Lost Art Press

My latest chair – based on an original on display at St Fagans National History Museum in Wales – is available for purchase and immediate shipment.

It is made from American red oak, assembled with hide glue (for long-term repairability) and is finished with garnet shellac. The seat is 22” wide and about 12-1/2” deep. The seat height is about 17” off the floor.

The lightweight chair is very comfortable and will look in place in a traditional or contemporary setting.

This chair is ideal for simply sitting and relaxing. The pitch of  its back sticks pulls your back against the armbow, which intersects your lumbar. The top of the four back sticks supports your upper back. This chair can be used as a dining chair, but it is ideal for lounging, watching the fire and conversation.

This chair is based on one of the chairs on display at St Fagans that I photographed in October. Like the original, the seat is not saddled. (Because this seat is unsaddled, the price includes a sheepskin for the seat.) Also, this chair has an undercarriage – an H-stretcher that is low to the floor. The original chair had an undercarriage that is long gone. I created this undercarriage based on extant examples from St Fagans and the remnants of the existing undercarriage.

Price: $630 plus shipping. Pickup or delivery within 100 miles of Cincinnati is free.

On Shipping

The price includes a custom crate. Shipping is via LTL. Shipping costs vary depending on your location and the details of how it needs to be dropped off. Costs can be $90 to $300 depending on your location and how much assistance you need to unload the crate.

— Christopher Schwarz

We’ll be announcing classes for the second half of 2019 in January (and we still have a few slots available during the first half of the year). Plus, I’ll be posting next week about a semi-last-minute addition to our January offerings (sorry for the tease, I’m just waiting on images from the instructor).

To help you navigate to these (and the upcoming new ones) we’ve added some easy-to-find links to classes from the home page: at the top in the menu bar and on the right at the top of the right rail. Click on either, and you’ll be whisked away to the listings on Eventbrite (the service we use for booking).

And if you have any questions about them, you can always email me at covingtonmechanicals@gmail.com. (Please do send class questions to me at that address, not to the Lost Art Press help desk – why? Read on).

“Why can’t the help desk help?” These classes are not really through Lost Art Press; in effect, each instructor is an independent contractor who is merely renting the space from Christopher Schwarz for the weekend (or week, in select cases). I handle most of the scheduling and logistics for visiting instructors (Chris and Brendan do their own), so I will likely know the answer to your question – and if I don’t, I can and will immediately get it to the right person. Meghan B. handles the LAP help desk (questions about books, orders, etc.), and she is busy enough without having to forward stuff about classes to me.

“Why don’t I get an invoice right after I sign up?” Because each instructor does her or his own invoicing, and that comes directly from said instructor. I usually give it a couple of days for spaces to fill up after we launch a class, then I send the class list to the instructor. He or she will send an invoice using his or her preferred service (Paypal, Square, check…). I do not handle the payment side of things (except for my own classes, of course).

“What is the cancellation policy?” Each instructor sets her or his own, and that is typically included in the class description.

“I tried to sign up right when classes went live, and didn’t get in. You suck!” I’m sorry. Please see below.

“Should I bother signing up for the waitlist?” Yes! We do have cancellations – and when that happens, I trigger a note from Eventbrite to the first person on said list, who then has 24 hours to register. And if that person can’t make it, on to the next, and so on. I estimate that in about 70 percent of classes, at least one person from the waitlist gets in (and often two people).

“I’m coming from out of town; where should I stay?” Check out this blog post, which has suggestions not only on where to stay, but where to eat and non-woodworking-related greater Cincinnati attractions.

“Will you offer a class in X?” Possibly. Send me an email, and if we think there would be enough interest, and we can find the right person to teach it, we will consider X topic.

Other questions? Here’s that email again: covingtonmechanicals@gmail.com.

We have a new bandana in our store and ready to ship. Made and printed in the United States, the bandana is undyed cotton and features an array of historical hand tool images, our skep logo and – of course – bees.

We were quite pleased with the quality of our first bandana, which disappeared suddenly from our online store when 160 or so of the bandanas “went missing” from our old warehouse (if you see them stacked at a Midwestern flea market, drop us a line).

Undaunted by the financial setback, we asked Tom Bonamici to design a new one using the same specifications. These bandanas soften up nicely after a wash or two and become like the woobie of your childhood. The image – printed in water-based discharge ink – is remarkably resilient.

We have only 250 of these, so we don’t expect them to last long. The bandanas are $24 plus shipping (yes, we ship these to Canada).

If you are local to Cincinnati, you can pick one up at our holiday open day next Saturday (details here).

— Christopher Schwarz

Long-time customers know we have struggled to ship our products directly to Canada. It’s been an on-again, off-again situation without any solution that makes Canadian customers happy and keeps us from burning money.

As some of you have noticed, Canadians can now order books and other products through our website, but the shipping costs are steep. The service we use is FedEx International Economy, which is the only way we avoid brokerage fees when bringing parcels across the border.

We know it’s expensive, but that is the actual cost. Books are both heavy and bulky, which prevents us from using USPS Flat Rate boxes and other services.

For those Canadians who don’t want to pay that price (and we cannot blame you), we recommend you buy your Lost Art Press books through Lee Valley Tools. They carry about everything we publish. Type “lost art press” into the search field and you’ll see all 28 products come up. Shipping there is reasonable because Lee Valley is big enough to move products back and forth across the border. We aren’t.

Very shortly, Lee Valley will start selling “Shaker Inspiration,” and you’ll be able to order it from them with a reasonable shipping fee.

So why offer the shipping to Canada? To ensure that our northern neighbors can order products that Lee Valley might not carry, such as bandanas and chore coats.

We wish we had a magic wand to make shipments to Canada easy and inexpensive. But we don’t.

I first encountered the étaux in the La Forge Royale catalog many years ago, along with a bunch of other French workbench contrivances. I always meant to build one, but Benchcrafted beat me to it.

Benchcrafted calls its version the HiVise, and the thing is absolutely indispensable in our shop (in some cases Brendan and I both need it at the same time). If you make chairs or other curved objects, the HiVise will make your life 32 times easier. It grips odd-shaped parts firmly, easily and at a height where you can work on them comfortably.

If you have a tricky spine or the need to do detail work, the HiVise will make your life 14 times less painful. The jaws hold the work close to your eyeballs without you stooping.

The HiVise has a Crisscross mechanism, which keeps the jaws parallel at all times. But the vise has enough flexibility in its jaws that you can easily grip curved or tapered pieces – something that is tricky with metal-jawed vises.

We also love the HiVise’s optional mounting screw, which allows us to put the HiVise almost anywhere. I have clamped it to our thickness planer and table saw when I needed to work in the machine room. Thanks to the mounting screw, the HiVise clamps to the kitchen table or a picnic table at a state park.

For me, the HiVise has become such a part of my daily life that I might need to revise my book “Workbenches: From Design and Theory to Construction and Use” again. The vise is that good.

— Christopher Schwarz