You can download a free pdf excerpt of our newest book, “Kitchen Think: A guide to design and construction, from refurbishing to renovation,” by Nancy R. Hiller, to get a taste of the writing and design. You don’t have to register or give us bourbon or anything. Just click this link:
…and the pdf will arrive in your computer’s downloads folder. The excerpt includes the Table of Contents, Introduction, Three Ways to Mount Drawers (and the shop-made jogs for installing Blum full-extension slides) and two Case Studies.
It was a challenge to pick parts of the book to excerpt because it covers so much on designing and furnishing the kitchen, from a down-to-the-studs renovation that includes building cabinets to refacing existing cabinets, from dealing with nooks to building islands. Plus 24 case studies and butt-saving advice that comes only from experience.
And a gentle reminder that if you order “Kitchen Think” before it ships (likely in early August), you will receive a complete download of the book at checkout. After the book ships, the pdf will cost extra.
Editor’s note: Jamie Schwarz has been working on his kitchen, so we’ve had a small hiatus from our Chair Chats. We were a bit worried that he’d gotten his Bratwurst stuck in the InSinkErator or that he died from tendinitis while chamfering his maple counter tops with an old Roman block plane. Luckily he is doing well and we all recently reunited to discuss two Norwegian chairs for a change. As always, Chair Chats are rated PG13-1/2. So if you are sensitive to language or discussions about wombat scat, please do not click below.
As a lifelong journalist, I’ve struggled to come to terms with newspapers and magazines. They must exist in order to promote a free society. But it seems irresponsible to squander so many resources on something that might be glanced at for a week, a day or an hour.
Despite this, however, Lucy and I still get our city’s (very conservative) newspaper on our doorstep every day, plus The (very liberal) New York Times on Sundays. Old habits (and a balanced diet) die hard.
When Nick Gibbs’ new venture, Quercus magazine, showed up in the mail, I was torn. Nick and I go way back. There’s respect, jealousy, bad blood and all the other emotions that come from the life where you bleed ink from one arm and sap from the other. There have always been too many woodworking publications out there for the market to support. So everyone struggles. Do we need one more?
If the first issue of Quercus is any indication, the answer is yes.
All of the following statements are compliments. It is a bit sloppy but is readable, lovable and enthusiastic. It doesn’t give a crap about corporate this or that. The paper it is printed on is woefully thin – it wrinkles when you breathe heavily upon it – but Nick chose the paper for exactly this purpose. (It’s recycled and inexpensive to mail out.)
The articles are short and written mostly by enthusiasts who have more energy and passion than style. The experience level of the authors runs the gamut, from dead-nuts beginner to people who deserve a royal nod (Bill Carter and Richard Arnold in particular). I really enjoyed Derek Jones’ short article on the psychology of sawing, Barn the Spoon’s recollections working as a pedlar (“peddler” in the U.S.) and James Mursell’s thoughts on chair angles and what they communicate. Oh, and Rudy Everts (from our Chair Chats) and his miniature carved chairs are featured inside the front cover. Thanks for wearing pants this time, buddy.
Most of all, Quercus is deeply personal. Nick has always blurred the line between editor and confessor in his magazines (Living Woods and British Woodworking in particular). And so you laugh with approval when you see the wood-burning stove Nick’s made from a filing cabinet as you wonder why the hell Nick is showing you this wackiness in a woodworking magazine.
If you sign up for a magazine by Nick, you’ll get a lot of Nick in every issue.
Most of all, I hope the guy has the energy and focus to keep it going. After a life-changing bicycle accident several years ago, Nick had to start life from scratch. And as a long-time follower of his work, I’ve been impressed by his perseverance.
If you want to support this unlikely venture (as I do), you can buy the first issue here.
Cross your fingers for a second issue. And encourage Nick to keep going on Instagram.
The company that manufactures and mails our T-shirts and hats in California, Printful, has been running behind as a result of the pandemic. T-shirts are taking 23-28 business days to fulfill. Embroidered items, such as hats, are taking 18-22 business days to ship.
The company reports that its safety measures have cut its capacity in half, plus Printful has had difficulties getting the raw materials it needs to make shirts, hats and the rest.
So if you are waiting on a shirt or hat to arrive, we apologize. We hope things will return to normal soon, and we thank you in advance for your patience.
All of our other products – books, vests, chore coats and tools – are fulfilled by our Indiana warehouse. And we are not experiencing fulfillment or shipping delays there.
As always, if you have questions about or problems with an order, send an email to help@lostartpress.com and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
At first glance, the workbench in “The Anarchist’s Workbench” appears to be almost identical to the bench I built in 2005, which has shown up in a number of magazines and books. It’s chunky, made from yellow pine and the workholding is a leg vise, planing stop and holdfasts.
Despite their similarities, the workbench plan in this book is a significant improvement. During the last 15 years I have found better ways to laminate the top using fewer clamps, easier ways to make the massive joints, plus layout tricks here and there that result in tighter joints all around. The top is thicker, heavier and creates less waste when using 2×12 dimensional lumber.
The workholding is far more effective. Thanks to improvements in vise manufacturing and a mature understanding of how these leg vises work, the vise is strong enough to hold boards without the help of a sliding deadman. There is no parallel guide, so you can work at the vise without stooping. The planing stop uses a metal tooth, made by a blacksmith, that holds your work with a lot less sliding. And the pattern of holdfast holes in the top – something that took me years to get right – ensures there will almost always be a hole right where you need one.
The fact that the bench is similar to my bench from 2005 is somewhat of a comfort to me. It means I wasn’t too far off the mark when I began my journey. And equally remarkable is that 15 years of building workbenches of all different forms, from Roman benches to a miniature one from Denmark, wasn’t able to shake my conviction that a simple timber-framed bench is ideal for many woodworkers.
In addition to the fully matured workbench design, this book also dives a little deeper into the past to explore the origins of this form. I first encountered this type of bench in a French book from about 1774, and at the time I couldn’t find much else written about it. Since then, libraries and museums have digitized their collections and opened them to the public. So we’ve been able to trace its origins back another 200 years and found evidence it emerged somewhere in the Low Countries or northern France in the 1500s. We also have little doubt there are more discoveries to be made.
And finally, the story of this bench is deeply intertwined with my own story as a woodworker, researcher, publisher and – of course – aesthetic anarchist.
That’s why we’ve decided to give away the content of this book to the world at large. When it is released later this summer, the electronic version of the book will be free to download, reproduce and give away to friends. You can excerpt chapters for your woodworking club. Print it all out, bind it and give it away as a gift. The only thing you cannot do is sell it or make money off of it in any way.
If you prefer a nicely bound book instead of an electronic copy, we sympathize. That’s what we prefer, too. So we plan to print some copies of this book for people who prefer it in that format. Those will cost money to manufacture (we don’t make low-quality crap here at Lost Art Press) so we won’t be able to give those away. But we will sell them – as always – at a fair price for a book that is printed in the United States, sewn, bound in fiber tape and covered in a durable hardback.
This book is the final chapter in the “anarchist” series – “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” “The Anarchist’s Design Book” and now “The Anarchist’s Workbench.” And it is (I hope) my last book on workbenches. So it seemed fitting that to thank all the woodworkers who have supported me during this journey, this book should belong to everyone.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. If this goes well, John and I are discussing making the other two books in the anarchist series free to download. We don’t know when (or exactly how) we will make that decision. But it is on the table.
