Our latest book, “Campaign Furniture,” is now available in our store for immediate shipment from our warehouse. Domestic orders placed before April 5, 2014, will receive free shipping.
The cost is $33 for the hardbound book. A pdf download of the book is $14. Or you can order both for $39. Full details are available in our store here.
“Campaign Furniture” will also be available from retailers here and abroad. Shipments of the book are on their way to these retailers, though we do not know when they will begin selling it. Here are the retailers that have agreed to stock the book:
Like all Lost Art Press books, “Campaign Furniture” is produced entirely in the United States. The book is in a 6” x 9” format and hardbound. The interior is in full color and printed on paper that is heavy and coated with a matte finish for readability. The interior signatures are sewn for long-term durability.
All copies sold through the Lost Art Press web site are signed by the author via a letterpress bookplate.
Our latest book, “Campaign Furniture,” will be on sale in our store on Friday with free domestic shipping (until April 5, 2014). The shipment of books arrived in our Indianapolis warehouse today, and the fulfillment service is getting everything ready to ship.
The hardbound book will be $33. The pdf version of the book will be $14. You can order both for the discounted price of $39.
In the meantime, we have prepared a free chapter for you to download. This short chapter is on building the campaign stool, one of the simpler projects in the book. We’ve received a lot of questions about the stool after we sold 100 of the tribolts for the stool last month. (If you want one of the tribolts now, you can buy them direct from Mike Siemsen, who made the bolts for us. Click here to order one – same price, same shipping arrangement.)
Be aware that it is more than 12mb – so if you have dial-up, go to your local library.
Also, as promised, here is a description of the physical book and a table of contents:
Like all Lost Art Press books, “Campaign Furniture” is produced entirely in the United States. The book is in a 6” x 9” format, 334 pages and hardbound. The interior is in full-color and printed on paper that is heavy and coated with a matte finish for readability. The interior signatures are sewn for long-term durability.
Appendices
A. Roubo on Campaigning… 269
B. India’s Joiners, by George Cecil… 279
C. Army & Navy Stores… 285
Acknowledgements…318
Further Reading…319
Index…323
Hardware Sources…331
The book is available only through Lost Art Press and our small network of retailers.
“The Furniture of Necessity” book will be written, illustrated and printed in the same spirit as the pieces of furniture between its covers. Instead of relying on SketchUp and digital photographs, the engraver will be making the plates for this book using the actual pieces as her guide.
While this will turn me into a furniture mover for the next 12 months, it also will result in illustrations that are rich in detail and unsanitized, unpasturized and un-homogenized. It will be like drinking the design warm from the the teat of (oh stop this line of thought now).
Today I finished up the six-board chest for the book by nailing on the escutcheon plate to the front. There will be no fake keyholes or keys or hat-tips to modern living. These pieces will work in the same way they worked 300 years ago.
I now have two of the pieces complete for the book. Twelve more to go.
John looked under the bench and found a piece of wood which he thought would do for a wedge, only the end wanted sharpening.
“Shall I take your broad chisel and sharpen it?” said he.
“No,” said Ebenezer. “I have not taught you to use the chisel yet, and it would not be safe.”
“What would be the danger?” asked John, —”that I should cut my fingers?”
“No,” replied Ebenezer. “I am not afraid of that. We don’t usually give ourselves much concern about our apprentice’s fingers. The damage that I fear is, that you might dull my chisel, and that would be of much more consequence. You see if you cut your fingers, they will get well of themselves, after a little time; but it would make me a great deal of trouble to sharpen up my chisel, if you were to get it dull.”
(John then proceeds to finish sawing a board, and Ebenezer comes to inspect the result.)
“Have I sawed it pretty straight?” John asked.
“We don’t praise apprentices much,” said Ebenezer, “especially when they are beginning, for fear it should make them conceited. People that know very little are always apt to be very vain of what little they do know.”
I get asked about the equipment I use to take the photographs for this blog, my magazine articles and the books at Lost Art Press.
I think that equipment has little to do with photography. But don’t tell that to the people on photography message boards. If you think the woodworking forums are kooky at times, they are Romper-Room in comparison to the ones on photo equipment.
Until December, my photo equipment was one small notch above the Harbor Freight level. And while I’d rather talk about composition, lighting, depth of field and exposure, I’d like to get the equipment discussion out of the way. I’ll discuss the more important stuff at a later date.
When we bring a new author on board at Lost Art Press, here is what we tell them about equipment.
Tripod
The one place I’ll never skimp is on the tripod. It is the workbench of the photography world. I have a 20-year-old Bogen/Manfrotto tripod that I’ve rebuilt twice. You can find these pods on Craigslist. Even if they are beat to heck, they can be easily brought back. They were designed to last forever.
Many exposures in the workshop and with furniture can be quite long, so a good tripod is non-negotiable.
An SLR
Any entry-level digital SLR will do the job. I find camera bodies to be disposable. The lenses are where I’ll spend money because those will be with you forever. Until I recently bought a “prosumer” camera, I used Canon Rebel bodies. I don’t give a crap about megapixels. I just buy the camera with the largest sensor that is on sale.
You want a camera that can easily drop into full-manual mode. If you can’t manually adjust the f-stop, shutter speed and focus, the camera will frustrate you in the shop. The exposure meters in cameras are not your friend. The auto-focus is not your friend.
Full manual. Full manual. Full manual.
One last detail, the camera should be able to shoot RAW files (most cameras do). It is much easier to control everything (color, exposure, sharpness etc.) in the frame with a RAW file.
Lighting
A good set of lights can cost as much as a car. Luckily, you those are not the lights you are looking for. I recommend a low-cost continuous lighting system that uses CF bulbs, such as this Cowboy Studio system. Yup, the whole three-light rig is $60 and it is all you need to photograph your furniture and work at the bench.
Yeah, it’s not an Italian light setup. It’s a lot of plastic, and you need to be careful not to break the bulbs. But for the amateur (or someone writing their first book) I think it’s perfect.
The two umbrellas diffuse the light and make things nice and flat. Then you can use the third light to create shadows or highlight some part of the frame.
A Cable Release
One last thing, get a cable release for your camera. This will minimize camera shakes during long exposures. If you are too cheap to buy a cheap cable release, use the self-timer on your camera.
Our latest book, “Campaign Furniture,” is now available in our store for immediate shipment from our warehouse. Domestic orders placed before April 5, 2014, will receive free shipping.
