Lost Art Press

‘By the Book:’ Working Wood in the 18th Century

Posted on by Lost Art Press

I have been stuck in a little too deep on peasant furniture and have forgotten to announce this: I am presenting at Colonial Williamsburg’s 26th annual “Working Wood in the 18th Century” conference Jan. 25-28. 

This year’s theme is “By the Book,” and it will focus on the relationship between the printed word and woodworking. I was asked to give a presentation on the history of woodworking books (one of my favorite topics), and I’ll also do a demonstration on using M. Hulot’s workbench for chairmaking operations.

Hulot’s bench is so ubiquitous among chairmakers that even Chester Cornett in Eastern Kentucky worked on one. And it is still used today.

Also Lost Art Press-related, Whitney B. Miller, author of “Henry Boyd’s Freedom Bed” will present a talk on Henry Boyd and the development of his life story into a children’s book.

Of course, the conference schedule is packed with demonstrations by top-notch woodworkers and carpenters, and I am excited to be able to sit in on many of the presentations. Check out the list here. I’m particularly excited to see Harold Caldwell, Mary Herbert and Shelby Christensen’s presentation on Joseph Moxon’s techniques in his section on carpentry.

In-person registration for the event closes tomorrow at midnight. So make a decision in the clutch and make the trip if you can. Register here.

If you register or already registered, please leave a comment below. If there are enough Lost Art Press readers going, perhaps we can organize a happy hour or a meet-up during the conference. 

I hope to see you there. This is my first visit to Colonial Williamsburg (really!), so be gentle.

— Christopher Schwarz

Mechanical Library: Architecture & Old Favorites

Posted on by fitz

Sorry it’s been awhile since my last library post – I’ll try to finish up the not-yet-covered cubbies in the next month to six weeks (I believe there are still three or four to go).

This week, I had to get out the stepladder and stand on my tippy toes to reach the top left collection, which contains architecture books, part of the David Macaulay collection (I think between us, we have all of his books, though they’re not all on this shelf) and a few outliers.

At far left is “From the Ground Up,” by John N. Cole and Charles Wing (Little, Brown & Co., 1976). Years ago, Chris asked his father, Paul, what had inspired him to buy a piece of land and become a “hippie builder.” His dad told him it was a book, “From the Ground Up,” and that he no longer had a copy, so Chris found one for him as a birthday present…but this was the wrong book. So it made its way back to our library.

Next is “The Lost Meaning of Classical Architecture,” by George Hersey (M.I.T. Press, 1988), which explores enduring tropes that have been around since the Greek and Roman golden ages. Then, there’s a trio of titles on the architecture of three cities: “Unexpected Chicagoland” by Camilo José Vergara and Timothy J. Samuelson (New Press, 2001); the 9th edition of “A Look at Architecture: Columbus Indiana,” by and published by the Columbus Area Vistors Center (2019); and “This is Charleston: An Architectural Survey of a Unique American City,” by and published by the Carolina Art Association. If you’ve never been to Columbus, Indiana (it’s more likely you at least know of the architecture of Chicago and Charleston), you simply must go if ever you’re in the area. It is a truly astounding modern architectural wonderland. (And save time to visit Madison, Indiana, too, which isn’t far; there, you’ll find one of the country’s largest National Historic Landmark districts.)

Then, it’s a handful of the Macaulay books that fascinated both Chris and me (and likely many of you reading this) when we were kids – and we both still love to page through these today: “City: A Story of Roman Planning and Construction” (Houghton Mifflin, 1974); possibly my favorite, “Castle” (Houghton Mifflin, 1977); possibly also my favorite…I’m mercurial, “Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction” (Houghton Mifflin, 1973); “Pyramid” (Houghton Mifflin, 1975); and “Underground” (Houghton Mifflin, 1976). (Another favorite is “Motel of the Mysteries” (Houghton Mifflin, 1979) – it’s around here somewhere!)

Next up are two books that speak to (some of) Chris’s obsessions. First is “Viewpoints on Folklife: Looking at the Overlooked,” by Warren E. Roberts (UMI Research Press, 1988). Among the topics Roberts covers is the Turpin family of Southern Indiana, a 19th-century family that produced generations of makers of post-and-rung chairs. Second is “The Timeless Way of Building,” by Christopher Alexander (Oxford UP, 1979). If you’re at all into architecture, you likely know this one that speaks to architectural pattern language – it’s kind of like “Make a Chair from a Tree” in that it inspired a new generation in its field.

That’s it for the left-leaning books (directionally speaking). After the empty space, and leaning right, we pick up with more architecture titles: “The Illustrated Dictionary of Historic Architecture,” edited by Cyril M. Harris (Dover, 1977); “The Ten Books of Architecture: The 1755 Leoni Edition” by Leon Battista Alberti (Dover, 1986 – obviously a modern reprint of this historic title); and the venerable “A Field Guide to American Houses,” by Virginia and Lee McAlester (Knopf, 1995, originally published in 1984).

From here we move toward miscellanea with “Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy,” by Michael Baxandall (Oxford UP, 1972) (I suspect this one dates in our library to research for “Ingenious Mechanicks“) and volume two of the Dover reprint (1987) of “A Diderot Pictorial Encyclopedia of Trades and Industry: 485 Plates Selected from ‘L’Encyclopédie’ of Denis Diderot,” edited by Charles C. Gillispie.

(Chris here: The Baxandall book is actually one I have had since college, and remains one of my favorites. This was the book that pointed out how the connections between mathematics, music, painting and the way we see the world. Few books are as important to me as this one.)

Next is “The Antique Story Book” – a gift from the incredibly kind Richard Arnold – a delightful collection of stories from English furniture maker/dealer/restorer Bernard Jack on how he acquired some of his pieces (Cooper Combine Printers, 1978). “Cotehele,” published in 2013 by the National Trust, a souvenir guide to an area of Cornwall is next, followed by “Lewis Miller, Sketches and Chronicles,” edited by Robert P. Turner (Historical Society of York County, 1966); Miller was a 19th-century Pennsylvania German folk artist. Joshua Minnich‘s “Ephemera” (self published in 2018) follows – and it’s of great importance to us – Joshua designed the Lost Art Press logo!

(Chris here, again: Joshua’s book is where I encountered the “Nothing Without Labour” billhead. And then I sought out an original for us.)

“Ways of Seeing,” by John Berger (Penguin, 1972) is next – another venerable title; it’s based on a BBC series of the same name, and examines how we view art. (Chris: This Berger book remains mind-blowing to me.) Alongside it is Bruno Munari’s “Drawing a Tree” (Mauruzio Corraini, 1978) – a mostly pictorial how-to of just what the title says. That’s followed by a few on decorative arts and proportion: “Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Art: Geometric Aspects,” by Derek Hull (Liverpool UP 2003) (if I ever take up decorative carving, this one will be among my teachers); “The Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art,” by E.H. Gombrich (Cornell UP, 1979); and “The Power of Limits: Proportional Harmonies in Nature, Art & Architecture,” by György Doczi (Shambala, 1981).

Tucked in out of sight are two seminal Arts & Crafts movement texts (both Penguin “Great Ideas” reprints): William Morris’s “Useful Work v. Useless Toil” and John Ruskin’s “On Art And Life.” (Chris: David Savage gave me these as a thank-you for a visit.)

The last book in this cubby is one Chris has had since college; he warns against the instructions for making psychedelics from bananas: worst headache he’s ever had – and that was the only result. It’s “The Anarchist’s Cookbook,” by William Powell (Lyle Stuart, 1971).

– Fitz

p.s. This is the 12th (and long overdue) post in the Covington Mechanical Library tour. To see the earlier ones, click on “Categories” on the right rail, and drop down to “Mechanical Library.” Or click here. NB: I have used the same picture at the top of every post, simply circling the cubby I’m covering in a given post. For the close-ups, I’ve taken new pictures each time. The odds on that cubby still containing all the same books in the same order as the main image are slim indeed (in case you zoom in and see discrepancies).

LAP Open Wire: Dec. 30, 2023

Posted on by Lost Art Press
An ash seat I saddled this week.

Comments are now closed. Join us again next week!

I’m writing this on Friday night. There’s a small chance Megan and I will not survive to see a new day. We ate dinner at Purple Poulet, and the food there is so rich and delicious that our hearts might simply stop.

But if we do live, we are happy to answer your woodworking questions here on Open Wire. Simply type your question into the comment box below. Post it. We will read it and answer as best we can.

Sometimes there is a lag between the asking of the question and the typing of the answer. But we do answer all questions. Sometimes we answer them after comments have been closed – it just depends on our schedule for the day.

As always, comments will close about 5 p.m.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. If we died, know that we died happy.

Oh Yeah, It’s Query Season

Posted on by Lost Art Press

Please forward this to any budding author in your life.

It’s the last week of December, so our inbox is filling up with queries – people who want to write a book and would like us to publish it. We don’t accept unsolicited queries (it’s right here on our “About Us” page where it has been for years). But that doesn’t stop the mighty digital flow of “Dear Sir or Madams….”.

On the one hand, I’m happy that woodworkers still want to write and publish books. Heck, the fact that anyone thinks books should exist is encouraging.

But here’s the deal. If you are a first-time author, a query letter is like telling all your friends about your hot Canadian girlfriend from band camp last summer. There’s a huge chance that you are simply full of deluded crap.

I wrote my first novel, “Fish Eye,” in the 1990s. I got to the end, realized it was a piece of garbage and burned it. I would be embarrassed – even as a desiccated corpse – if it ever saw ink. I wrote my second book (on workbenches) starting in 2006. I wrote it, paid people to copy edit it, laid it out in InDesign and had it press-ready before I told anyone it existed.

It was accepted by F+W Media about 15 minutes after I submitted it (and is now published by Penguin/Random House). Book editors are stressed and over-worked. If you have an article, series or book that is both 1) compelling and 2) ready to go, then you are probably going to receive good news.

Note that I am not talking about fiction writing here. That world is one Inscrutable 8-Ball, and I have no good advice for you.

In the world of non-fiction and technical writing, however, queries are worse than garbage. They are promises of garbage. Mere whiffs of garbage.

And so I implore you: Just write your damn book. I mean COMPLETELY write it: photos, captions, bibliography, forward, afterword, colophon (it’s not about colons), table of contents and author bio. You don’t need me or some other publishing imprint to validate you.

Yes, this is a test. Most authors who decide to write a book will never finish it. I know this; you know this. By writing the book, you are ahead of about 90 percent of the potential authors out there who are pitching their next book idea to someone in the next bathroom stall.

And when you are rejected by every publisher?

Publish the book yourself. There are dozens of places that will print your book “on demand,” where you can order one copy or 40 (heck, the Cincinnati Public Library will even do it). We use Lulu for some in-house skunkworks projects. The quality gets better every year (though still nothing like a casebound, Smyth-sewn book). Give away digital versions of the book for free to people on the internet. Try to build an audience for your next book. Do that, and you will have a track record that other publishers might notice.

But if you do all that, then you might not care when publishers come calling. You might have started your own publishing imprint.

— Christopher Schwarz

Cold-Bend Hardwood: Why and How

Posted on by Lost Art Press
One of the more difficult bends I make. This is for a Welsh chair I measured at St Fagans.

I love using Cold-Bend Hardwood for the bent parts of my stick chairs. During the last 10 years I have basically a 0 percent failure rate with the stuff (the only failure was my fault – more on that in a bit).

When I steam-bend arms, I typically lose about one-third of my bends.

People think it’s expensive. I disagree. Each chair arm costs me about $100 in material. But there is almost no time involved in making the bends. Today I opened a new pack of Cold-Bend Hardwood, sliced it to size and bent three chair arms (by myself) in less than 45 minutes.

When I steam-bend an arm, I have to find and purchase some suitable material (that takes time). Rive it out (more time). Then slice it, steam it and bend it. And then 33.33 percent of the bends fail during the bend or during drying.

If you live in a forest and have the space and time, steam-bending is ideal. When you live in the city, have no land and every minute counts, Cold-Bend Hardwood is the way to go.

Now, before you buy some, you must do two things.

  1. Read every word of advice from the company on using the stuff. Take their advice seriously.
  2. Read my tips below.
Note the holdfasts that secure the form. And the extra length sticking out the front of the bend. And the calm atmosphere….

My Tips Below

Before you even order the stuff, build your bending forms because you need to bend the stuff within a few days of its arrival. The packaging will get damaged in shipment. The plastic will get a tiny hole in it. And your stuff will dry out.

Do not let it sit around. Assume the plastic is letting out moisture.

Order stuff that is overlong by about 18” to 24”. You need the extra length to provide leverage as you make the bend. If you won’t do this, you’ll need to use a bending strap with a long handle to give you leverage.

That extra length is the difference between a cakewalk and a desperate slog.

Order stuff that is the correct thickness for your bend. You cannot joint and plane this stuff. It will explode in your machinery. You can’t rip it on the table saw (crosscuts are OK). Again, it will self-destruct.

There are only two ways to dimension the stuff when it’s wet: the band saw and abrasion. After it is dry you can machine it and shape it with hand tools. But until then: band saw and sanding only.

I fasten my bending forms to the end of my bench with holdfasts. The holdfasts pass through both the form and the benchtop. Simply clamping the form to the benchtop rarely goes well. The form comes loose during the bend.

Allow some extra length at the beginning of the bend. This extra length (cut away later) will allow you to screw a batten across the arm and remove it from the form to dry.

This bend is for the chair shown on the cover of “The Stick Chair Book.”

About My Failure

I had one arm crack during a bend when using Cold-Bend Hardwood. The reason was simple: I had waited too long to make the bend, and the stuff had dried out. The fresher the stuff is, the easier it is to bend. I cannot emphasize this enough.

If you are wondering how the stuff is made and how it works (it’s like magic), the company’s website has all that information. If you are wondering if other companies make the stuff, the answer is yes. There’s a place in Amish country in Ohio that makes its own, but they don’t sell to the public. They make the bends for you. I also knew a couple chairmakers in Middletown, Ohio, that made the stuff in their chair factory. They have disappeared. And there are companies in Europe that make it. Google “comp wood” or “compression hardwood” for more details.

— Christopher Schwarz