Lost Art Press

An Interesting Podcast on Making

Posted on by Lost Art Press

podcast_IMG_4365-(1)Woodworker, photographer and writer Andrew Sleigh kicked of his second series of podcasts on making last weekend for Resonance FM, a London radio station. The episodes are available for a free listen through the program’s website lookingsideways.net. You can subscribe to the podcast or simply listen to select episodes.

In the first episode, Sleigh interviews Deb Chachra, an associate professor of materials science at the Olin College of Engineering. It’s an interesting talk with someone who studies, teaches and classifies makers. (Be sure to read her thoughtful article in The Atlantic before listening; it will add an extra dimension to the conversation between Sleigh and Chachra.)

Sleigh has interviewed a list of interesting people for this second season of his podcast (he hasn’t posted the list, so I’ll let him do that). He also interviewed me about the Lost Art Press approach to creating books for makers – why we look backwards in time for our information. And why I think making simple, well-made furniture is a radical act.

From what I know about the other guests on Looking Sideways, I suspect my interview will represent the oddball, somewhat anti-intellectual view. We’ll see!

So if you need something to listen to on your commute to wage-slavery, Looking Sideways will make you think.

— Christopher Schwarz

The Art of Self-interrogation

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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If I ever have a motto painted above the door of my shop, it will be: If you have to ask the question, then you know the answer.

Today I glued up a large tabletop – almost 8’ long – out of four boards. When I get into panels this large, I use a biscuit joiner, Domino or doweling jig to keep the boards aligned during glue-up.

Everything went swimmingly until the clamps went on. Apparently I had knocked the fence of my Domino while cutting the joints and hadn’t noticed. The boards in the middle seam were out by 1/32”.

With a large tabletop, that misalignment will equal an extra hour or more of hard handplaning in reverse-grain white maple.

As soon as I wiped away the glue I asked myself: Do I need to redo that joint?

The question was the only answer I needed. This evening I will rip the panel in two and try again.

When I was a beginning woodworker I used to wrestle with problems like this. I’d fool myself into thinking I could overcome the error. Or I’d put off the decision – then get up at 2 a.m., go down to the shop and examine the work in my underwear. (And I wonder why we are never invited to our neighborhood BBQ’s?)

Now I just make the decision and plow forward, even it’s the hard road.

And I sleep a lot better, too.

— Christopher Schwarz

Updates on Digital Books

Posted on by Lost Art Press

ADB_mockup_lo_1024x1024From time to time, we send out slightly revised editions of our electronic books free to the customers who bought the original.

Yesterday we sent out a revised copy of “The Anarchist’s Design Book” to some customers who did not get the final version. (It’s a long story that involves software.) So if you received a link to an updated version of the book, it’s OK to click it. It will not result in your hard drive being taken over by sausage-mongers.

If you didn’t get the link, that’s OK, too. That means you you have the latest version of the book.

Also, the changes in the updated version are minor – most people won’t even notice them. We cleaned up a few typos we missed and repaired a couple captions. It’s essentially the same book without substantive changes.

If you don’t want to receive these updates to your electronic books, the e-mail has a link you can click to disable future updates.

— Christopher Schwarz

Beware the Cat’s Face

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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When a flat-sawn board has reversing grain it will usually exhibit a swirling grain pattern on its faces or edges, warning you that it could be difficult to plane.

I have always heard this swirl as being called a “cat’s face,” though I cannot remember where I first heard it. In 1993 in a hand tool class? Who knows.

Whenever I teach handplaning I warn students to look for a cat’s face nested amongst the cathedrals of the plainsawn boards. Mostly they think my explanation is nuts. So I point it out to them.

“Look. That’s a cat. See it?”

I swear that they don’t even humor me. And you wonder why I stopped teaching.

Today I was sanding down the first coat of paint on 1.2 miles of moulding for our new storefront and the sun reflected this perfect cat’s face. Our Cincinnati Zoo is famous for its white tigers, and that’s exactly what I saw.

Lucky I don’t have to plane that cat.

— Christopher Schwarz