I know that we are not supplying your headwear needs with our new hats. Two colors? One rim size? And that crown? It’s easily 3/8” too small. I know that your haberdasher chortled mightily when he opened our webpage.
Here’s the solution. Make you own dang hat. Below is a link to the vector file we used to make the embroidery pattern for these hats. The marriage mark cannot be copyrighted any more than you could copyright a question mark. Click here.
Here’s a note you can print out for your local embroider.
Hi,
The vector file you’ve just been handed (it looks like a triangle with fins and a tail) is a mark that has been in use by woodworkers since at least the 1700s. It’s called the “marriage mark” and is used to mark out parts that belong together. It’s in the public domain as much as any historical symbol (the Christian cross, the lotus plant, the middle finger).
I personally drew this image in about 5 seconds in Adobe Illustrator and give permission to anyone to use it as they see fit. Put it on baby jammies, Yoda costumes, thong underwear.
Thanks,
Chris Schwarz, drawer of the triangle thingy.
If you don’t like our hat selections, do the DIY thing and make a hat for yourself. You can support a local business and get exactly what you want. You might even save a few bucks in the process.
Here’s the latest chapter in the Lost Art Press Hat Saga. Book 14, chapter six, verse 12.
Short version: We have new hats in the store now. They fit well, are reasonably priced and are available in tan and (by request) camouflage. Other facts to know: They are embroidered on demand. We make almost no money on these – they are just for fun. We like hats because we sometimes don’t shower in the morning.
Longer version: Finding the right hat to sell has been a long journey. Yes, there are bespoke milliners out there that we have investigated. We love good merchandise, but we just can’t fathom selling a baseball cap for $75 to $100.
We wanted a hat that you wouldn’t cry over if you left it at the baseball park. We wanted a fairly low profile to the crown – the ridiculously tall trucker caps are not for us. And we wanted something unstructured and that would break in quickly.
This hat, made in Bangladesh, ticks all those boxes. Yes, we’d rather have a USA-made hat. But we couldn’t find one that we liked and thought was reasonable in price.
This one is $24.50. It takes a beating. It’s easily adjustable with a friction buckle. It’s well-ventilated. And it survives the washer and dryer just fine. We wish it were less expensive, but this is the best we can do.
When I showed the prototype on Instagram, I also threw in my personal camo hat in the background. I grew up in Arkansas and would have worn a camo tuxedo to my wedding, had Lucy allowed it. My fellow rednecks clamored mightily for us to sell the camo hat as well as the tan. And so we abided.
The Lost Art Press storefront will be open this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. This is your opportunity to talk with fellow woodworkers, ask any questions about the craft that have been bugging you and perhaps learn a new technique at the bench.
We also sell our full line of Lost Art Press books and will have a few Crucible Lump Hammers for sale (we’re working on a big batch this week). But as anyone will tell you, these open days are not about commerce for us. There is no hard sell or soft sell – not even a medium sell.
As always, there are lots of ongoing projects in the shop for you to examine.
I am finishing work on a mule chest for the expansion of “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” This piece offers scads of storage and is quick to build with rabbets and nails.
I should be building the exterior cases for the Nicholson Campaign Chest, which has been a six-month journey. The casework is done and finished.
We should be in the midst of repairing and refinishing our front door. I cracked the glass while repairing a muntin. So…. new glass on the way. And the exterior needs a new coat of oil.
Megan Fitzpatrick is finishing work on a book by Robert Wearing that should go to press next week. The book is on fixtures, jigs and appliances for handwork. You can come take a first look at the proofs if you like.
Brendan Gaffney is off teaching at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking this week. He should be back on Saturday with a cabinet to show.
Come for the Woodworking, Stay for the Food Many visitors to our shop also make a day of it and get lunch or brunch while in Covington. We have some bad news on that front. Main Street Tavern has closed. We are crushed. And so we offer this list of other great places to eat that you can walk to:
Otto’s: A fantastic brunch (you might want to make reservations just to be sure).
Commonwealth: Very Kentucky (that’s a good thing).
Also worth seeing in town:
The Cincinnati Art Museum has an exhibit on the art of Burning Man that is getting rave reviews. The museum also has an impressive decorative arts collection and general admission is free.
And The Cincinnati Museum Center is now reopened after its extensive and impressive renovation. You can lose an entire day here touring the multiple museums.
Apologies for the unvarnished commerce, but I’d rather sell these books here than on eBay.
Lucy and I are relinquishing as many material goods as possible as we prepare to move above the storefront in early August. So duplicate books have to go.
Here we have three books, all hand-bound in leather by Ohio Book with handmade end sheets. Two are copies of “The Joiner & Cabinet Maker” – one in brown and one in black.The other is “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” in black.
The books are $250 apiece. Domestic shipping is included in the price. International shipping will be at the actual cost.
If you are interested, please read with care: Send me a message through my personal site. Let me know specifically which book you want. The first to say “I’ll take it, gets it.” These books are offered without any apology and have no wear whatsoever.
David Esterly (1944-2019) with his piece Quodlibet #7, 2012. Photo: Bernini Poussin
I never had the privilege of meeting David Esterly (1944-2019), who died last month after a battle with Lou Gerhig’s disease. Esterly was a giant in the world of carving. Not only in his technical skill but in his ability to transmit ideas in a beautiful and lucid manner.
His book “The Lost Carving” is not a woodworking book per se. And it is definitely not a book from the “why we make things” genre, which tries to bridge the gap between people who make things and people with “big thoughts.”
Intead, it’s much more of an autobiography of someone who has utterly devoted his life to a craft and can explain what that feels like from the inside. Even if you don’t carve, I highly recommend you read it.
For me, “The Lost Carving” helped resolve many of the frustrations I experience when trying to communicate about woodworking. On the one hand, woodworking is deeply technical. So you have to deal with that. But the technical nature of the craft (tool steels, wood movement, finishing chemistry etc.) is a tiny part of what I think about every day at the bench. Anyone can learn the technical, tacit stuff. That’s what books, magazines and classes are for.
The important stuff is what Esterly wrote about in “The Lost Carving.” Here are two short excerpts, one of which Joel Moskowitz also referenced in his obituary of Esterly.
In the usual way of thinking, you have ideas, and then you learn technical skill so you can express them. In reality it’s often the reverse: skill gives you ideas. The hand guides the brain nearly as much as the brain guides the hand.
The wood is teaching you about itself, configuring your mind and muscles to the tasks required of them. To carve is to be shaped by the wood even as you’re shaping it.
— “The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making” (2012)
This is the real stuff. This is what it feels like for me when working by hand. One example: Years ago, my hands taught my brain how to flatten a board by hand. Before I’d ever heard of Joseph Moxon or I had met anyone who worked by hand, I had boards that needed to be dressed flat with handplanes.
The instructions I had were from modern books – stuff from the 1980s. And the techniques were woefully complex. I knew the task couldn’t be as difficult as described. So I took my jack plane to a warped piece of work and just messed with it. After some with-the-grain missionary-style planing, I tried things that (I thought) were no-nos – planing diagonally, planing across the grain, pulling the tool, taking short and localized strokes.
Within a few hours my hands had some ideas. Then it was just about getting the ideas into my brain so that I could explain the process to myself. Why did diagonal stokes fix warping? Why is traversing a board so effective on the bark face of the board?
I’m sure that all of this seems obvious to the peanut gallery. But that’s because someone probably offered you a good explanation at some point.
The act of sawing is another example. I have learned more about sawing from listening to my hands than to any person, dead or alive.
After I realized that explicit knowledge – the book stuff – isn’t as important as the deep-tissue stuff, I changed my tack as a workshop writer. Starting with “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” I tried to dial down the technical information in my books and replace it with text intended to inspire confidence in the reader and cause him or her to pick up the tools. (Whether I succeeded or not is a thread more suited for LumberJocks than here.)
So you have Esterly to thank for that (or not).
If you wish to learn more about Esterly, here are some great links:
P.S. The title of this blog is a hat tip to Doug Stowe’s blog. Doug’s life has been dedicated to preserving skill through teaching children at the Clear Spring School in Eureka Springs, Ark.
