Lost Art Press

Disposable Goods for a Disposable Planet

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Some of the pieces I worked on were well over 100 years old, still strong and easily repaired, while much newer, mass-produced pieces were already broken and not worth fixing.

This experience reacquainted me with the ethic of craftsmanship. In retrospect, this was something I think my parents and grandparents had tried to teach me. But I grew up in the postwar consumer culture of cheap manufactured goods and planned obsolescence. We were making disposable goods for a disposable planet. Craftsmanship seemed like an antidote to that kind of thinking, and I think that is why those old pieces of furniture resonated with me. It seems terrible naive to see it in print, but I thought that maybe the first step in making a nondisposable planet was to make things as if they would be passed down to future generations.

— Craig Nutt on his transformation from a period furniture maker and restorer to a maker of art furniture. In “The Penland Book of Woodworking” (Lark Books).

Hancock Candle Stand DVD

Posted on by fitz

It’s funny how something can look so easy and end up being so daunting. It is also surprising to me that one of the most famous pieces of Shaker furniture has gone so many years without being properly measured and documented. I am referring here to the candle stand in the collection at Hancock Shaker Village. There are plans for this table in many books; many claim to be measured from the table in Hancock’s collection, but I have yet to find a published plan that has the correct dimensions and shapes.

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Original table at HSV, photo by J. Farnsworth

After numerous attempts to build a table that had the elegant flow of the original using the published plans from several different books and photos of four different original tables, I failed at every attempt. I ended up contacting the folks at Hancock, and they were gracious enough to let me document the table in their collection.

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Magic legs!

I also managed to wrangle Joshua Farnsworth into doing a video on the candle stand. He and I traveled to Hancock to measure and photograph the original table, as well as a couple other projects. A short video about our trip is available here.

The video on the candle stand just went up for sale at Wood and Shop store today. It is 244 minuets long and includes footage of our trip to Hancock, an examination of the original piece and detailed step by step instruction on how I reproduce this epic piece of Shaker furniture. The measured plans I made from the original table are included on the DVD as well. And yes, I really did measure the original!

Below is the link to the preview of the candle stand video.

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A reproduction table I made using the patterns from the original.

Of all the things I have made, these tables generate the most comments from folks; almost everyone likes them. I’m not completely sure why that is other than the fact that it is minimalistic but not plain. No bull$%&*. “It is what it is” type of thing (I think). For me it has been one of those projects that when I sit back and look at what I have done, it simply makes me happy.

— Will Myers

Please Excuse the Interruption in Service

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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During the last week my family and I rode mules to the bottom of the Grand Canyon to stay at Phantom Ranch. (John, you’ll be happy to know I didn’t fall into the canyon so you don’t need to look for a new business partner.)

I’m granting myself a few more days of radio silence, but I will return the workshop and blogging later this week.

— Christopher Schwarz

The Edge Plane

Posted on by meghanlostartpress
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Fig. 1. What the finished plane looks like. The exact length is not important, but it should not be much shorter than 9 ins. as it may be liable to dig in. This plane is 10 ins. long with a 1-3⁄4 in. cutter.


This is an excerpt from “The Woodworker: The Charles H. Hayward Years: Volume I” published by Lost Art Press. 

Two ways in which the plane would come in handy are shown in Fig. 2. In the one the plane is smoothing right up to an internal corner, and in the other is a stopped chamfer in which the plane could work right up to the stop. Many other uses will suggest themselves— such as trimming a stopped rebate.

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Fig. 2. Examples of work for which the plane is suitable. Note that a strip of metal is placed beneath the thumb-screw to cover the slot in the cutter. The knob is either square as shown or it can be turned.

It will be realized that it cannot be used in place of the more normal type of plane; it would dig in and fail to produce a flat surface. Furthermore, it could not be started. It is suitable only for working into a corner after the main surface has been planed. The great secret of its successful use is to press well down on the handle. Only in this way is it possible to avoid digging in. Then, the cutter must be set fine—sometimes without any projection at all—and gradually fed forwards. It usually happens in this sort of work that the corner is high, and that is why it will sometimes cut when there is no projection to the cutter at all.

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Fig. 3. Side and front elevations and plan. Sizes can be taken from scale.

Fig. 3 shows the plane to scale. The main stock which should be of hardwood finishes 10 ins. by 1-3∕4 ins. square. Allow the width a trifle full for trimming and cut the front to an angle of 20 deg. Also shape the back. Finish neatly with a chamfer. The clamp is 4-1∕4 ins. by 1-1∕ 2 ins. by 1∕ 2 in. It has a hole and slot cut through it to enable it to be slipped over screw head and pushed forward into place. The thumbscrew can be any convenient screw, the hole for it having the thread forced in it. Bore a hole to the narrowest part of the thread and force the screw into it.

— MB

Is Someone Sick of Sycamore?

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) has long been one of my favorite woods. I first started using it about 2001 when Frank Miller Lumber started offering it for sale at ridiculously low prices (less than $2 a board foot).

At the time I was building an addition on our house and saved hundreds of dollars by using sycamore instead of hard maple.

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It’s a wood that commands respect. Your tools have to be sharp and well set or you’ll just end up with a mess of tear-out. You have to insist on quartersawn stock – flatsawn sycamore moves quite a lot and looks like cheap Asian plywood. Quartersawn sycamore is beautiful – I call it “redneck lacewood.” Sycamore’s grain is interlocked, so it is one of my favorite woods for chairmaking, especially seats and armbows.

But recently it’s become hard to find in my area. Frank Miller doesn’t cut, dry or carry it anymore. Our local lumberyard never has it. Forget the retail outlets such as Rockler and Woodcraft. They just sounded confused when I called to inquire.

After striking out at my usual haunts, Megan Fitzpatrick and I hit the road last week to visit some rural sawmills and lumberyards. Between us, we called or visited more than a dozen places and came up empty-handed until I called C.R. Muterspaw lumber, which is an hour north of me.

They had four or five boards of it. I hopped in my truck and raced toward Xenia, Ohio.

It took about an hour of digging through the stacks at Muterspaw (they were very good sports), but I found four spectacular boards of the stuff for about $5 a board foot. And I’m using them to make a Welsh stick chair.

It all left me wondering: Why has sycamore disappeared from the local market? It’s not a rare tree. Platanus occidentalis is a junk tree around here and grows to a sometimes enormous size in low, wet areas.

I’m going to ask around. If anyone knows of a good source, speak up.

— Christopher Schwarz