Lost Art Press

True Grit II: A Chart for Deciphering Sharpening Gear

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Pure opinion: Buying sharpening stuff would be easier if manufacturers used microns to describe the particle size of the abrasive in each product.

While microns isn’t a perfect description, it’s a heck of a lot better than saying a stone is a “fine crystolon” when that stone is useful only for grinding away damage on a woodworking tool.

Woodworker Bert Bleckwenn recently created a chart that converts many sharpening products for woodworkers to microns and shared it with me. It’s an excellent and useful chart and is a good way to understand how coarse or fine your abrasives are.

Sharpening & Honing – Stones – Abrasives – Inventory – 050514

A couple of caveats: Natural products are difficult to rate this way. For example, novaculite is the abrasive found in Arkansas oilstones. These can be coarser or finer depending on the individual stone. And there are other factors with abrasives – too many to really write about here without creating a book.

So if you have problems with this chart, I ask only this: Make a better one and I’ll consider posting it, too.

When I sharpen, here are the micron sizes I use for each operation.

  1. Grinding. This is the rapid removal of material to repair an edge, reshape it or to shrink my secondary bevel. I like a particle size that is 50 microns or larger.
  1. Honing. When I have dulled an edge and need to recreate a new zero-radius intersection, I like an abrasive that is between 15 and 6 microns.
  1. Polishing. All abrasives smaller than 6 microns are polishing media in my eye. How far you polish is personal. I usually polish at about 3 microns and then finish at 1 micron or so.

Thanks to Bert for this chart. And thanks in advance to readers for not trying to turn this post into a fight over sharpening (that’s a hint).

— Christopher Schwarz

Download: Free Plans for the Knockdown Nicholson Workbench

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KD Nicholson Bench Lost Art Press

Thanks to woodworker Donna R. Hill, you can download a free SketchUp drawing – or a pdf version – of the knockdown workbench I built a couple of weeks ago. Here’s the video in case you missed it.

Donna (some of you might know her as the “Wood Wench” through the Society of American Period Furniture Makers), produced a SketchUp file that she uploaded to the 3D Warehouse. You can download that file by going here. She also produced an excellent three-page pdf with complete measured drawings of the bench. Even if you have SketchUp, I recommend you snag these plans as well.

KD Nicholson Bench Lost Art Press

Donna teaches SketchUp classes locally here in Cincinnati; so if you need some instruction in this program look her up. She’s also a frequent demonstrator at the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event when it comes to Cincinnati. She’s a talented woodworker – and expect to see more of her illustration work in upcoming Lost Art Press books.

Thanks Donna!

— Christopher Schwarz

The Anarchist’s Litter Box

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IMG_4168 anarchists catbox

While some critics put my work on par with cat poo, few have ever considered that my work could actually contain and control feline fecal matter.

But reader John Notis of Portland, Ore., is a visionary.

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While he prefers a wall cabinet for his woodworking tools, he took the basics from “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” to make this litter box. It is impressive. (The only thing more impressive would be to get one’s cats to defecate in a wall cabinet.)

I hope my wife does not see this post or I know what I will be building next week.

— Christopher Schwarz

Yes, and the Peter Galbert Book

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It’s always tricky business talking about upcoming projects because people want updates on their favorites.

So as my e-mail Inbox is sagging from the weight…. Peter Galbert’s book “Windsor Foundations” (still a working title), is still a work in progress. The reason is the drawings. There are hundreds of hand-drawn illustrations that Pete has to finish up.

What you see above is a low-resolution screen capture. These illustrations are going to take his already amazing text to another level. In fact, Pete’s drawings look so good that are re-evaluating the paper stock we’ll be using for the book to better display his handwork.

So Pete’s text is done. A bunch of us have edited it (thanks Raney Nelson, Caleb James and Megan Fitzpatrick in particular). And now Pete has to finish things up so he’s happy with his drawings. He’s shooting for the end of the month.

So don’t send him an e-mail. Don’t attend his workshops at Woodworking in America (kidding). Let the boy draw.

It will be worth the wait.

— Christopher Schwarz

3 Lost Art Press Products for Christmas

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We are the only publishing company I know of that doesn’t have a release schedule for our books. When they are done, they go to press. No sooner.

So it’s amusing to me that it looks like we are going to have three new products in the store in time for Christmas. This was not planned; it just happened. Here is the list.

l’art du Menuisier: The Book of Plates
For years, I resisted publishing this book. That’s because the true genius of “l’Art du Menuisier” is how André Roubo’s plates and text work together to illuminate the craft of woodworking.

What changed our minds about publishing “The Book of Plates?” The short answer is that the best way to experience “l’Art du Menuisier” is to have the plates printed in full size as you read the text.

No matter how you read Roubo’s text – in a book, on a computer screen, in French, German or English – having the full-size plates before you is immensely helpful to grasp Roubo’s intent. And so we have endeavored to make this book useful for the woodworkers and scholars of today and tomorrow.

The plates were digitized at the highest resolution available and are being printed on #100 Mohawk Superfine paper (the same paper as our deluxe Roubo editions) at a level of detail that requires great skill on a top-line printing press. The book will be 10” x 14” and the pages will be sewn and bound so the book will lie flat on your bench and last for generations of use.

All of the plates will be printed at the same size as the 18th-century originals. The only difference in their presentation is with the 45 fold-out plates. We could not find a U.S. printer to produce the fold-outs. So we are printing the fold-outs over a spread of two pages with a small and intentional gap between the two halves.

The hardest part of this project was making the 472-page over-sized book affordable. We succeeded. “The Book of Plates” will be $100. It will be available in November.

Calvin Cobb: Radio Woodworker! A novel with measured drawings by Roy Underhill
This book is in the final design stages and will go to press at the end of September. The book is a total hoot – I read about half of it last night. I didn’t mean to. It just happened.

This book represents a significant chunk of Roy’s life and has been revised and revised and revised about four times since I’ve known him. It will be worth the wait.

We have just commissioned an artist to create the cover illustration – a 1930s-looking piece that would look at home on the front of a pulp comic.

This book will be available in November or early December. We are still working out the details, but expect it to be less than $30. It will be hardcover, sewn signatures, U.S.-made – all the regular hallmarks of Lost Art Press books.

Lost Art Press Full-zip Hoodie Sweatshirt
After many requests, we are going to produce our first-ever sweatshirt – a black, U.S.-made hoodie with a full zipper up the front. The Lost Art Press logo will be screened on the front using a design created by an artist who specializes in hand lettering.

There won’t be any clever phrases. Just the logo and some beautiful hand-lettered text. We expect this hoodie – designed, made and silkscreened in the United States – to be about $55. Also available in November (we think).

— Christopher Schwarz