If you registered for a 2020 class at LAP, then you know from your email that we recently made the difficult decision to cancel all remaining classes for 2020. And I appreciate the kind notes you’ve sent in return – many of you offered to donate your registration fee (which warmed the cockles of my semi-frozen heart) or ask if it could be applied to a new class in the future. And you’ve asked about classes in the future in general.
I’m responding to all questions (I hope!) at once, here.
First, thank you to those who generously offered to let us keep the fee. We greatly appreciate the offer, but we simply wouldn’t feel right doing that – so expect to see those refunds in your accounts soon.
And as far as applying that registration fee to future classes…I’m afraid simply haven’t the organizational skills to make that happen. So again,expect to see those refunds in your accounts soon.
I do, however, have organizational skills enough to make sure that when we do offer classes again, anyone who was signed up for a cancelled 2020 class gets a priority shot at a like class when we are able to invite folks back. So yes to that.
And finally, yes, we do plan to offer classes again – when it’s safe for everyone. As always, stay tuned to the blog; fingers crossed I’ll have good news on that front later this year.
With square-shanked Rivierre nails (this is my travel chest…it’s a bit more beat up now).
Waiting for a book to print on the laser writer at the shop is boring, so Chris and I were talking to pass the time as we awaited the pages of Nancy Hiller’s “Kitchen Think”; it’s off to Kara Gebhart Uhl tomorrow for copy edit. He was printing; I was three-hole punching. Such fun we have!
I don’t know how we got to chatting about Dutch tool chests…but as of about 5 p.m. today, I’m writing a book on Dutch tool chests for Lost Art Press. I could not be more excited!
How many of these I’ve built and helped others to build, I don’t know… but I do know it is many. I can build the one I teach in less than two days, from rough lumber to hardware installation. It will take me a bit longer this time though; there will be many pauses along the way for photography.
With screws (this one was for a customer).
Why, you might ask, if there’s already a good article on how to build this form, do we need a book on it? I’ll be going far beyond the article, presenting multiple approaches to several of the joints, and a choice of at least three ways to build the lid. And hardware – my goodness…some of the hardware people have brought to classes that I had to figure out how to install! So I’ll share a bunch of options on that, too…and what not to try to use and why. (For the record, I prefer unequal strap hinges.)
I’ll also be presenting several approaches to the interior fitments. But I have only so many Dutch tool chest interior variations in me – and there’s now a fair number of these chest in shops throughout the country and around the world. So while it’s early days (heck – we just decided on this book a few hours ago!), I’ll eventually be asking for your help – if you’ve built one and come up with a clever interior arrangement, I hope you’ll take some pretty pictures and send them my way so we can include a gallery.
And there are other Dutch tool chests to discuss (and possibly build), so there will also be research into other forms.
There’s no timeline, but I’m going to dive in soon – I have plenty of wide pine in the shop basement, and (unexpectedly) plenty of time this summer. Heck – I even have parts already sized in my basement…along with some half-finished chests. Time to put those to good use!
During the last 30 years, I’ve heard hundreds of “I first encountered Fine Woodworking…” stories that have an impressive ending. The person becomes a lifetime woodworker or quits their job to build furniture. Or collects every issue since the magazine began publishing in 1975.
I’ll never forget my time, because it was just so random.
In 1991 I was a general assignment reporter for The Greenville News in South Carolina and had been invited to have a drink at the house of Jim DuPlessis, one of the business reporters. He lived in a tidy Craftsman bungalow on a leafy street, and on his coffee table was a copy of Fine Woodworking.
I grabbed it and started leafing through it. I honestly didn’t realize that magazines about woodworking and building furniture existed. I had graduated college the year before, and I was feeling drawn back into working with my hands after leaving Arkansas and our farm behind. But I didn’t know how to act on that desire.
I clutched the magazine (I’m almost certain it was the August 1991 issue) like a prize from the fair as Jim and a few other reporters wandered onto the front porch of his house to enjoy the air.
That’s when Jim’s dog started streaking toward the street, directly at a passing car. As a newspaper reporter you see a lot of horrible things, and you learn not to look away.
Jim’s dog ran right at the front tire of the car, like it was trying to put its head under the front tire.
When the car and dog collided it made the worst noise. I won’t even try to describe it. The car stopped. Jim screamed and ran out to the street while the rest of us just gaped.
I don’t know how, but the dog was unhurt. Completely fine. Jim hugged the dog like a teddy bear as he walked back to the porch. Everyone at the party spent the rest of the evening doting over the clueless thing, like it was a miracle sent from heaven.
I spent the rest of the evening reading Fine Woodworking.
This week marks another strange turn of events. And again, no animals were harmed. I now have my first article in Fine Woodworking, almost 30 years after first encountering the magazine. After leaving Popular Woodworking as an editor (1996-2011) and then as a contributor (in 2018), I had resisted getting in bed with another woodworking magazine. It felt like getting married to a new spouse on the way home from the funeral of my first.
But after getting to know the current crop of editors at Fine, I decided I was being stupid and to give it a chance.
My article is deep in issue 283, the August 2020 issue. It is about, surprise, workbenches. It was a bizarre experience being on the other side of the fence as a writer, not an editor. But the entire staff I’ve dealt with – Betsy Engel, Anissa Kapsales, Barry Dima, Tom McKenna and Ben Strano (who I will remind you that FWW “stole” from us) – were a delight to work with.
With any luck, I hope you’ll see more of my writing in Fine, if they’ll have it.
Craftsmen from Tennessee, Kentucky and Georgia. Photos by Doris Ulmann.
About 10-12 years ago in a used book I came across a $5.00 copy of “Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands.” Opening the book brought back memories of taking a day off in mid-July, leaving the heat and humidity of Charlotte and heading up to Asheville, North Carolina for the Craft Fair of the Southern Highlands. That first trip was followed by many more.
“Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands” by Allen H. Eaton was published by the Russell Sage Foundation in 1937. Photographs are by Doris Ulmann, best known for her photographs of the people of Appalachia. The Southern Highlands cover West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee. The craft traditions include, but are not limited to, weaving, woodwork and pottery. A large section is devoted to making furniture, baskets, whittling, carving, and musical instruments. There are plenty of photos and quotes from the craftspeople themselves.
The book is available on HathiTrust and you can find it here.
The link goes to a copy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison as it is the only copy that shows the (some what trimmed) endpapers. Here is a better look at the endpapers with a craft map of the Southern Highlands:
So, jump into this book and meet William Creech of Pine Mountain, Kentucky, find the good board maker, the enormous hand-cranked lathe and this handsome rooster:
I’m in search of a nicely framed, uncluttered, well-lit, high-resolution photograph of a “possum belly” table or cabinet for use in Nancy R. Hiller’s upcoming book, “Kitchen Think.” Ideally, it would be shot from an angle similar to that of the white one shown at bottom right in the Pinterest screen grab above…but look more like the table at top right or the cabinets, and have zinc- or tin-bellied bottom drawers.
If you happen to have such as animal in your home and are willing to help, please email me: fitz@lostartpress.com. And if I get a passel, I’ll put up a post to show them all off. (Note: I’m sure I could find one from an antique dealer — but it would be more fun to get it from you!)
