Lost Art Press

This Weekend: Escape to Canada

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After looking through about 100 pages of notes this week, I asked myself: “Does anyone really want to listen me talk about nails?”

I mean, who else gets giddy when reading through a 30-page manuscript detailing the British military’s nail needs in 1813? (Bulletin of the Association for Preservation Technology, Vol. 8, No. 3 (1976), pp. 88-118.)

So I’m also researching fart jokes to insert into that lecture.

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On Friday I leave for Perth, Ontario, to speak at the first-ever Woodworks Conference – a nicely organized event that combines a lot of learning with some nice furniture and some quality tool vendors (Lee Valley, Lie-Nielsen, Konrad Sauer and (drool coming) Douglas S. Orr, a dealer in vintage tools.

Thanks to Delta Airlines, I am not flying to Canada. This is good news because John Hoffman is going to come along for the drive. And I’ll get to bring a few pieces of campaign furniture for people to fondle.

Lost Art Press won’t have a booth, and we won’t be able to bring books or T-shirts. We’ll be hanging out like the rest of the attendees.

I’m actually quite excited about my nail lecture – thanks to some tips from Chris Howe in Australia I’ve been researching a forgotten form of nail that is technologically more advanced than anything we use today. Tonight I got a few more clues about the way the nail is made from blacksmith Peter Ross.

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In addition to my lecture on nails, I’m also giving a talk on “double irons” – aka “cap irons,” “back irons” or “chipbreakers.”

While a few people on the forums have burned this topic in effigy, I have found that a reasoned, historical-based discussing of this 18th-century device helps students immensely. Most woodworkers don’t have the patience to wade into the nasty discussions about double irons to extract the useful bits.

This lecture is about the useful bits. (And why Stanley needs to spanked for almost ruining the technology for us.)

So come to Perth and have a beer with your American friends (that’s John and me).

— Christopher Schwarz

FAQ: ‘l’Art du menuisier: The Book of Plates’

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No matter how much we write about a new book, there are always additional questions we didn’t think of at first. Here are some of the common questions I am fielding about “l’Art du menuisier: The Book of Plates.”

Question: If I buy all the deluxe editions of the André-Jacob Roubo translations, will I then have all the plates in full size? In other words, do I need to buy “The Book of Plates?”

Answer: While we hope to eventually translate every word of Roubo, that will take many more years to accomplish, and I can offer no guarantees that it will be possible. “The Book of Plates” is a way to have all 383 plates in one quality binding.

Question: How many are you printing? Will you sell out?

Answer: To keep the price reasonable, we are printing several thousand copies of “The Book of Plates.” Unlike the deluxe editions of Roubo, this book is not a limited edition. We plan to keep “The Book of Plates” in print for many years. So if you cannot afford it now, it will be available in the future. No rush.

Question: Will there be a deluxe edition of “The Book of Plates?” Will this book match my deluxe edition?

Answer: There will not be a deluxe edition of “The Book of Plates.” This book is not designed to “match” either the standard or deluxe editions of Roubo now in print. It is larger than the standard edition and smaller than the deluxe. But all the books were designed by the same person, Wesley Tanner. So they all look like part of a family.

Question: So I’m confused about what plates are in what book. Will I have all the plates if I buy “Roubo on Marquetry” and “Roubo on Furniture?”

Answer: Here’s the shortest answer I can offer without a Venn diagram: “Roubo on Marquetry” contains 34 plates. “Roubo on Furniture” (due early 2015) will contain about 84 plates. So the “Book of Plates” will have more than 260 plates that are not in those two books. These 260-plus plates include lots of good stuff on interior woodwork, carriage-making, garden woodwork and some miscellaneous stuff on geometry.

Question: Will you ship “The Book of Plates” internationally?

Answer: This book will be offered to all of our retailers, including the overseas sellers. So we hope it will be available worldwide through them. As retailers officially sign on, we will announce it here on the blog.

Question: Will this book be signed by the author?

Answer: We don’t have an Ouija board that works that well. Sorry.

— Christopher Schwarz

On Press: ‘l’Art du Menuisier: The Book of Plates’

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BoP-cover-stampingAs of three hours ago, “l’Art du Menuisier: The Book of Plates” is officially off to the printer and is now about five weeks away from landing in our warehouse (during a rainstorm, most likely).

“The Book of Plates” is 472 pages long and contains every single plate from all of the volumes of André-Jacob Roubo’s 18th-century masterpiece. All the plates are printed in full size and on #100 Mohawk Superfine paper – the best paper we could find. The book itself is 10” x 14-1/4” x 2” thick – a sizable chunk.

As with all Lost Art Press books, “The Book of Plates” is produced entirely in the United States. It is hardbound, casebound, with sewn signatures and a cloth cover. The book is designed to outlast us all. The plates were scanned from 18th-century originals (which are sitting before me right now) at the highest resolution possible and are printed at a linescreen that will produce the maximum detail possible for the paper and available technology.

The retail price is $100. When the book goes on sale we will offer it with free domestic shipping for the first 30 days to domestic customers. “The Book of Plates” will also be carried by many of our retailers – details to come on availability.

Why should you consider buying it? It’s an intoxicating look at 18th-century work, everything from furniture to architectural woodwork, carriage-making, marquetry and garden woodwork. Roubo’s volumes are still the legal standard when it comes to the craft of woodworking in most of the world.

Even if you never buy one of our translations of Roubo’s text, “The Book of Plates” will inspire you (for many years I owned two copies of Roubo with only a passing knowledge of French). And if you read Roubo in the original French, German or one of our English translations, having the full-size plates in front of you makes a huge difference.

In addition to containing all 383 plates from “l’Art du menuisier,” we have included the first English translation of the table of contents for the books, which serve as a guide to the plates. This table of contents is 11 pages long and is a roadmap to the contents of every plate. There also are short essays from Don Williams, our partner in translating the text, and me.

When we have a release date, we will post it here. So stay tuned.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. There will not be an electronic version of “The Book of Plates.” This product is print-only and intended for people who love ink on paper.

Traditional Coopering from The Woodworker Magazine

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Because of the bourbon industry in Kentucky, oak barrels are pretty much everywhere – even in the home centers where they are sold as planters or rain barrels. I use a used barrel as my garbage can in my shop.

Cooperage is one of the things I hope to study in my next life, when I get this furniture thing mastered in about 50 more years.

So I love to read about the craft, and the tools fascinate me – particularly the unusual compasses used for fitting the lid.

Today I’ve pulled two 1960s-era articles from The Woodworker on coopering for you to check out. One of the great things about the magazine was its dedication to documenting the traditional crafts as they were disappearing in England in the 20th century. Download the articles here:

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If you are interested in coopering classes, check out Country Workshops, where Carl Swensson teaches Swiss cooperage. And Tillers International, where they regularly teach basic cooperage.

— Christopher Schwarz

A Place for Nothing and Nothing in its Place

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The two most influential people in my life as a woodworker have been Charles H. Hayward, the finest woodworking writer of the 20th century, and Carl Bilderback, a union carpenter and tool collector in La Porte, Ind.

I count on Hayward to guide me in the shop. I count on Carl to tell me the truth about my writing, my woodworking and life in general.

CarlI met Carl when he phoned me at Popular Woodworking to tell me that a short article I’d written about a block plane was seriously flawed.

“What you wrote was right,” he said. “But you don’t know that you’re right or why you are right.”

Carl’s startling and entirely correct observation (it’s difficult to explain, but it involves Leonard Bailey and patents), led to a friendship that is more important to me than any tool I own or anything I’ve built or written.

Even more important than Carl’s ability to tell me the truth has been that he is – hands down – the most generous person I’ve ever met. I’ve watched Carl give away dozens of tools to young woodworkers to start them in the craft.

When he showed up at the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event in Cincinnati this spring, I hugged him, and the first or second thing he said to me was: “I have a miter box. Who should I give it to?”

But he does this without seeming like some saint. Ask him about Oprah Winfrey and screws, and you’ll get an off-color story that will make you spit your drink through your nose.

If you’ve ever met Carl – or if you haven’t had the pleasure – I encourage you to watch this hour-long video where Slav Jelesijevich and Carl paw through his basement shop and shoot the crap about tools and woodworking.

You’ll get to see some tools that will amaze (four panther-head saws?) and get a taste of Carl’s humor, deep knowledge of tools and loyalty to the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association. (And by the way, if you aren’t a member, fix that. As an anarchist, I can say it is one of the few organizations I’m proud to be a member of.)

Most of all, hold onto the Carls in your life. They won’t be around forever, and we all could use a regular dose of truth and generosity with no chaser.

— Christopher Schwarz