Lost Art Press

Patterns for a Camp Stool Seat

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If you own “Campaign Furniture,” you might want to visit my other blog where I posted some free full-size scans of the patterns I use to make the seat and the three “pockets” for the stool.

This is made with 8 oz. 10 oz. oiled latigo leather from the Wickett & Craig tannery. Any thickish leather will work, however. I prefer vegetable-tanned hides because they stretch less and age better.

This stool was – sadly – the last one I’ll be making from this old teak. These were the last three sticks that were 24” long and thick enough to turn the 1-1/4”-diameter legs. So now the smell of beetle dung will subside a little more in my shop.

These stools are a great project, even if you don’t turn. Many broom handles can be pressed into service, and the Lee Valley Campaign Stool Hardware makes it classy.

My next stool is going to use charred ash – some scraps left over from my latest chair.

— Christopher Schwarz

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Into the Builderness

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Many woodworkers I know have a similar dream shop. It’s a gorgeous structure deep in the woods, which is surrounded by lakes, fields and wildlife.

When I have this dream, I wake up in a panic.

Growing up in Arkansas with my family’s 84-acre farm inspired me to do only one thing: Move to Chicago. As a writer and woodworker, I prefer the constructed world and its continuous cycle of rebirth and decay. Industrial ruins, overgrown bridges, and neglect set my mind reeling.

The only question is: How much entropy can Lucy and I stand? We might have our answer at 5 p.m. today.

— Christopher Schwarz

A Platform, a Box or Both

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“Nearly all articles of free-standing furniture are variations on two basic shapes: a platform or a box.”
— John Gloag, “A Social History of Furniture Design: From B.C. 1300 to A.D. 1960” (Crown).

One caveat, Mr. Gloag. Some pieces of furniture are both a platform and a box.

As I finish up “The Furniture of Necessity” book, I’ve started to play a little game with myself. It’s called “S$%^w Dovetails.” I try to figure out how to build a piece of furniture without dovetails or other high-class joinery.

In other words: Can I build solid, solid pieces with only staked joints and some nails?

Today I designed a bunch of beds. I could have designed these beds by making boxes with nails alone, but then they would look too much like platform waterbeds. At the Schwarz household one Christmas we ALL received waterbeds. (Did I mention that I become easily seasick?)

I’m going to build some of these beds when I return from Boston and before I head to England. But my little design game has also made my pencil go nuts with sideboards, dressers, desks, couches and chairs.

Clearly, I’ve given myself over to my odd ideas about furniture and am wallowing in my own… pig excrement at this point. But the option is to wallow in someone else’s historical excrement, which could have more corn kernels than is to my liking.

— Christopher Schwarz

Note: I removed the suggestion of a very coarse word in the text above. Not because anyone complained (no one did), but because I had intended to soften it before publishing and forgot. Apologies.

Chair Plans Now Shipping

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If you ordered the full-size plans for the chairs in Peter Galbert’s “Chairmaker’s Notebook,” they are in the mail to you now in a rigid cardboard mailer.

The printed plans are $25 and are available for the next couple weeks with free domestic shipping. After July 5, 2015, domestic shipping will be $4. As always, this will be the only discount we ever offer on this product.

Customers in all parts of the world can purchase the digital plans for $20 and print them out at a local reprographics firm.

— Christopher Schwarz