Lost Art Press

‘Question Time’ at Lost Art Press

Posted on by Lost Art Press

For the first time ever, we have the ability to live stream stuff from our shop in Covington, Ky. It’s still pretty low-tech (it will be through a laptop camera) but it’s a start.

To break in the new technology, we will hold a live “Question Time” session at 11 a.m. (Eastern) on Jan. 30. Megan Fitzpatrick and I will answer as many questions as possible about woodworking, publishing and possum menstrual cycles as we can handle in one hour.

You will be able to tune in live, or watch the recording later. Here’s how to participate:

  1. Send your questions *beforehand* to Megan at fitz@lostartpress.com. The earlier the better. Please make the subject line of your email “livestream question” to ensure it’s not a question about where your darn book is. Like I said, we are happy to answer any sort of question about woodworking, woodland animals or our books. Please send your question as early as possible so we have time to make up a response that involves an Estonian limerick.
  2. Tune in at 11 a.m. Saturday (Eastern). Use this link to watch it live. We’ll also put up an embedded window on the blog Saturday morning to make it easy for you. If you cannot watch live, we will post the recording sometime Saturday afternoon on the blog.

Please remember: We are not professional actors. The talk will likely be PG13 (partial nudity, strong language, adult situations). So take that into account if you are working at a day care facility.

Most of all, please send questions beforehand so we don’t have to make some up.

— Christopher Schwarz

New Crucible Dividers, First Look

Posted on by Lost Art Press

We’ve wanted to bring the Crucible dividers back into production and (here is the crazy part) actually not lose money in the process. The original dividers took entirely way too much time to polish. There was a lot of waste. And they were fussy to assemble.

With the help of mechanical designer Josh Cook (also a woodworker), we are now inching toward production. We have a working prototype. A hinge mechanism that is robust. And we are working with our machinist to streamline the production process to make the parts easy to mill and as inexpensive as possible.

Still, these won’t be cheap. We are shooting for a retail of $100 to $120. 

There are lots of changes inside and out on the dividers. The surface finish is different. And the tension will be adjusted with a straight screwdriver. But they work just as well (in my opinion, and I use dividers every day at the bench).

I don’t have a timeline, yet. I hope we will have these in the store this summer, but that might be optimistic if we hit a snag.

I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for your patience.

— Christopher Schwarz

End of ‘Print on Demand’ Shirts, Hats etc.

Posted on by Lost Art Press

On Feb. 1 we will discontinue all the “print on demand” products in our store. That includes all the T-shirts, sweatshirts and hats. You can see our current selection here.

We are not (repeat, not) discontinuing our bandanas, chore coat, vest or pullover work shirt.

So if you want one of these print-on-demand products, place your order before Feb. 1.

Why Chris, why? Two reasons: We want all our apparel to be made like our books, tools, chore coats and vests. In other words, we want them made by small companies that take pride in their work and produce top quality. Until now, I viewed T-shirts as a commodity product. I don’t anymore. 

Second, the “print on demand” service we use has done a good job (considering the pandemic), but I think the prices are a bit high for what we get. And we don’t control the stock. Or quality control. Or customer service.

So Tom Bonamici, our clothing designer, is now investigating offering a nice USA-made T-shirt. Something high-quality and special, like our books. We also will have new hats in the store from Ebbets Field Flannels next month.

Make Your Own Dang Shirt
What if you like having a scruffy T-shirt with our logo on it? We have you covered. You can download the logos we use on our shirts here. You have our permission to use them to make shirts for your personal use (or gifts). There are lots of places that will make you a shirt on demand (or a baby onesie, thong or hotpants). Go nuts.

— Christopher Schwarz

New: ‘The Woodworker’s Pocket Book’ and New Bandanas

Posted on by Lost Art Press

We have opened pre-publication ordering for “The Woodworker’s Pocket Book,” which is currently at the printer and is expected to ship in March. This important reference book is $13 and is built to withstand daily use in a hand-tool shop.

This book has been a long-time coming, and I think you’ll be thrilled with the thing.

We also have just restocked on bandanas. These are green, feature a new design from Tom Bonamici and – most importantly – come from a new maker. One Feather Press in East Nashville cuts, sews, prints and washes these bandanas all by hand in a shed. And they are printed on both sides.

We love these bandanas. I think you will, too.

‘The Woodworker’s Pocket Book,’ edited by Charles H. Hayward
“The Woodworker’s Pocket Book” is small – just 4” x 6-1/2” – but it contains 112 pages of critical woodworking information for the hand-tool woodworker. 

Edited by the great Charles H. Hayward and published in 1949, “The Woodworker’s Pocket Book” is a guide to everything from finishing recipes to drawing ellipses to choosing the correct screw or nail. 

We own several versions of this book, as it was regularly updated and republished. After reading through all of the versions, we decided to reprint the original edition (with permission, of course). This edition is packed with drawings from Hayward and doesn’t deal much with the metric system, sharpening high-speed steel sawblades or pulley sizes for your machines. In other words, it’s for the woodworker who likes working by hand using fractions, inches and feet.

Also appealing to us is the small size of the book – it literally fits in your back pocket. We recommend keeping it in your tool chest or tool cabinet. It belongs in the shop and is more like a tool than a book.

To ensure the book’s long life, we made sure this book is designed for a shop environment. All our books’ signatures are sewn and taped for durability. We wrapped this one in high-density boards and picked a durable paper that improves on the original’s paper.

Like all our books, “The Woodworker’s Pocket Book” is printed in the United States.

You can read a complete index of the book’s contents here.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. I’m sorry there is no PDF of this book available. We were not able to acquire the electronic rights to the material. 

How to Strip a Plane

Posted on by fitz
Fig 1. Adjustable iron plane. A-Body, B-Frog, C-Cutting iron, D-Cap iron, E-Lever cap, F-Cap iron screw, G-Lever cap screw, H-Knob nut and screw, I-Knob, J-Handle nut and screw, K-Handle, L-Lateral adjusting lever, M-Y adjusting lever, N-Cutter adjusting wheel, O-Frog screws, P-Frog adjusting screw.


Excerpted from “The Essential Woodworker,” by Robert Wearing.

In order fully to understand the workings of the metal plane it is a good idea, particularly for the beginner, to strip down the plane to its smallest component. If you have an old or secondhand plane this is a good opportunity to renovate it. Even if the plane is mis-assembled and maladjusted, no damage can be done to it. Figure 1 shows the structure quite clearly and gives the correct names to all the components. It will be seen that there are three distinct adjustments.

The depth of cut, that is the thickness of shaving removed, is controlled by the cutter adjusting wheel. The wheel running up and down a left-hand thread operates the Y lever. This in turn engages in the Y lever socket of the cap iron (or breaker), which it moves up or down. The blade is secured to the cap iron and is moved by it.

The second adjustment is lateral. The lateral lever has a circular stud at its end. When the plane is assembled it must be made certain that this stud fits into the slot in the blade. Movement of the lever thus moves the cutting edge sideways, preventing one corner from digging in.

The third adjustment is commonly called closing or opening the mouth. The whole frog is moved forward with the blade and the effect is to alter the size of the gap in front of the blade. The lever cap screw should be just sufficiently tight to make sideways movement of the blade with the fingers difficult but not impossible.