Lost Art Press

Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event in Covington, Ky.

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Lie-Nielsen Toolworks is hosting a Hand Tool Event at Braxton Brewing in Covington, Ky., on March 10-11 (details from Lie-Nielsen are here).

We will have a booth at the brewery both days and will have our storefront open on Saturday only (not Friday; nor Thursday) from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Our storefront is a seven-minute walk from the brewery.

On Saturday night we are organizing an outing to Rhinegeist brewing in Cincinnati where we shall play Hammerschlager – a competitive nail-driving game. The winner of the evening (likely the one person left standing) will receive a letterpress hammer poster (long sold out and coveted). We’ll bring the stump, the hammer and the nails.

The event at Rhinegeist will start about 8 p.m. We recommend you go to Eli’s barbecue at Findlay Market to get your dinner beforehand and walk it a block north to Rhinegeist to eat it. (That’s what we’re going to do.) Note that Eli’s closes at 9 p.m. Tarry not.

I hope that we will have some other special stuff to show or sell, but that all depends on trucking and production schedules. More details, soon.

Last year’s show was fantastic. Braxton has excellent beer. Covington has a lot of great places to eat and drink (more on those later on). And yeah, Cincinnati is awesome, too.

Hope to see you there!

— Christopher Schwarz

Now Taking Orders for the Deluxe ‘Roubo on Furniture’

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Last night at dinner I laid out the finances involved in printing the deluxe “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture,” and I think I saw the blood drain out of my wife’s face – just a little bit.

It’s like sending a child to college. It’s vitally important, and so you somehow find the money to make it happen. But when you stand back and count up all the dollars involved you wonder how the heck you did it.

We are pleased, thrilled and a little anxious to offer you “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture,” the largest, most expensive and most incredibly built book we’ve yet to offer. We think the investment is worth it. Don Williams, Michele Pietryka-Pagán and Philippe Lafargue dedicated years of their lives to translate A.J. Roubo’s 18th-century masterwork “l’art du Menuisier” and have done a magnificent job. Designer Wesley Tanner has captured the experience of reading an 18th-century book. And so we have decided to put all our chips on the table.

If you approach this book with an open heart and mind, I think you will find yourself challenged to become a better woodworker in everything you do. It is the most involved piece of woodworking writing I’ve ever encountered. It is for beginners, intermediates and the advanced.

Even if you have zero interest in building French furniture, I think this book will speak to you as a maker and give you insights into how things are made “with all the precision possible.”

The book is $550 and will ship this summer. You can place your pre-publication order here.

— Christopher Schwarz

A Video Tour of a Deluxe Roubo Book

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If you have never seen one of our deluxe versions of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry,” this tour will give you a small taste of the scale of the book and the quality of its components.

Since the release of this book (it’s long since sold out), people have come by the storefront or to shows to see a copy and it’s always a treat to see their reaction. First, they are amazed at the size – 12-1/4” wide x 17-1/4” tall. It’s uncommon to see a book of this size outside of a library’s rare book room.

But my favorite part is when they open the book. The printing and detail is so crisp that no matter how close you get, it holds up.

Oh, and the A.J. Roubo translations themselves are an incredibly important piece of woodworking history. Roubo’s “l’art d’Menuisier” is still the legal yardstick in many countries for what is good workmanship. And this is the first time his sections on furniture are being printed in English.

On Wednesday at noon we will begin taking pre-publication orders for the deluxe version of “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture.” Full details on the book are available here. We are printing 1,000 copies, which will ship this summer.

Also, I neglected to mention that everyone who purchases a deluxe copy of the book will receive a pdf download of the standard edition. It will be delivered after you checkout.

— Christopher Schwarz

Wednesday: Deluxe ‘Roubo on Furniture’

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R2 special bindingWe will begin taking pre-publication orders for the deluxe version of “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture” at noon Eastern time on Wednesday, Feb. 22.

The book will be $550, which includes delivery in the U.S. International customers will pay an additional charge based on the actual cost to ship it to them (you’ll be contacted before the book ships about this additional charge). We are printing 1,000 copies. No more.

This book is expected to ship in summer 2017, barring production or transportation delays. Before you order, please read the following important information on being a “subscriber” to this book.

The Important Part: Please Read
Customers who order before March 15 will be listed as a “subscriber” at the back of the book. By default, we will print your first name and last name exactly as it appears in your order for the book (so please spell your name correctly). If you do not wish your name to appear in the book, you must send an email to meghan@lostartpress.com before March 15 along with your order number and a request to have your name omitted.

After March 15, no changes can be made to the list of subscribers.

The Scary & Amazing Part
As we were negotiating the print job with the plant, I calculated that by the time we pay for this press run we will have spent more than $500,000 on the Roubo translation project, a mind-blowing figure for someone who drives a beat-up 10-year-old truck.

I am not saying this to impress you, but to 1) Thank you for your support and 2) Thank you in advance for your support on this deluxe version.

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The Manufacturing Details
Measuring 12-1/4” wide x 17-1/4” tall by almost 2-1/4” thick, “Roubo on Furniture” will be the largest and most luxurious book we have printed since Lost Art Press was founded in 2007.

The 472 pages of text will be printed on #100 Mohawk Superfine paper, perhaps the finest domestic paper available today. To match the fine paper, the images and plates will be printed in full color at a linescreen few presses can achieve.

The result is a level of detail and clarity rarely seen in any book of any era.

The book’s signatures will be sewn, casebound and reinforced with a fiber tape that will ensure the binding will outlast us all. The hardbound boards will be covered in a beautifully printed pattern with a cotton cloth cover on the spine. The spine will be then debossed in gold and black.

The entire book will come in a custom-made slipcase covered in a complementary-colored cotton cloth.

Our deluxe version of “Roubo on Marquetry” (long since sold out) was manufactured to these same high specifications and was named one of the “50 Books of the Year” by by the Design Observer, in association with AIGA and Designers & Books.

Questions?
We are happy to answer any questions about the book – just leave us a comment and we’ll do our best. Tomorrow I plan to post a video tour of the deluxe version of “Roubo on Marquetry” so you can get a feel for the manufacturing details of the deluxe “Roubo on Furniture.”

— Christopher Schwarz

How a Lost Art Press Book is Made

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John and I are quite particular about how our books are made and spend a lot of time and money on details that most readers don’t notice. We want our books to be able to survive floods, attacks by babies and dogs and – most of all – time.

There are an enormous number of manufacturing steps our books have to go through, especially compared to digital, print-on-demand (POD) publishing. While POD is good for some things, such as bind-ups of classroom material, it has a long way to go to compete with traditional printing and binding.

And so we stick with the time- and labor-intensive methods for our books.

In late September, John and I visited one of the plants where our color books are printed on sheet-fed presses. Our black-and-white books, in contrast, are printed on web press. The difference between the two is somewhat akin to the difference between paper being fed into a photocopier (sheet-fed) or printing out your book on an enormous roll of butcher’s paper or paper towels (web press).

The above is a short peek at the process a typical book goes through. Note that I’ve left a lot of steps out and simplified things (so if you are in the printing industry, forgive me). It took two full days to tour the plant, so 5 minutes of video is going to leave out some details.

Thanks to Jostens of Clarksville, Tenn., for opening their doors to us and allowing us to photograph anything we please. And thanks to Phil Nanzetta of Signature Book who purchases most of our printing for us and helped arrange the visit.

— Christopher Schwarz