Lost Art Press

Video: Letterpress Poster on Press

Posted on by Lost Art Press

Today I spent some time with the crew (OK, Brian and his mom) at Steamwhistle Letterpress as the pair worked through the second day of pressing our forthcoming construction print of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.”

If all goes well, we should have the 1,000 prints by Monday. Then I’ll sign them, we’ll get them to Indianapolis for fulfillment and then put them on the website. When I know the date they will go on sale (for $20 each, which includes domestic shipping), I’ll post it here.

If you are in England or Europe and want this poster, send a note to Classic Hand Tools. They will be selling part of our stock of these prints (these will be signed as well). We might have another international retailer on board with these posters. So stay tuned.

The posters look fantastic. And watching the press is mesmerizing, so I shot this short film of Brian and his mom in action.

— Christopher Schwarz

Coming Soon: Letterpress Tool Chest Plans

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As part of the fifth anniversary of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” we are printing 1,000 signed copies of plans for the chest that are hand-drawn and printed via letterpress.

The project is in conjunction with Steamwhistle Letterpress in neighboring Newport, Ky. As I type this, Brian Stuparyk and his mom are pulling copies of the poster from the Vandercook 425 press and allowing the dark blue ink to dry.

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The posters will be $20 apiece (that price includes domestic shipping in a rigid cylindrical mailer) and each one will be personally signed by me. We are making these prints as affordable as possible as a “thank you” for all the people who have bought the tool chest book – allowing me to quit my job without having to live in a cardboard box. They should be available in our store for ordering next week.

The construction drawing of the chest was handmade by Randy Wilkins, a film set designer and the man behind The Designer’s Assistant blog. The print includes all relevant dimensions for building the full-size chest, plus specifications for the hardware.

Our intent was to make the print useful enough (and affordable) so you could use it in the shop. But it is also nice enough that you could tack it on the shop wall or even frame it.

The tool chest print is also our trial run for large-scale letterpress work for the book on Roman workbenches that I’m writing. The process during the last few months has been a real education for me in processing images and type so they could be reproduced on a polymer plate for the Vandercook proof press.

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Earlier this week I spent an afternoon at Steamwhistle as they set up the press for the run, which will take several days. Brian hand-mixed the ink (blue with a little black) to suggest a blueprint. One of the many nice things about letterpress is the texture of the result. You can feel every line of the drawing in the paper. It is nothing like traditional offset lithography.

These are printed on smooth 100 lb. cover stock, which is rigid and durable. The finished size of the print should be about 17” x 22”, a typical size for an engineering print.

— Christopher Schwarz

The New ‘By Hand & Eye’ Website and Online Course

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The authors of “By Hand & Eye” and “By Hound & Eye” have launched a beautiful and informative new website that you should add to your browser or RSS feed.

The website is appropriately called “By Hand & Eye Online” and you can get there via http://www.byhandandeye.com. At this point the website consists of an active blog maintained by Jim Tolpin and George Walker who are writing about the interesting pre-industrial design techniques they have been exploring together for several years.

Check out their blog here.

At the moment the two are creating a six-part online series called “Tricks & Truths” that will further extend your knowledge of artisan geometry. While the online course isn’t ready yet, you can sign up to be notified when it is released here.

We at Lost Art Press have been greatly heartened and a bit surprised at how well George and Jim have connected with readers on the topic of design. (Design books are typically commercial duds.) Whenever I travel I hear customers rave about the techniques their books explore, which are based on simple whole-number ratios instead of magic formulas or art school mumbo-jumbo.

If you are interested in going deeper into their world, I highly recommend you check out their new site, read the blog and consider taking the online course when it becomes available. Jim and George are fanatics about this stuff, and it shows in the quality of their writing and teaching.

— Christopher Schwarz

My Next Book: Roman Workbenches

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After considering several ideas (including a children’s book about a constipated snail), I’ve decided my next book will be a short 64-page folio on building Roman workbenches.

I’ve been researching these benches for many years, but thanks to some recent breakthroughs in research by Suzanne Ellison I have become obsessed with making two of these benches because I have questions that can only be answered by building the dang things.

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Also, the physical book itself will be another big step for Lost Art Press. We’re going to print it via letterpress with Steamwhistle Press in Newport, Ky. You are going to be able to buy the book in three formats:

  1. Letterpress and unbound (maybe even uncut) pages, tied with a string. You can bind the book yourself or (shudder) put it in a three-ring binder.
  2. For a little more money, Ohio Book has agreed to bind the folio.
  3. And a pdf for people who just don’t like printed matter.

We are doing everything we can to make this book affordable (including me working at the press). I don’t have any prices as of yet. With any luck, this will be a quick project and we’ll be selling it by Christmas.

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Work on the book is well underway. The wood for the two benches has been cut and is drying (I’ll pick it up in May). And blacksmith Peter Ross has just delivered two bits of hardware for the the bench from Herculaneum – a planing stop and a holdfast.

The holdfast is of particular interest for two reasons. It’s the earliest known (to me) image of a holdfast – 79 AD. And the shape is unusual. There is no flat pad at the end.

You can posit that the artist made a mistake. But a Roman grave inscription has a similar holdfast where the tip of the holdfast actually curves under. Again, you can protest and say it was an artist’s mistake, but all the other tools made by these two artists look right and proper.

So the only way forward is to make the darn metal bits.

The Herculaneum holdfast has been hard at work this weekend at my bench while I was building chairs. The thing works like crazy, though it really dents the crap out of the protective piece covering the work.

There’s much more to say – enough to fill half a book. And the other bench I’m building for this book is even wilder. Stay tuned.

— Christopher Schwarz

In the City

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When Roy Underhill opened his fantastic school in Pittsboro, N.C., the core idea was to spread the doctrine of handwork to woodworking students in the local community and around the world.

But something else happened that I saw first-hand.

After teaching at The Woodwright’s School a half-dozen times (and watching Roy, Mary May, Tom Calisto, Elia Bizzarri, Bill Anderson and many others teach there), I saw something even more amazing than 12 woodworking students building stuff by hand.

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I watched hundreds of passers-by – non-woodworkers and non-students – become captivated by the craft by merely stumbling in off the street to find people merrily engaged in handwork.

Roy has always welcomed visitors with open arms. The first time I saw this happen I thought it was disruptive to the teaching process. Then I realized how wrong I was.

“The true mission isn’t just in teaching enthusiastic woodworkers,” Roy told me. “It’s about showing the community that woodworking is alive and well.”

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Those words have been heavy in my mind as we renovated the storefront for Lost Art Press. Yes, it’s the place I work every day, building furniture and stabbing split infinitives through the heart. But it’s also the chairs in the window. It’s showing the neighbors that handwork is alive and well. It’s in meeting four other makers on our block who make things with wood for a living.

This is why I didn’t build a shop in the country (though that solitude would be appealing). There’s work that needs to be done. Not just at the bench but in the community as well.

— Christopher Schwarz