Lost Art Press

Chest & Chair Kits from Alexander Bros.

Posted on by fitz

If access to wood (or lumberyard anxiety) is what’s holding you back from making a stick chair or Dutch tool chest, here’s an excellent solution: Alexander Brothers is now offering full kits for several types of stick chairs (in a selection of species), as well as blanks for legs, seat and more. Plus, there’s a new kit for the Dutch tool chest in pine, cherry or walnut (and the parts come ready .

We’ve ordered from Alexander Bros a number of times now, and are always impressed with how carefully Shea Alexander and his employees pick the chair stock for straightness of the grain and overall beauty. And I am impressed with how lovely the pine was for a recent Dutch tool chest class. In other words, you can trust that you’ll get good stuff.

NB: We do not receive any royalty or kickback on the sales of these kits – we’re just happy Shea is willing to do them. It’s a nice service for those who need help sourcing/choosing/milling wood. (Heck – I’m buying DTC kits from Shea for my February 2025 class, because I’m not going to have time to make them myself – one less worry for me. Thank you, Shea!)

– Fitz

LAP Open Wire, Dec. 14, 2024

Posted on by fitz

Update: Comments are now closed (we will answer any unanswered questions tonight or tomorrow). Thanks all!

If you have a woodworking question, now is your chance to ask it! Post it in the comments below between now and 5 p.m. Eastern and will do out best to answer everyone (in between working on chairs and a dovetailed blanket chest).

– Fitz

p.s. We’ll announce 2025 Open Wire dates soon…if you think we should keep doing it? NB: We’re thinking about charging for every question that has a word count of more than 50 😉

How We Make Our Soft Wax

Posted on by kalevogt
A Shaker tray in cherry, with one coat of soft wax applied.

You may be familiar with “A Glue Story”, a video we posted months ago showing how we make our Piggly No Wiggly Glue. Well, Chris and I decided to create “A Wax Story” in the same vein, a video demonstrating how we make our soft wax.

In case you’re curious about making your own wax, you can find the recipe in Chris’s latest book “American Peasant” (p. 65-68). In the book, Chris shares the exact ingredients he uses and where to find them. No frills, no fuss.

It should be noted however, that since publishing “American Peasant,” our soft wax recipe has been slightly modified. In the video below, you’ll notice Chris is making our soft wax with a bit more solvent (4 TBSP), which makes it even softer and easier to apply.

So, take a look at how easy our soft wax-making process is in “A Wax Story” below.

– Kale

Good News for our Digital Products

Posted on by meghanlostartpress

If you are a fan of our digital products (pdfs, videos, plans, etc) then you know that they are sent to you as a link via email after checkout. But did you know that you can also access any of your digital purchases by logging into your Lost Art Press account? This prevents you from having to dig through emails or lists of links when you want to find a project that you finally have time for.

I will walk you through that in a minute, but I do have one more piece of good news for customers who have been tracking their purchases with their accounts for years. I frequently receive emails requesting that email addresses be changed or accounts be merged. I have been unable to do this in the past. Not any more! So, if you are one of those customers that somehow ended up with multiple accounts, feel free to reach out to the help desk and I, the Meghan that is not Fitzpatrick, will get you sorted out. You will no longer have to wonder if you ordered “By Hand & Eye” in 2018.

OK: back to how you access your digital content in your account. Start by clicking on the little person in the top right corner of our website and log in…or create an account if you haven’t been using one for your purchases.

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Once you are logged in you will click on the “My Downloadable Files” tab.

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You will then see all of the digital content that you have purchased. Here is what the pdfs will look like:

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And what your videos will look like::

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From here you can stream your video or download it. To download it you will click on the “vimeo” icon in the bottom right corner. This will open the video in a new window with the download option showing.

As always, you can email help@lostartpress.com if you have questions.

Last Chance for Free PDF with ‘Dutch Tool Chests’

Posted on by fitz

Order “Dutch Tool Chests” (by me!) by 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 11, to get a free pdf with your book order. Until then, the book and pdf is $39. At midnight on Wednesday, the pdf will cost $9.75 extra if ordered with the printed book.

“Dutch Tool Chests” gives you the in-depth instruction you need to build your own slant-lid tool chest (in two sizes) – from choosing materials, to the joinery, the hardware, the interior parts that hold your tools and the paint. Plus, plans for a mobile base that provides more storage and helps you move the chest around your shop. (Oh – and a brain dump on how to cut through-dovetails – the thing I most often teach.)

My goal in this book is to not only help you make a place to put your stuff, but to help make you a better hand-tool woodworker.

But my favorite part of the book is the gallery, which includes 43 chests from other makers, with ingenious ideas for using the chest’s tool bay (or bays). Clever rolling bases. Oversized (or undersized) chests. Imaginative uses of the back of the fall front and or/underside of the lid. And other unique storage solutions and uses that set them apart.

Like all Lost Art Press books, “Dutch Tool Chests” is printed in the United States. The pages are folded into signatures, sewn, glued and reinforced with fiber-based tape to create a permanent binding. The 192-page interior attached to heavy (98-pt.) cotton-covered boards (blue cloth, of course!) using a thick paper hinge. The cover and spine are adorned with a foil die stamp (which won’t help you build a tool chest – but it looks pretty nice, if I do say so myself!).

– Fitz

p.s. If you buy “Dutch Tool Chests” from Lost Art Press, you might wonder about that scribble on the half-title or title page. That illegible scrawl really is my signature – I’m signing every copy that ships from our Covington warehouse.