Though we’ve dialed back the number of classes we’re offering at the storefront, we do have a few scheduled for the first half of next year (mostly because Chris is kind to me and – despite the havoc a class wreaks on his shop and life in general – knows I a) love teaching and b) need to feed my cat). We might be adding no more than two classes in the upcoming weeks…but I didn’t want to hold off any longer on announcing these.
The classes will go on sale on Monday, Nov. 29 at 10 a.m. Eastern, through our Ticket Tailor portal. Even though there’s a big “Register Now” button alongside each class at that link, you cannot register until 10 a.m. on Nov. 29. But you can read more about each class, see the estimated stock price, etc., if you click through.
Notes: 1) You must have had the Covid vaccine to attend a class at our shop 2) Please email covingtonmechanicals@gmail.com – not the LAP help desk – if you have questions about classes.
• Build the Anarchist’s Tool Chest with Megan Fitzpatrick; February 21-25, 2022 ($975 + stock fee) • Make a Carved Oak Box with Peter Follansbee; March 28-April 1 ($1,400 + stock fee) • Build a Dutch Tool Chest with Megan Fitzpatrick; May 6-8 ($425 + stock fee) • Make a Dovetailed Shaker Tray with Megan Fitzpatrick; June 4-5 ($320 + stock fee)
For the last five weeks we have been shooting and editing a long-form video on how to build a stick chair using simple tools (plus a few – mostly inexpensive – specialty tools that make the job easier, which are covered in the video) with wood from the lumberyard.
The video clocks in at more than four hours long with 18 separate chapters that cover all aspects of construction, from selecting the lumber to applying the finish. The video will be available to stream or download (without any digital rights management). Above is the trailer, which says “Available Now” at the end; you’re getting a sneak peak – it’ll be available on Aug. 15.
Purchasers will also receive a digital file with full-size patterns for the chair shown in the video, which can be printed out at any reprographics firm or office supply store. Plus, notes on the sizes of the chair parts and sources for tools used in the video.
The video will be released on Monday, Aug. 15. For the first two weeks, we will sell it at an introductory price of $50. After that introductory offer, the video (and its downloads) will be $75.
This is our first in-house video for Lost Art Press. For previous videos we hired professional videographers, video editors and sound technicians. While that process produced a slick-looking product, the filming process was difficult and exhausting. Hiring a professional crew is expensive, and so there was always a rush to get the thing shot because of the hourly bill.
Thanks to new technology and a lot of practice on our part during the last two years, we now are confident we can produce high-quality video (and sound) without hiring a crew. As a result, this video was shot in painstaking detail and took five weeks. (It usually takes me two-and-a-half days to build a chair, so this was a sloth-like process.)
We were also able to incorporate graphics and details that had to be glossed over with a professional crew.
This, however, is not cinematic art. (Your spouse will likely sleep through parts.)
I consider the “Build a Stick Chair” video as a companion to “The Stick Chair Book.” But not a substitute. The book took about 56 weeks of work and goes into details that are impossible for a talking head to explain on your television. But the video shows bodily motion in a way that print never can. Some things about chairmaking are so simple if you can just see the process unfold before your eyes.
I’m not saying you should get both the book and the video. Instead, start with the one that appeals to you most. If you are a visual learner, the video is probably the correct choice. If you are first a reader, the book is what I would recommend.
Above is a short trailer I put together that shows some of the processes that are explored in the video. There is a cat in at least one shot.
Thanks to Harper Claire Haynes (our summer intern) who did the bulk of the shooting and editing. And Megan Fitzpatrick, who filled in every day and helped immensely with getting the video into its final semi-polished form.
Last word: Don’t expect a flood of long-form videos from us. Our first love is books. But when we can do a video (and it we think it will help people) we now have the technology and skill to do it.
It’s a long drive to Kentucky from most places. So we decided to make some short video tours of our storefront so you can see how we have our workshop set up, take a look at our library and even meet Bean the Three-legged Shop Cat™.
Our first tour is of the bench room, which is where I spend most of my good days. This room is also where most of the interesting events happened during this building’s history as a bar. The drag shows of the 1990s. The female bartender who was shot after she roused a patron asleep at the bar. And the place where the owners used to sell stolen TVs.
These days things are a little more boring in the front room, and the neighbors couldn’t be happier.
Stay tuned for tours of the library, the Klaus Skrudland Memorial Bathroom, our New Kitchen, the Biergarten and the Electric Horse Garage (aka the machine room).
Below my signature are some photos of what the bench room looked like when we bought the place. For your own protection, please wash your hands after viewing these photos.
The following is excerpted from “Backwoods Chairmakers,” by Andrew D. Glenn. Part travelogue, part profile and part how-to, “Backwoods Chairmakers” explores the tradition of the enduring Appalachian ladderback form. Glenn takes you inside the shops of more than 20 makers, with photos and personal interviews about their lives and techniques.
Then, Glenn shows you how to make a post-and-rung side chair and rocking chair using the traditional techniques explored in the book.
“I think it was a lack of choice when I was young. This was successful enough, you just keep doing it, but you’re always looking for something better. One day you just realize, ‘I don’t want nothing better.’ That usually comes later in your life.” — Randy Ogle
I had mixed emotions while pulling away from Terry Ratliff’s place for the last time. The day had been filled with laughter and insight, as with each time I traveled out his way. Yet in returning his photo album, I’d removed the necessity for another visit. During this project, the path between our places had grown familiar. I’d gotten better at traversing Terry’s drive, and at this point I knew he’d be able to fix the Element even if I ran into trouble. And I was always interested in the chairs. Terry’s were some of my favorites.
As my travels came to an end, it was natural to weigh the state of affairs. I set out with a simple question in mind: Does the backwoods chairmaker still exist? I found a good deal more makers than I expected.
I was welcomed into the shop by experienced makers, many in the twilight of their chairmaking years. Most had more making behind them than in the future. Each of them, in one way or another, did their part to encourage the next generation.
Will that next generation take hold? That seems to be the question. Yet it’s too soon to say. The chairmakers have done their part. They’ve planted seeds. It’s now the germination and waiting stage of the process. We all must wait to see what comes next. There is potential for a full yield of chairmakers.
I initially felt daunted by the results. Sure there are a few makers still at it, but the field of Appalachian chairmaking is smaller than in the past.
Along this journey I’d come to a false conclusion about how makers came into the field. I bundled folks into two groups: 1) generational or a family line of makers and 2) new makers joining the field. It seemed right. Terry was new, as was Brian Boggs and Lyle Wheeler. Randy Ogle, Mark Newberry and Cecil Patrick passed along a generational line. But this framework is wrong.
This dichotomy and labeling, which I tried to tamp down, led me astray. For each maker chose this life. They weighed it and decided upon it. First generation or fifth, each made a choice.
Then I thought of conversations with Terry and his desire to make something with his hands. His desire to step outside the machinery of the industrial economy. And with more thought, I came to share in Terry’s optimism in the future of Appalachian chairmaking. He said:
You get isolated. People talk about the Covid being in isolation, well I’ve been in isolation before that. Working for myself, working here in the home studio and staying home. It was great to go to shows to be around sort of peers, people who live similar lifestyles or totally different ones, but they’ve chosen an art form that they want to pursue. The most changes in the last year was that all being taken away. Forty years ago to go to a craft show and see a shaving horse was kind of a novel thing. To see a craft show going on and find a shaving horse where somebody was splitting out wood and riving wood and working greenwood and I think there’s a little bit more of that now. It’s still not taking over the whole economy or anything, it’s just a few people, a very few people that are into it. Of those, I don’t know how many are hand tools or old-time technology and how many of them are using lathes and mic-ing things down to the thousandths. But it seems like there are. In a survey, in looking around, and getting what we have now, the media, the electronic media, you can find people, can find folks doing shaving horse work. And before the Covid you could go to shows, there would be folks there doing greenwood joinery, greenwood techniques with shaving horses, drawknives and hand tools. More so than when I first started in ’79-’80, along in there.
It’s not in my stock-in-trade anymore, and even before the pandemic I had cut down the number of shows I participated in. Pretty selective on what I put my energy I put into. So, I’m not out there mixing it up so much in the community. But when I look on Etsy, I see some work that people are doing, putting out there and marketing. Using a lot of hand tools, greenwood, a lot of hand work, spokeshave work.
Societal shifts brought about the rise and fall of Appalachian chairmakers. Local communities needed chairs, and the local chairmaker filled that need. When communities purchased manufactured goods made afar, the chairmakers began to dwindle in number.
Communities no longer need chairmakers. Chairs are available with the push of a button, delivered to your doorstep. Factories make elaborate chairs, using the help of computer design and computer-assisted machinery, with less effort than an individual chairmaker requires.
Chairmaking swims against that tide. The attributes of chairmaking, the inspired creativity, the craftperson’s life, the physical work, being close to the material, residing within a place and a tradition, the opportunity for artistic expression, the ability to start making with low overhead and a few tools, the opportunity to work from home, and the possibilities of working alongside family (to name but a few) are all relevant and enticing. In this way chairmaking is not anachronistic but the pursuit of something different. It is a considered and deliberate way of life. A life lived intentionally.
I’m optimistic that others will choose this path as well, with more beautiful chairs added to the tradition. Appalachian chairmaking remains, with its hand extended toward anyone interested.
Anyone who’s taken a class with me in the last five years knows how I feel about .5mm mechanical pencils. When students’ dovetails are too loose or too tight, my first question is, “What pencil did you use to darken your knifeline?” If a dado is too loose (or too tight), my first question is, “What pencil did you use to mark the cutline?”
I find a .5mm mechanical pencil has the ideal lead diameter. The line it marks on a flat surface is exactly thin enough that you don’t have to decide where across its width to cut; you just cut the line. And if you drop a .5mm lead line into a knifed line, the lead catches on both sides of the line, leaving an unmarked trench between (which is where I instruct students to saw when cutting their pins).
I don’t really have a favorite .5mm pencil in terms of the results, but because I tend to lose them a lot (especially while teaching, because I loan them out constantly), I buy inexpensive ones – whatever is available for less than $20 in a multi-pack at any office supply store, large grocery or drugstore.
And if you ever take a class with me, you’ll see a .5mm on the tool list. I mean it (few students seem to believe me!).