Lost Art Press

I Have a Face for Radio

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Megan Fitzpatrick of Popular Woodworking Magazine, Andy Brownell of Brownell Furniture and I were interviewed about the state of the woodworking craft during Friday’s “Cincinnati Edition” show on WVXU-FM.

In addition to discussing how to get started in woodworking (hint: it involves a stick), we chatted about how many woodworkers think young people are interested only in their Atari 2600s and Intellivision consoles. I mean, if we can’t stop them from playing Pong, the craft will surely die.

As you might have guessed, I think this attitude is a steaming pile of Oscar Mayer.

You can listed to the show for free via this link.

The producer asked us to come back and do the show again (despite having to bleep out Megan’s potty mouth).

— Christopher Schwarz

Letter: I Do Not Like Where Your Blog is Headed

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Gary writes: I’ve tried to hold my tongue, but I cannot do it any longer. You are about to loose me as a subscriber to your blog and you should know why.

First there was Jeff Burk (Burks?), who put up those boring blogs I never could figure out. Thank goodness he left or you got rid of him because I didn’t get it. I learned nothing from it, except where my DELETE key is.

Now we have Suzanne the saucy indexer whose at the same thing. Her attempts to be funny – which landed in my email today, just aren’t. Sorry but its true. You should know.

This blog used to be great, and I learned so much about tools and woodworking. Now its just stupid jokes, photos of old furniture and sophmoric humor.

You should write more about dovetails and panel-raising, for example. I’m building a hope chest for my granddaughter and could use some tips on making panels. How about comparing all the sharpening systems? Or showing how to fix up old tools?

How you respond to this letter will decide if I am going to stay with Lost Arts Press or not.

I’m not trying to come off as mean, just a truth teller.

I know you will never publish this.

Anarchist’s Gift Guide Begins Today

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For the last three years I’ve done an informal “gift guide” for woodworkers over at my blog at Popular Woodworking Magazine. Unlike other gift guides, this one is not filled with high-price junk that a retailer paid me to promote.

I try to focus on smaller items that will make your life a little nicer in the shop. Stuff your kids can buy you without taking out a loan. Oh, and I own every one of these items and personally use them in my own shop.

The first entry is up now. Nine more to go. You’ll also find links there to the previous two gift guides.

— Christopher Schwarz

Indexing The Anarchist’s Design Book: Butts? Bambi?

Posted on by saucyindexer

imageIn the first 90 pages of “The Anarchist’s Design Book” Chris has used “butt” or “buttocks” thirty-seven times (that might be a slight exaggeration). I know, disturbing isn’t it? Especially when you consider the huge number of other terms he could have used. To name just a few: arse, behind, bottom, bum, derriere, duff, haunches, hinder, rump, tush. Just for clarification there was also some mention of furniture to go along with all the butts.

Your twelve-year old self is probably giggling and thinking, “Butt! Buttocks! That’s my kind of book!” But, I’m a little concerned. Is this a developing theme or concept? Will “Butt” and “Buttocks, see butt” have to go in the index? Well, it wouldn’t be my first time for an unusual index entry; “cupcake” and “tube top” are in the index for “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.”

Putting all the “butts” aside, I was a bit startled when Bambi arrived in Chapter 2. That’s Bambi, as in the cute little fawn, not the cocktail waitress. At this point you might think I’m reading Guillermo del Toro’s remake of Tim Burton’s “Nightmare in Wonderland.” Maybe I am. Those weird wired-legged models are in the book, but so far no white rabbits or clowns.

I may be in for some very disturbing dreams tonight.

–Suzanne Ellison

How Much Does it Weigh or Cost?

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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While I was an editor at a woodworking magazine, I received a lot of questions about the projects we published. Here are two questions that were tricky to answer:

  1. How much does that project weigh?
  2. How much does that project cost to build?

These aren’t really questions that I ask myself as a builder unless I’m making something for NASA or a customer on a crazy tight budget. But readers deserve an answer better than, “I dunno.”

So here’s how to spitball both.

Weight
There are lots of published statistics of the average weight of each species. Usually this is listed as the “weight per cubic foot” of that wood. Let’s take koa as an example. A cubic foot of koa is 38 lbs. If you divide that by 12, then you know the weight of one board foot of koa – 3.16 lbs.

Note that this an average weight at an average moisture content.

Here’s a list of species and their weights that I like to use.

Now you need to know how much board footage of wood is in the project. Luckily, there are lots of nice web-based board-footage calculators out there. You simply punch in the dimensions of each part and they spit out how much board footage is in there.

For example, a tabletop that is 3/4” x 26” x 96” is 17.33 board feet.

Here’s a simple board footage calculator that I use.

So if I build that tabletop out of koa, it will weigh 17.33 x 3.16 or 54.88 lbs.

Cost
This is tricky, because every lumberyard is different. I can buy ash for $1/board foot. Perhaps you cannot. So I use WoodFinder to look up average prices. Type in the species and it will call up places that carry that species. One of the places I looked at tonight had koa at $36/board foot.

So I can use the board footage calculator to determine that 17.33 board feet of koa will cost me $623.88.

Hmmm. Maybe koa isn’t right for me.

— Christopher Schwarz