This past week I taught a class at the Wood and Shop School on building a Shaker candle stand for the first time. The table we made is pretty much a dead copy of one I measured a few years back at Hancock Shaker Village.
photo by Joshua Farnsworth
I was surprised at how well everyone took to cutting the sliding dovetails that attach the legs to the spindle. The fit and and function of the joinery was top notch.
Mark Firley of The Furniture Record was not at all impressed with my machine gun pose.photo by J.F.photo by J.F.
I have written and done a video on building this table in the past; it is one of my all-time favorite projects. Building this wonderful table with all of its cool little details in a class with a great group students really brought the project full circle for me.
The story of returning John Brown’s “Welsh Stick Chairs” into print is a twisty one. And, despite my enormous enthusiasm for the project, my thickheadedness only slowed the process.
Here’s the quick version, for those who like to read about my missteps.
“Welsh Stick Chairs” has been out of print for some time. There are U.K. versions out there from the publisher Albercastle and Stobart Davies Ltd. Plus U.S. versions from Linden Publications and Lyons & Burford Publishers. (There might be other versions I am unaware of.)
Last year, John Brown’s family approached Lost Art Press about publishing a new version of the book that captured the charm of the first edition, which was published under the Albercastle imprint. Kara Gebhart and I dove in with gusto and started researching who held the rights to the book, plus looking for any original photographs.
We came up with nothing. (Personal note: This is typical and frustrating for authors. Buy me a beer if you want to know the whole story.)
And when we heard back from the U.K. publisher Stobart Davies Ltd., we got a piece of bad news. That company owned the rights and planned to reprint the book. So obviously, we couldn’t print it.
I put the brakes on our effort. That’s where I was badly mistaken.
What I didn’t comprehend was that Stobart Davies owned the U.K. and European rights, not the North American rights. I had scuttled the project because my neurons had failed to connect.
Luckily, one of John Brown’s sons, Matty Sears, kept pushing forward. He started researching what it would take to put out an edition himself. He figured out the rights situation where I, a publishing professional, could not.
After an enormous amount of work, Matty contacted me and set me straight: The North American rights were available, and would we be willing to take on the book?
We said yes. And for most of this year, I have been working with Matty and our prepress agency to get the book ready for press. We had to jump through a lot of technical hurdles with this project – it wasn’t a simple reprint. We had to rebuild the book from the ground up due to missing electronic files, missing photos and mystery fonts.
But we did it. And most of the credit belongs to Matty.
It is my hope that “Welsh Stick Chairs” will be in print for many years to come. It has been one of the most influential woodworking books in my life – much like the books of James Krenov, Sam Maloof and Jennie Alexander transformed the lives of other woodworkers. And I feel certain there are future generations (now lying in cradles or sitting before an XBox) who will take to the wisdom of this remarkable man.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. You can order a pre-publication copy of the book here. The book will ship in June 2018.
Note: I haven’t posted here in a while. But for those who haven’t read Making Things Work and will be visiting the Lost Art Press storefront this weekend (you lucky dogs; I am dying to meet Suzanne Ellison), you can buy the book there.
Guy and Poppy were a pair of retired business professors who had traveled the world. Judging by what I saw as they showed me around their home during my first visit, they’d brought a good bit of it back home with them.
They had been referred to me by a contractor who assured them I’d be ideal for their project. “We just bought a reproduction of a piece of sculpture,” Poppy wrote in her introductory email.
The first photo shows the original swan at the S. Museum, and the second is the reproduction in the museum shop, just like the one we have. We need to have a cabinet built to display the statue, ideally with a couple of doors in which we can store other items. Please give us a call if you’re interested in helping us with this.
It wasn’t the type of job I ordinarily do, but since they’d been referred to me by a professional whom I like and respect, I called Poppy and arranged a meeting.
Their house was stunning: a classic of modernist style, inside and out—not that I would have guessed as I pulled up to the windowless façade, a gray stone rectangle apparently modeled after a freight container. But no sooner had I set foot inside than the scales dropped from my eyes. All of the other exterior walls were glass, spectacular in the house’s wooded setting.
Works of art filled the interior. Here a Coptic embroidery flanked by a pair of Yoruba masks, there a threesome of prints by Warhol, Schiele, and Kandinsky. A sixteenth-century Japanese screen formed a movable divider between the living room and the kitchen, itself a perfectly preserved marvel of original Sixties design. Clearly these people had excellent taste and understood the value of art and craft. I made myself a mental note to send the contractor a letter of thanks for the referral.–Excerpted from Making Things Work by Nancy Hiller
You can now register for seven new classes at the Lost Art Press storefront via the links below. Note: Registering for the class or the waiting list is free – no credit card needed to register. After the dust settles, instructors will invoice students.
Chip Carving Class with Daniel Clay July 7 & 8
Cost: $300, materials included (Click here to register)
Dovetailed Shaker Step Stool with Megan Fitzpatrick July 28 & 29
Cost: $340, which includes all materials. (Click here to register)
Build the Cabinetmaker’s Sector with Brendan Gaffney August 18-19, 2018 ($300, includes all materials) (Click here to register.)
Boarded Bookshelf with Megan Fitzpatrick August 25 & 26, 2018 Cost: $340, which includes all wood and Rivierre nails. (Click here to register)
Build the Cabinetmaker’s Sector with Brendan Gaffney September 15-16, 2018 (Click here to register)
Dutch Tool Chest with Megan Fitzpatrick Sept. 22 & 23 September 22 & 23, 2018 Cost: $340, which includes the wood and nails/screws. (Click here to register)
Make a Coffin-Shaped Bookcase…for use Now & Later with Megan Fitzpatrick October 20 & 21, 2018 (just in time for Halloween!) Cost: $340, which includes all materials. (Click here to register)
We use bandannas constantly. We use them as a dust mask, napkin, oil rag, tourniquet, loincloth, clamp pad, battle flag on the War Rig and – in extreme cases – as a way to blow our noses.
The Lost Art Press Bandanna is designed, sewn and printed in the USA. It features our proud skep logo plus busy bees, as every woodworker ought to be. The hem is a “rolled-hem overlock seam.” (No complaints from the purists, please. A true double-fold hem, as on vintage bandannas, would have made this one cost about $50.)
It’s printed with water-based discharge ink for a durable image. Give it a wash before using it, and it’ll soften up beautifully.
Some statistics:
22″ x 22″
100 percent cotton
Sewn in South Carolina
Printed in Oregon
Skep logo designed by Joshua Minnich
Price? We’re still working that out – likely $20 to $25 delivered.
The story of returning John Brown’s “
