Unless something goes awry, Brian Stuparyk at Steam Whistle Letterpress plans to start printing the pages for “Roman Workbenches” this week. The plates are in. The paper is in. Now it’s just a matter of putting the two together on his Vandercook press.
Once the pages are printed, we’ll truck the results to Massachusetts so the bindery can fold the signatures, sew them and bind them. It’s too soon to tell exactly when the book will be finished and then ship – I’m hoping the process takes another five weeks.
Today I stopped by the Steam Whistle shop in neighboring Newport, Ky., to take some photos of the plates and paper to assure you that we haven’t taken your money and run off to Kansas (that’s really about as far as we could get on that sum).
Brian is a newly minted father and seems still as excited about the job as I am – and I don’t think he’s slept since Monday.
When the press starts rolling, I’ll post some photos and video of the process. It won’t be long now.
The Ringling Bros. final dates in Cincinnati just happen to be during that weekend. The circus is closing up shop and so this might be your last chance to see it. The performances are at the U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati – right across the river from Covington. Details here.
The Cincinnati Museum Center has an exhibit of Viking artifacts (which I really need to get over to see). Lots of swords, a recreation of a Viking ship and additional programming that young Vikings would dig (Viking games). The Cincinnati Children’s Museum is also in the facility, and we spent many long Saturdays there when our kids were young.
If your kids dig fish, penguins and sea life, the Newport Aquarium is a great day trip. The aquarium is at Newport on the Levee, an entertainment district that’s five minutes from the hand tool event. There’s a movie theater, restaurants and other fun stuff for kids there. Also, oddly, Mitchell’s Fish Market is exactly next door to the aquarium. I always wondered….
The Cincinnati Zoo is an outstanding zoo. I can say that because I’ve been dragged to zoos (legal and sketchy) all over the Western world. In addition to seeing all the animals that would like to eat you, there are animals you can pet. The children’s section of the zoo kept our kids occupied for hours so we could fall half-asleep on a bench.
If you have a child who is obsessed with trucks, you can soothe the little savage with a trip to the Cincinnati Fire Museum. It’s downtown – a short hop from Covington.
The Cincinnati Art Museum (free admission!) is another great day trip. For the younger kids, there’s the Rosenthal Education Center, with hands-on stuff to keep little hands occupied between filling diapers. The rest of the museum is great, too, if they happen to take a nap in the stroller.
If you like to warp your children’s minds (like we did), go to the Contemporary Art Center in downtown Cincinnati. You start at the top of the amazing building and work your way down. Our kids were always shocked and amazed and surprisingly curious when we went to the CAC. (There’s a section for kids at the top of the museum, too.) It’s not too freaky – promise. Also, stop by the 21c Museum Hotel next door. It has two floors of art exhibits that are always fun and interesting (our kids still ask to go). There’s lots to eat all around the CAC, but I’ll save that for another post.
The walnut family also includes butternut and the hickories. Juglans means nut of Jupiter, nigra, or black, refers to the dark wood. Its natural range is from New England through southern Ontario to South Dakota, south to Texas, and east to northern Florida. Walnuts grow best in the deep rich soils of river valleys and bottom lands, where they reach a height of 60′-100′ (18-30 m). The tree generally has an open crown with thick, sturdy branches. Walnut leaves are compound, 1′-2′ (30-60 cm) long, with 13-23 lance-shaped leaflets. Leaves grow alternately on thick, stubby twigs. When cut, the twigs reveal a light brown pith, about the thickness of a pencil lead. Overall, the light green foliage is scant, giving the tree an airy appearance. Early in the fall the leaves turn yellow and drop, leaving a distinctive 3-lobed, notched, leaf scar. The nut matures at about the same time, enclosed in a thick, green, pulpy husk about the size of a billiard ball. The deeply grooved black nut is very thick and hard, but well worth the effort of extracting the meat. The dark brown bark grows in broken, crossed ridges.
Black walnut is as close to a perfect cabinet wood as can be found in North America. The light sapwood, 10-20 rings wide, is often steamed commercially to make it blend with the heartwood, which is a medium chocolate to purplish-brown. The wood is medium hard (with a density of 38 lb/ft³ or .61 g/cc at 12 percent MC), strong and works well with both hand and power tools. Classified as semi-ring-porous the vessels (containing tyloses) are large enough to be seen on any surface. Walnut is very decay-resistant, and was once used for railroad ties. Many early barns, houses and outbuildings in the Appalachians and the Midwest were constructed with walnut frames. Its color, beauty and workability make it a prime cabinet wood. Gunsmiths use it for stocks because it moves very little once dried. Top-quality veneer logs will sell for thousands of dollars and will panel miles of executive offices.
My daughter Maddy reports that she has fewer than 50 sets of stickers left from the second batch of designs we made. So if you want the beehive logo and “Divided We Stand” logo stickers, you might want to act now.
Or, for customers in the United States, you can send a $5 bill and a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) to Maddy at:
Stick it to the Man
P.O. Box 3284
Columbus, OH 43210
I’ve begun designing the third set of stickers. So no matter what happens, if you order, you will get stickers.
You might be wondering what the heck Maddy is holding in her left hand. It’s a cookie from a local bakery featuring the photo of a prematurely born hippo at the Cincinnati Zoo named Fiona.
Maddy and my wife, Lucy, are obsessed with the hippo. Lucy, a reporter at WCPO-TV, has taken it upon herself to discuss the hippo every week on the station’s podcast. And we are spending money on hippo cookies like we don’t need to eat protein.
You can see the latest on Fiona here (thank you Lucy for this link).
So I have no idea why I’m writing about a premature hippo, but there you have it. Buy stickers. Like hippos. Something something.
It was never supposed to happen like this, but I’m a believer in fate.
During the last seven days we have closed the books – so to speak – on two of the projects that have dogged us every day since we started this publishing company in 2007. Those projects – reviving the works of A.J. Roubo and Charles H. Hayward – have consumed the lives of more than a dozen people for almost as many years.
While I thought I would feel relief, joy or something powerful about the publication of “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture” and “The Woodworker: The Charles H. Hayward Years Vols. I – IV,” I actually don’t feel very much on a personal level. Perhaps it has yet to sink in, but all I feel right now is gratitude to the people who signed on to these crazy projects – with no guarantee of reward – and have stuck with us for years and years.
The Charles H. Hayward project began before we even incorporated Lost Art Press in 2007. John and I wanted everyone to encounter the pure genius of Hayward and The Woodworker magazine during its heyday. And likewise, our efforts at translating Roubo’s “l’art du Menuisier” predate this company by many years.
And now we’re pretty much done. Sometime on Tuesday or Wednesday, I’ll receive a copy of “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture” and I’ll place it next to volume IV of The Woodworker: The Charles H. Hayward Years,” and that will be that. We might publish additional translations of Roubo. And we might have additional Hayward-related material in the works. But the big job is over.
I am not one for navel-gazing, but I can tell you this: These projects have transformed me as a craftsman, writer and designer. The books are so woven into the fiber of my being that it’s impossible to overstate their influence on how I work at the bench every day.
If I had to sum it up, I’d say that I can see the world through the eyes of these great men. Both of them did something that few woodworkers do: They investigated the craft around them with open hearts and open minds. Both interviewed woodworkers of all stripes in order to communicate how to make things. They refused to accept the narrow, rote training that can easily make you an effective soldier, but a poor thinker.
If anything, these men have taught me how to evaluate the advice, admonitions, rules and exhortations of other craftsmen. To spot the closed mind. To refuse to embrace dogma.
Will you find the same things in these books? I don’t know. But the lessons are there for the taking.
