Lost Art Press

A 1930s French Take on the Roorkee

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French architect and designer Jean-Charles Moreux reimagined the Roorkee chair in the 1930s by imposing classical column details to the chair’s turned legs.

Note how the top turnings – once the handle for moving the original design around camp – have been shaped into a classical column, complete with entasis. Other interesting points (from a maker’s perspective):

• The joints are blind instead of through.
• The front legs are asymmetrical, note the top of the leg where the armrest goes.
• The armrests attach with twist-lock fasteners. I’ve seen this detail on some other later versions of this chair.
• The only odd design choice (to my eye) is the gothic lancet arch shape at the top of the rear legs. Combining gothic and neo-classical shapes always looks wrong to my eye.

If you are interested in seeing more photos (or purchasing these chairs), visit the seller’s web site via 1stdibs.

— Christopher Schwarz

New DVD: Six Board Chest

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six-board-chest-cover_700We’ve just received our stock of the “Six Board Chest” DVD I shot with Lie-Nielsen in 2012. It’s my second “long-form” DVD at 120 minutes long and is focused as much on the techniques as the chest itself. And there are mistakes and fixes galore.

This style of chest is one of the pieces in my next book, “Furniture of Necessity.”

The official DVD description:

Six-board chests have been a part of human culture for centuries. And while building them is no mystery, building them quickly and entirely by hand is a window into the pre-industrial woodworker’s mindset.

Constructing a six-board chest is a good introduction to working efficiently with hand tools and quickly understanding that hand woodworking is very dissimilar to machine woodworking. Different things are important. And the order of operations is critical.

In July 2012, I spent a week at the Lie-Nielsen Toolworks shops filming this DVD on building a six-board chest using sugar pine. Like the “Build a Shaker Side Table” DVD, this was shot in real time with me narrating every operation. And narrating every mistake and every fix.

As a result, this DVD isn’t merely about the steps to build the chest. During the 120 minutes I cover stock dimensioning, panel flattening, cutting curves, making rabbets and dado and nails. There’s a bit on miters, hand-cut moulding and milk paint as well.

If you are at the beginning stages of woodworking or switching to hand-tool woodworking, I think you will find this DVD useful.

The DVD also includes a short glossary and a SketchUp file of the six-board chest that illustrates the construction steps.

The DVD is $40 and is available in the Lost Art Press store here or at Lie-Nielsen Toolworks.

— Christopher Schwarz

Retailers for ‘Campaign Furniture’

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cover_test_solid2“Campaign Furniture” is off to the printer, and I have the color proofs sitting at my feet. We’re working on getting the cover to our liking (it’s still rough so be still your sharp tongues) and we have been reaching out to our retailers to see if they would like to carry this title.

When the book is released in early March, here are the retailers that have (so far) signed on:

More to come, we hope.

Also, if you don’t read my blog at Popular Woodworking Magazine, you might be interested in this entry on the Douro chair. The first person to get me access to an original Douro chair gets the first autographed copy of “Campaign Furniture.”

— Christopher Schwarz

Download: A Visit to Christopher Clarke Ltd.

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I cannot thank Sean and Simon Clarke of Christopher Clarke Antiques Ltd. enough for their assistance with “Campaign Furniture.” While many antiques dealers are hesitant to help woodworking writers with information or photographs, the Clarkes allowed me to visit their store and were happy to help.

If you cannot go to Stow-on-the-Wold and visit the brothers’ storefront, the next best thing is to visit the Clarke’s web site, campaignfurniture.com, which is a gold mine of images and information (click on the “stock page” numbers at the top to start your journey).

I have compiled some of my best photographs into a high-resolution pdf for you to download. There are some good photos of the joinery on a chest and a few interesting chairs and tables, too.

Download the free pdf here: CF_DESIGN_CLARKES

— Christopher Schwarz

Proof that Schwartz is a Blinking Idiot and Should be Ignored

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Look at that moron. He’s obviously holding a Moxon-style saw (see plate 4, the unlabeled saw above the whetting block) and he is using a four-fingered grip. I mean, do you need to see another scrap of evidence that “the Schwarcz” is just a self-promoting pretender?

Just a journalist? Ha, he’s barely a boy.

Look, I’m willing to ignore the boy’s poor fashion choices. It was 1975, and the open-collared shirt and ox-blood cords are not his fault. But his fly is undone! It’s foreshadowing that he obviously wants to violate each and every woodworker on the planet with his misinformation on saws, planes and workbenches.

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Speaking of workbenches, Master Schwarz, what the heck is up with that thing in the photo? Clearly you are willing to preach your French three-dimensional clamping surface crap while using a bench that clearly violates every single one of the principles in your two workbench books.

Hypocrite.

And look at the tool chest the little pretender has “built.” More like the “Entropist’s Tool Chest” if you ask me. Bet that thing fell apart in about five minutes. Hard to believe anyone has actually built the “chest from his “book” – everyone knows chests are built from poplar or oak, not pine.

And one more thing: That’s a plainishing hammer on the benchtop, not a joiner’s hammer. And I assume the Scotch tape on the bench was used in substitute for real joinery.

<drops the mic>

— Charlie Roberts (my real name’s nunya business)