Lost Art Press

Did the Router Beget the Handplane?

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plane_router

At any idle moment, I dive into editing our massive Charles H. Hayward project. Unfortunately, I am the bottleneck in this project. Megan Fitzpatrick has edited the entire thing and entered most of her changes, but I am far behind her.

Perhaps I’m getting slow because I’m not on the front lines of editing a magazine any more.

In any case, I am deep in the book’s section on planes and enjoying the heck out of it. Maybe that’s the problem.

One of the articles sent me scurrying to my library to check a few sources on the history of the handplane, including a suggestion that the plane evolved from the router. That’s odd. Many other sources have suggested the adze was the stepping stone between the chisel and plane. So I had to look at some early routers (maybe this is what is slowing me down?).

Hayward_plane_excerpt

Take a look at the entire article (minus final edits) and get a preview of the nice vintage look we’re using for this massive project, which is weighing in at 891 pages.

And now I’ll stop blogging tonight, which is surely slowing me down.

— Christopher Schwarz

Not Too Artistic

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Fish-cabinet-drawing

“The chair is the closest thing to a person. You can give it personal expression. Obviously, it has been just as important for me to make sensible cabinets. Everything in a house must definitely not be too artistic. One thing should accentuate the other. There needs to be a neutral background. In my view, cabinets and the like must be something that works. Chairs, too. But cabinets don’t need personal expression.”

— Hans J. Wegner

Editor’s note: Hans Wegner’s “Fish Cabinet” is one of my favorite pieces of Wegner’s case pieces. Designed for the 1944 Cabinetmaker’s Guild Exhibition, the cabinet appeared to be in line with the sober work of Kaare Klint and his students. But when the front was opened it revealed an intense intarsia scene that was executed by Wegner himself. Wegner cut the veneer with a pocketknife and assembled the intarsia in a week of intense work. While several commentators have imbued this piece with meaning it probably doesn’t have, I just like it for what it is. It reminds me of a tool chest. Plain on the outside….

Oh Yeah, the Japanese Toolboxes

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japanese_toolbox_FPO_opener

Sometimes I forget the unwritten rule of woodworking blogging: If you don’t show the finished project then everyone assumes you failed and threw the thing in the trash.

Earlier this year I wrote about some Japanese sliding-lid boxes I was building for a forthcoming article in Popular Woodworking Magazine that were based on a 20th-century example I’d found in Australia.

I wrote about the box design, the wood and some difficulties I had finding the right dome-head nails. And then, nothing more.

No, I didn’t burn them. I finished them up, wrote the article and shipped them off. One went to my dad; the other to one of my favorite customers. And then I dove back into “The Furniture of Necessity.”

Above is the photo that Al Parrish took of the finished boxes. Look for the plans in an upcoming issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine (and stop spreading those nasty rumors).

— Christopher Schwarz

Your Local Digital Pub

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Brians ATC (1 of 1)

This fall, Lost Art Press will add a discussion forum. The “digital pub” will be a space for readers to converse, share photographs of LAP-inspired builds and ask questions related to hand-tool skills, books and life in the craft.

When I joined Chris a few weeks ago for the Anarchist’s Tool Chest class at Phil Lowe’s Furniture Institute of Massachusetts, I mentioned my plans to launch a “fan site.” I wasn’t sure what domain name to use, but when Chris showed up at happy hour in his “Death to the Pixies” t-shirt, it was obvious: “Fu**ostArtPress.com,” I blurted out. Sometime between that outburst and the next round of beers, Chris decided to let me give it a shot.

But the forum is also an idea that John and Chris have been thinking about for a while. Over the years, they’ve received a steady stream of questions, along with suggestions for what they “NEED” to add to the web site. When Chris decided to give up e-mail, pesky readers like myself lost the capacity to ask those questions. And Chris lost one of the most treasured aspects of being an author – the pleasure of receiving feedback from engaged readers.

So the forum fills gaps on both sides. For readers, it will be a virtual pub. For authors, it revives a digital means of receiving feedback, questions and criticisms.

At this point, I bet you’re asking two questions: (1) “Who is this guy?” and (2) “What’s he got to do with the blog?” Although I hate writing about myself, here are some quick answers.

(1) I’m a woodworking nerd. I have more experience reading about wood than building furniture. But that is about to change. For the past decade, I’ve been a professional professor and a hobby woodworker. This fall, I’m reversing those roles. While being an adjunct professor of American religious history has been a fulfilling vocation, it hasn’t paid the bills. I’ve yet to find that coveted tenure-track job, and I’m fed up with the corporatization of higher education. Inspired by authors like Chris, Robert Pirsig, and Matt Crawford – and encouraged by my wife and many of our university colleagues – I’m taking the plunge into anarchy. I’m building my own furniture designs. Valuating my own labor. Refusing to accept the Ikea-fication of our world. And narrowing the gap between what I do and what I love.

(2) I’m going to moderate the forum. While I encourage constructive criticism, this won’t be a space for hate. (And I will have a really low threshold for any posts derogatory of other readers.) We want this to be a friendly pub where the whole family can enjoy bratwurst and beers, not that bar down the street where every Saturday night someone gets their head bashed in with a cue ball. (I actually love those bars – this just isn’t going to be one of them.) In addition to moderating posts, its my job to keep other blog readers and LAP authors up to date. Each Monday, I’ll write about what’s trending in the forum, including links to conversations and photographs. As the discussions build, I’ll solicit comments and responses from LAP authors.

We anticipate we’ll be ready to launch the forum by mid-September. Until then, you’ll have to keep using the lame “comments” function to tell us what you think!

— Brian Clites, your new moderator and author of TheWoodProf.com blog

Buy Now or Forever… etc.

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DSC1117

You might have heard that Karl Holtey will cease making planes soon. If you have ever wanted one, now is the time to buy as they will only go up in value.

I got to fondle two of them at the New English Workshop. They are such jewels I found myself trying to figure out how to raise the 2,000 pounds to purchase one in ebony.

The New English Workshop still has them for sale on its site here. Snag one if you can. During last week two (two!) were sold immediately.

The last plane Holtey is making is the No. 984 panel plane. According to his site, he is still accepting deposits for these.

While most people will remember Holtey’s planemaking enterprise as a quest for perfection (which is correct, in my opinion), I think Holtey should also be remembered for how he single-handedly changed the woodworking world.

It was Holtey who first explained how bevel-up planes could be used to create high-angle tools. It sounds obvious now, but it wasn’t then.

He created a smoothing plane in 1998 (the No. 98) that basically was transformed into Veritas’s line of bevel-up bench planes, which took the woodworking by storm and have been a boon for beginners.

Holtey was the first – as far as I know – to experiment with different steel alloys for cutting irons for handplanes and spread the idea worldwide. The first A2 plane blade I saw was made by Holtey.

Holtey also developed a unique bedding system for plane irons that negates wood movement in wooden-bodied planes and even simplifies the bedding in metallic planes.

And those are just off the top of my head.

— Christopher Schwarz