Lost Art Press

Roubo on Light

Posted on by Lost Art Press

ROUBO_plate11_1000

With the recent discussion of shop light and window direction, I thought it would be interesting to post a short excerpt from A.J. Roubo on shop light. While I don’t recall Roubo discussing the direction the windows should face, he does detail how to bring diffuse light into the interior.

Ever since translating this section 10 years ago, I’ve wanted to make some muslin diffuser panels to try them out.

— Christopher Schwarz

“The front counter of the shop should be of a height equal to that of the benches so that in the case of works of an extraordinary length you can pass the wood over them while working and rest them there.

“There should be as many entrances as necessary for the width of the building, which should be closed with doors that should open the complete height to facilitate the entry of the wood. They should be covered with light muslin fabric so that when in use you can enjoy daylight in the interior of the shop.

“The upper part of the counter should also be closed up with frames covered in fabric, which are pulled open during the day and are held to the floor by wooden crossbars [hardware fittings] which hold them there.

“At the top of the front of the shop should be placed a porch roof of about 18 thumbs or 2 feet overhang, which serves to prevent water from entering and ruining your work and tools.”

— from the forthcoming “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Furniture”

Ode to a Type of Wood

Posted on by Lost Art Press

9-2_opener_site_cat2_IMG_7960

O teak!
You delight of clients’ wives,
refuge of architects,
and the dot over the “i” of honoraria.
You fiendishly indestructible and shitty brown.
You are so Asiatic Company-like and so noble
that you cannot even stand being painted in a vibrant color,
so full of virtues that you can only be shown nude
as God, in a moment of genius, created you,
sexless, boring, as costly as virtue itself.
Neither a knot nor a crack on you can make little girls and boys
think that not everything is the same at both ends.
Together with stainless steel and reinforced concrete
you stand as the trinity of the times.
Banks, corporations, and savings and loans worship you.
You are the symbol of all manner of consolidated semi-education,
the discrete advertisement for the suitable height of our tax bracket
and the corresponding excellence of our neighborhood.
Once you were an honorable maritime material,
intended to withstand storm and salt water.
Now you have been raised to the pedestal of taste.
Now even bank customers,
who themselves must pay the price,
fall on their knees before the totem pole of teak.
*
Humble and touching pine,
which can rot in decent fashion,
which must not show its dirty hue at any price,
which modestly wears the painter’s color –
Let us be old fashioned together and out of touch with the times.
Our chance will come again, sooner or later.

— Poul Henningsen (1894-1967), Danish author, architect and critic, written Oct. 28, 1953

New, New, New

Posted on by Lost Art Press

monkeys-house-book

“New, new, new, just for the sake of newness, for the sake of the sales’ curve, in order to make people throw away the old things before they have served their time. Not so long ago we looked for a better form, now we only have to find a new one.”

— Poul Henningsen (1894-1967), Danish author, architect and critic

Full-size Plans from ‘Chairmaker’s Notebook’

Posted on by Lost Art Press

Plans_full_1000

For those woodworkers who prefer full-size plans, we now offer plans for the two chairs featured in Peter Galbert’s book “Chairmaker’s Notebook.”

The plans are $25. If you order them before July 5, 2015, you will receive free domestic shipping. You can place your order here. The first batch of plans will ship out to customers about June 15.

The plans feature handmade full-size drawings of the following components of the fan-back and balloon-back chairs:

  1. Full-size turning patterns of legs, stretchers and posts – both bobbin and baluster forms.
  2. Full-size drawings of the seat shapes that feature all mortise locations, sightlines and resultant angles.
  3. The fan-back crest shape and the bending form required to make it.
  4. The profiles of on the back of the balloon-back chair and the bending form required to make it.

All the drawings are fully dimensioned with easy-to-read call-outs. The plans for both chairs come printed on a single 36” x 48” sheet on white, #20 paper typically used for engineering prints. The plans are folded to a 9” x 12” size and ship in a rigid cardboard mailer.

Like all Lost Art Press products, these plans are produced and printed entirely in the United States of America.

One caveat: While these plans provide the shapes of all the components, you will need “Chairmaker’s Notebook” to build the chairs exactly as Pete describes. These plans are a supplement to – not a substitution for – the book.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. We will be offering these plans to our retailers, but we do not know at this time which, if any, will carry the plans.

Timber for Coach-Makers

Posted on by fitz

newyorkcoachmaker_e

The Carriage-business is of a nature so peculiar, that it is of the utmost importance that manufacturers should at all times have on hand a good supply of well-seasoned and well-selected timber. This every manufacturer who has been in the business long must have learned from experience. At how dear a rate has many a coach-maker obtained this knowledge in the first year!

Having very little experience in practical business life and taking everybody to be as honest as himself, he, with limited means, goes to a lumber-merchant and purchases a quantity of “stuff,” which he is told is dry. Now, there is a vast difference between seasoned and dry timber. No one knows this better than the lumber-merchant, and yet we have known many—honest men, no doubt—who would, if they could, palm off on the unsuspecting an article represented as dry, which, when it come to be worked, would be found as green as the duped purchaser.
(more…)