It’s a remarkably slow weekend here in our house, so while waiting for some servers to wake up and get busy on our new Lost Art Press web site, I pulled together another short booklet of images for you to download.
This download contains images of campaign-style chairs. They are mostly Roorkees and their variants, but I’ve included some other chair and stool images for you to study.
Here’s the link: CF_DESIGN_CHAIR
— Christopher Schwarz
I am sorry that I gave you geometry homework yesterday. To make it up to you, I cobbled together a 60-page document of more than 100 campaign chests, plus construction and hardware details.
You can download the pdf document here: CF_DESIGN. It’s about 17mb, in color and the pages are in 6×9 format. That’s the same form factor as the book “Campaign Furniture” and leaves plenty of room for you to make notes in the margins on an 8-1/2” x 11” sheet of paper.
I offer these images without comment or details other than what is shown in the photos. Most chests are fairly standard in size (40” L x 40” W x 17” D), so you should be able to figure out the proportions and details on your own if you want to reproduce one of these chests.
To be honest, I made this document so you can train your eye to appreciate this somewhat non-standard form. I hope that you will design your own chest using the details you like.
If I have time, I hope to produce some more documents like this on chairs, trunks and bookcases before “Campaign Furniture” is released in early March.
— Christopher Schwarz
Every year we try to offer our readers a little gift during the holidays. Last year was an mp3 of “The Irish Joiner,” before that was Henry Adams’ rare “Joints in Woodwork.”
This year, we offer you lateness.
John Hoffman and I have been working around the clock to build a new Lost Art Press web site and get our book fulfillment handled by a local company so we can spend more time making books than mailing them.
Oh, and I’ve been working on a little book called “Campaign Furniture.”
But today I had a few moments of free time to pull together something special for you. It relates to one of the book we released this year: “By Hand & Eye” by George Walker and Jim Tolpin. In all honesty, we have been shocked by how well the book has been selling since its release in mid-2013. We are already in our second printing.
After talking to students in classes and at shows all over the world, I have heard the following question: I love this book, so what is the next step?
As Obi-Wan Kenobi says, it’s “the first step into a larger world.” And that is the world of geometry, which is more important to our craft than math or even reading.
I am not certain what George and Jim would recommend, but I heartily recommend you investigate some of the basic (very basic) manuals designed for beginning mechanics that were written in the 19th century. My favorite of the basic manuals is Peter Nicholson’s “Mechanic’s Companion,” which was written as a sequel to Joseph Moxon’s “Mechanick’s Exercises” (1678).
Unlike Moxon, Nicholson was a practitioner with a traditional training. And as a result, his book is more detailed. I own the 1845 edition of Nicholson. And while I know you can get copies of it on GoogleBooks, I decided to scan his chapter on basic geometry for you at a high resolution (800 dpi – almost good enough for a decent web press).
It’s a much prettier scan than you’ll get from Google, and I hope you will download it, read it and attempt some of the lessons. It’s a short chapter, but not a single word is wasted. (Oh, there is one error, but I’ll leave that for you to find.)
If you can master this short chapter, next year I’ll post the next stage of a geometry education for a mechanic.
Download the low-resolution pdf here (less than 3mb).
Download the high-resolution pdf (197mb) from Jeff Burks server here. (Thanks Jeff!).
— Christopher Schwarz
This is a New Zealand saw fitting shop. Mr. Fraser surely seems to have a pretty complete assortment, and it is interesting to note from his letter that Disston Saws are in almost universal use in New Zealand.
Henry Disston & Sons, Inc., 238 St. Asaph St.,
Philadelphia, Pa. Christchurch, N.Z.
Gentlemen:
I have forwarded you a photo which no doubt will be of interest, being a saw repair shop in New Zealand, and shows that over ninety per cent. of the saws in use here are Disstons, and with my sixteen years experience as a saw expert, with Mr. S. Frasee, whose photo is shown, but now has returned after over fifty years both working and repairing saws.
We are both of the same opinion that Disston Saws excel all others.
Wishing you continuous success, I remain,
Yours, etc.
Robert J. Fraser.
The Disston Crucible – May 1916
(more…)
After much wrangling of numbers, pixels and typos, we have almost all the details set for our next book, “Campaign Furniture.”
The book will go to press on Monday and be available in early March. We will take orders on the day the book arrives in our warehouse and begin shipping it immediately. All orders placed during the first 30 days of ordering will receive free domestic shipping.
The book will be $33. We tried to beat it lower, but we were going to have to sacrifice the paper weight or a critical manufacturing detail to reduce the price (and eat).
The book will be 344 pages and printed in a 6” x 9” format. The paper will be an #80 matte coated paper, which is heavy, bright white and takes exceptional detail. It is the same paper we used in “By Hand & Eye.”
The book will be casebound, Smythe sewn and have contrasting headbands. The endsheets (the paper between the cover and the interior) will be a nice natural color.
The entire interior will be printed in color. Shots of finished furniture will be in full color. Step photos will be a duotone, as shown above.
Here is a final table of contents.
Preface…vii
1. Campaign Style 1
2. Campaign Woods 38
3. Campaign Hardware 52
4. Campaign Chests 82
5. Campaign Secretaries 122
6. Folding Camp Stool 138
7. Roorkee Chairs 154
8. Strong Trunk 190
9. Field Desk 214
10. Collapsible Bookshelves 234
11. Traveling Bookcase 248
Afterword… 265
Appendicies
A. Roubo on Campaign Furniture… 268
B. India’s Joiners, by George Cecil… 279
C. Army & Navy Stores… 284
Acknowledgements…318
Further Reading…319
Index…323
In the coming days we will offer this book to our retailers, both domestic and international. We’ll let you know which retailers will be carrying the book (it is their choice, of course).
The book will be available as a pdf on the same day the book is released in March. We plan to have a special price for those customers who wish to buy both a hardcopy and pdf.
I cannot wait until Monday. After this book heads to the printing plant, I get to dive into Peter Galbert’s book on chairs and Andrew Lunn’s “The Art of the Saw.”
— Christopher Schwarz