these projects underway, you’ll hear more about them here. Promise.

Now about that hand-tool magazine: I’ve been in media – and media alone – since 8th grade. I’ve worked in almost every department except advertising, which I would stink at, and circulation, which is a tricky business.

I’ve launched two start-ups in my career – The Kentucky Gazette newspaper and Woodworking Magazine. Both of which are now shuttered. Those failures taught me a lot about what it takes to make a magazine that makes money and makes me want to read it.

1. All your waking hours.
2. A lot of money. And a willingness to lose money for a few years as you pull the magazine onto its feet.
3. A willingness to deal with unethical distribution schemes.
4. A willingness to throw away about 60 to 70 percent of your newsstand copies that don’t sell.
5. A certain level of optimism mixed with stupidity — I call it stupidimism. This trait helps overcome Nos. 2-4.

At this point in my life, I want to spend all my hours producing a hand-tool canon of high-quality books — a foundation that I or others can build upon. I want to get us beyond sharpening, basic plane use and hand joinery.

What’s beyond that? An entire world.

So I guess I’m asking for some patience. After I get this corpus of work complete and the technology catches up with my ideas, I think I’ll be ready to dive into the world of periodicals again. Or there’s always that llama farm.

— Christopher Schwarz

Turning Out the Junk

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“But whenever we clutter up our houses with things we could quite well do without, buying them only because they please a passing fancy, or because our neighbours have them, or because they have become customary, then junk they are.

“For although the industrial world has by this time acquired some rudimentary ideas as to the fittingness of things, its output is continually increasing and its sales propaganda is increasingly directed towards representing non-essentials as necessary to our comfort and well-being.

“And these things can destroy beauty in its very essence by destroying the simplicity of our surroundings.”

— Charles Hayward, The Woodworker, January 1939

A Review from ‘The Unplugged Shop’

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I have never solicited reviews of my work, which is why you’ll never see a blurb on a Lost Art Press Book that reads, “It’s better than ‘Cats!’ I’ll read it again and again.” — Abraham Lincoln.

In this business we have an extremely crude but accurate expression for this sort of marketing tactic – ask me about it over a beer some day. The more polite term is “logrolling.”

Because we don’t roll logs, reviews of our books are more idiosyncratic – they are from readers who bought the book or traded us some cheese for it. But you can bet that the reviews are genuine.

This week, Luke Townsley at the Unplugged Shop wrote a nice review on his site. A brief excerpt:

“Until now, I have been unable to find a discussion on building traditional tool chests that was sufficiently detailed so one could actually adapt it for personal use. Chris Schwarz’ book does just that. And that is really, really important.”

You can read the full review here. The book “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” is available in our store, as is the T-shirt that goes with the book. It sports the same square debossed on the book’s cover. My wife, Lucy, actually asked to have one of these shirts – a first!

— Christopher Schwarz

Errata and Clarifications for ‘The Anarchist’s Tool Chest’

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I’m finishing up the corrections today to “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” for the second printing. There are four significant factual errors we’ve corrected, listed below, and three clarifications to the text that might help you through some muddled language on my part.

We also cleaned up about 50 typographical errors. While that’s not terrible for a 120,000-word manuscript, we always strive for zero. Thanks to everyone who helped clean up the text.

Here are the four errors:
Page 122: I discuss how a panel gauge will make a line “perpendicular” to your true edge. It should be “parallel.” (Thanks to Gil Chesbro.)

Page 248: I recommend a 4- or 4.5-point panel saw filed rip. Those don’t really exist. I meant a 7-point panel filed rip. (Thanks to Carl Bilderback.)

Page 270 I discuss a “manmade soft-Arkansas oilstone” that I used to own. It should read “manmade coarse India stone.” (Thanks to Stephen Shepherd.)

Page 430: The drawing shows the dust seal on four sides of the lid; it goes around only three sides. The corrected illustration can be downloaded below. (Thanks to Bob Miller.)

ATC430

Here are the clarifications:
Page 440: The illustrations of the sawtill show some kerfs as not running all the way through. Yet I clearly ran the kerfs for the sawblades all the way through. You can do it either way. Both are traditional and correct.

Page 446: I describe the bottom till as a little “smaller” than the other tills. This is confusing. It is a little smaller in length but it is a little larger in depth.

Page 404: The illustration shows two battens but I show three in the step photos. Either way is fine. Many of the traditional chests have two. Some have three. I tried three, but I drew two.

— Christopher Schwarz

The Only Review That Matters

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When you write a book, people criticize you.

I’m OK with that. After 21 years in the writing business I can take a sledgehammer blow to my bathing suit area every so often.

But today was a good day.

Why? Carl Bilderback gave me a call to discuss “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.” If you have followed my blog for the last seven years, then you know that Carl and I go back even further than this blog. In fact, he first called me when I was a young cub at Popular Woodworking to set me straight on some issues of Norris handplane adjusters vs. Bailey adjusters.

And I have never forgotten his lesson.

For those of you who don’t know him, Carl is an extraordinary man. He’s a semi-retired carpenter with immense hand and machine skills. He has an impressive tool collection of planes and saws. He’s an officer of the Mid-West Tool Collectors Assn. He has the voice of an angel. And he is deeply – deeply – passionate about the craft.

But most of all, Carl is equal parts generous and honest. On the generous part: Though he is a tool collector, he probably has given away more tools than he has collected. If you like frame saws, he will send you some frame saws. Etc. etc.

On the honest part: When I’ve messed up in print or on the blog, Carl is always the first to tell me. He is blunt and to the point. The world needs about 300 million more people like him, with his enormous body of knowledge, his even more enormous heart and his willingness to share everything.

So Carl called today. And he had finished reading “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.” He’s an accomplished editor (ask Megan) and had noted every typo, grammar and factual error in the 480 pages. After he detailed all those errors (which we are cleaning up for the second printing) I felt small and stupid.

But then he said something that I will carry to my grave.

“It is the best thing you have ever written,” he said. “There are things in there that I would want to try if I were 10 years younger.”

I almost burst into tears. After that conversation, I don’t care if The New York Times reviews this book. If Carl says it’s OK, then dammit (sorry for the language!), it’s not a piece of crap.

– Christopher Schwarz