Why Our Books are Sewn and Casebound
In one word: Charlie.
We will let furniture maker Christopher Scott explain:
“This was the work of my workshop dog Charlie, a curly retriever x lab. I have to admit this book not only got read by Charlie, but it may have been thrown across the backyard toward him I after I found it sans cover. Not a page loose.”
— Christopher Schwarz
A British Introduction to Japanese Planes, Part 2
Japanese planes and the surface they promised to give. That is the goal. The shimmering hand-wrought surface that only a cutting iron in a handplane can give. I am hanging on for this, as it fits my need to put clear blue water between my furniture and the robot-driven, manufactured surface. That routine, intimidating perfection of industry that surrounds us. I wanted a human, imperfect surface, a surface that reminded us of the skilled hand struggling for perfection and failing. I wanted failure.
So I have bought this impressive piece of Japanese steel, but I have also in the process acquired an eBay habit that is disturbing my wife and children.
“Dad, why are you on the laptop during dinner?”
“You tell us to put the mobile phones away at the table.”
“And what is a snipe bid?”
I bought not only the old handmade plane iron and accompanying back iron, but also a couple of other planes. The more I got into this, the more I found I did not know about these planes.
When the blade arrived wit as beautifully wrapped and presented as the Japanese do with all their things. But it needed some work as rust and time had taken its toll. So I set to work on the back of the blade first.
I started with a #230-grit diamond plate. This is a coarse surface and, combined with Trend Lapping Fluid, is an effective way of removing a lot of metal fast. The other benefit is the metal plate itself is pretty flat so we are working toward a constant flat target.
Diamond plates are an expensive way of doing this. This one cost me nearly £25 and is no longer as coarse and effective. Bigger, more expensive plates are, in our experience, just as short-lived. Another way of doing this is a granite slab with #180-grit wet/dry sandpaper; we use this to keep stones flat.
I think I spent a good couple of hours getting hot, wet and dirty doing this. The black stuff that comes off the blade is an indication that the abrasive is working, and the slowness is an indication this blade is hard steel and that the blacksmith knew what he was doing.
What I am hoping is that some of the Samurai sword making history will have rubbed off on my plane iron. “Tamahagane” or “jewel steel” is the name of the steel they used to make swords. The process of hammering and folding, creating a supremely sharp edge with the contrasting quality of toughness. The kind of edge that would cut through three bodies at a time. Mmmm…
It was the hammering under heat, the forging, that makes steel better for us woodies – the time-consuming hammering that gets left out of most modern tool steel production. It makes a finer grain, sharper, edge-holding steel. I have seen and appreciated this during the past 30 years I have been using Japanese chisels.
That plane iron back was hard as blazes. The hollow that is worked into the back of all Japanese tools to save us time in getting that blade flat was being slowly removed by my flattening efforts. The pitting from the rust was pretty deep. If you can, avoid rust-pitted blades; they may be cheap on eBay, but you pay for that neglect.
I tested my diamond-stoned surface on a series of Japanese waterstones: #330-grit green to take out the lines of the diamond plate, #800 to take out the lines of the #330, then #3000 natural waterstone (not synthetic), then #6000-grit gold polishing stone, finishing with a #10,000 natural waterstone. I will why the natural waterstones soon. All of these stones are kept flat religiously with our system of using #180-grit wet/dry sandpaper on a granite slab after every use.
This flat business is pretty dull, but you only do it once. Your shiny, mirror-like blade back then only ever touches your finest stone. All this as it is necessary to get your blade in REALLY close contact with that #10,000 grit polishing stone right at the cutting edge.
Next time we go for sharp…..
— David Savage, http://www.finefurnituremaker.com
‘Calvin Cobb’ is Out for Treatment
Friday evening, Christopher Schwarz, Linda Watts and I gathered around, drinks in hand, to discuss the “treatment” of Roy Underhill’s “Calvin Cobb, Radio Woodworker! A Novel with Measured Drawings.”
We looked at a passel of books that were published in the mid 1930s as inspiration for the font, header, footers page numbers, margins… everything that goes into making a book look appropriate for the content, and a joy to read and look at.
Then we ate what I think is our collective weight in fried chicken and mashed potatoes. (And thanks to Chris’ largesse, I enjoyed a snifter of Pappy Van Winkle’s 12 year – my bourbon of choice on the rare occasions I can find it.)
Linda is the designer on this project (and for many Lost Art Press books), and she has a lifetime of experience with woodworking titles. For almost a decade, Chris and I worked with her at Popular Woodworking Magazine. Before that, she designed Nick Engler’s “Workshop Companion” series of books, and was the founding designer for Hands On!, Shopsmith’s magazine. Plus, she reads a lot of novels. So Linda is the perfect person to work on “Calvin.”
Within a week or two, she’ll have ready a few “treatments” that we’ll share with Roy for his reaction and input, then she’ll massage the look until everyone involved says, “Yes – that’s it!” After that, it’s simply a matter of styling all the text and images, a few more editing passes, then off to the printer!
OK…maybe that’s a bit reductive, but we are now moving along apace – it won’t be long before “Calvin” is in your hands.
And when it’s off to the printer, I may indulge in a little treatment for myself…in the form of a bottle of 12-year Pappy’s.
— Megan Fitzpatrick
Studley Tool Chest Exhibit FAQs
With the exhibit of the Studley Tool Chest and Workbench only nine months away (May 15-17, 2015, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa), I find myself fielding a lot of similar questions in email and conversations. So I took the time to create at Frequently Asked Questions compilation that I will put up on the website www.studleytoolchest.com (where you can get tickets) after this blog post at LAP runs its course.
— Don Williams
How did the exhibit for the Studley Tool Chest come about?
Two years ago while studying the chest in person for the forthcoming book “Virtuoso,” I interviewed the owner for background material for the manuscript. At one point I asked, “Do you ever think about exhibiting the chest?” He smiled and just said, “I probably should, shouldn’t I?” A year later we spoke again and he agreed for me to do it.
Why is the exhibit in Cedar Rapids, Iowa?
For starters, one of the requirements by the owner was that the exhibit, “Be nowhere close to where I live.” Cedar Rapids fits that description pretty well. Plus, when I visited Jameel and Father John Abraham after Handworks in May 2013, we were just brainstorming and agreed that they needed to organize Handworks II, and having a Studley Exhibit in Cedar Rapids concurrent with Handworks II (only 20 miles away in the Amana Colonies) would be a great idea.
Did you consider any other site for the exhibit? I mean, I’d never even heard of Cedar Rapids before.
Originally I scouted out the Rural Masonic Lodge in Quincy, Mass., because it was the home Lodge to Henry O. Studley. I even visited there last fall to explore the possibility. Four days later a catastrophic fire gutted the building, so that option was no longer on the table. The Scottish Rite Temple in Cedar Rapids is a spectacular site, and it will be the perfect venue. It was important to my vision to place the exhibit in an elegant Masonic building and one where the exhibit could be featured, not simply lost into a maze of a mega-programming institution. In the end I did not consider a huge city because I dislike cities. Well, I did think about Cincinnati, but is it really a city? Isn’t it more like a big town?
Why is the exhibit only three days long?
Much of that is simple practicality. My agreement with the chest’s owner requires me to be on-site with the exhibit all the time it is open to the public. Three days of the exhibit (plus at least three days of packing, shipping and installation on either side) was about all I think I could take. Besides, the host site is a busy place and I did not want to take a chance on not being able to have the exhibit there.
Are there any plans to extend the exhibit, or put it someplace closer to civilization if I can’t make it to Cedar Rapids for those three days?
No.
Why are tickets so expensive?
The answer is fairly straightforward. First, if you think the ticket price ($25) is high I guess you have never been to a good play or the ballet, or a ballgame (even minor league games cost more, once you factor in everything). Second, the ticket price is in fact a bare-bones reflection of the project’s budget. Feel free to price out the cost of a secured transport service to move around a collection like this, or the cost of insuring The Studley Tool Chest, or the fabrication of exhibit cases and platforms, or the rental and security of a prominent public building, or the theatrical lighting necessary… Best outcome? Every single ticket sells, and I will only be out almost a thousand hours donated for this labor of love. I would do this again in a heartbeat. Third, I wanted to make sure the visitor’s experience was amazing. Hence, the very few number of visitor slots.
What do you mean, “visitor experience” and “low visitor slots?”
My concept for this was to allow each visitor to get an in-depth exposure to the chest. So the exhibit will be quite spare, only four or five artifact stations, and each visitor will be in a 50-person group and spend 50 uninterrupted minutes with the exhibit. The docents and I will make sure everyone gets their turn to get as close as possible to the cabinet (about 4” to 6”). At the end of the 50 minutes each group will be ushered out and the Plexiglas vitrine housing the tool cabinet will be cleaned to remove any fingerprints, nose imprints and drool, so everything will be perfect for the next group.
Couldn’t you get some corporate sponsors to help cut the costs?
I did check into that, but the initial inquiries and responses led me to believe it was not a fruitful path. So I decided to take personal financial risk and pay for it entirely out of my own pocket.
So nobody is helping you?
A great many people have volunteered to help in ways large and small, ranging from web site development and maintenance, serving as docents, packing and setup/take-down crews. All tolled there are more than two dozen people involved, and all are donating their time and (for the most part) their out-of-pocket expenses.
Will you be mailing me my tickets?
No. The ticket purchases are recorded electronically. I will print the entire list out, then check you off the list and hand you your timed ticket when you check in at the Scottish Rite Temple. You will show it at the door of the exhibit hall and be ushered in. Just to make sure, it would be a good idea to bring your PayPal receipt with you just in case we miss something.
