Lost Art Press

‘The Art of Joinery, Revised Edition’ Arrives

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aoj_cover_IMG_8095“The Art of Joinery, Revised Edition” by Joseph Moxon has arrived in our Indianapolis warehouse and pre-publication orders will begin shipping this weekend. All of our domestic and international retailers have agreed to carry the title, so if that’s where you shop, watch their web sites for information.

“The Art of Joinery” was the first book that Lost Art Press published in 2008, and original copies have been fetching $200, so we are relieved to have this book back in print.

For details on the editorial changes, updates and additions we made to this edition, read the description in our store here.

I received my advance copies of the new book this morning and am really amazed at how much our manufacturing has changed since 2008. This new book has the same basic configuration as the original, but the details are what I like.

We used colored endsheets and a rough edge on the signatures (sometimes called a deckle edge) to pay homage to early books. I know some customers have stated they don’t like the deckle edge, but I do. Feel free to trim your signatures.

Other small changes include the fact that we now round the back/spine of the book and have dialed in the “fore edge” with our manufacturer to where we like it. The fore edge is the amount the hardbound covers overhang the signatures.

And we have been able to purchase additional fonts that are appropriate to the time period of the original book and have added an index by Suzanne “the saucy indexer” Ellison.

In any case, if you haven’t ordered your copy yet, we have plenty now in our store.

— Christopher Schwarz

Pardon the Climax

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Death-of-Fursoot

“As I gazed on the turbaned crowds, the flaunting robes, the huge umbrellas, the passing palankeens, the black sentinels, the strange birds, and even (pardon the climax) the little striped squirrels, which gambolled up and down the pillars of the custom-house sights so new and strange to me, I almost began to doubt my own identity, and to think I had fallen into some new planet.”

— “Memoirs of a Griffin, or a Cadet’s First Year in India” by Capt. Ballew (Wm. H. Allen, 1880)

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Coming in 2014: The First English Translation of Félibien

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We are pleased to announce that one of the titles we will publish in 2014 is the first English translation of the woodworking sections of André Félibien’s “Princips de l’architecture…,” an important 17th-century book on the craft. “Princips de l’architecture…” was published before  Joseph Moxon’s “Mechanick Exercises,” and its plates were almost certainly copied by Moxon.

The translation will be performed by Brian Anderson, a France-based American woodworker who is a professional translator. Anderson has most recently translated the biography of A.-J. Roubo for “To Make as Perfectly as Possible” and the complete text of “Grandpa’s Workshop.”

The translation will be published in the fall of 2014 in its original 8” x 10” size and will feature all 65 plates of the 797-page book. The translated text will focus on all of the woodworking sections of “Princips de l’architecture…,” which covers a variety of topics from architecture to sculpture and fine-art painting.

Our translation will include Félibien’s entries on the following topics:

House carpentry
Furniture making
Blacksmithing (hinges, locks etc.)
Sculpture in wood (carving)
Woodturning
Marquetry
Guilding

In order to publish this translation, we have acquired an original copy of “Princips de l’architecture…” (the second edition), which is as fascinating as the original Roubo editions we purchased for “To Make as Perfectly as Possible.”

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Why translate Félibien? Well, after working for so many years with Joseph Moxon’s text, I became curious about Félibien’s earlier book. I purchased a reprint of the third edition and began translating bits and pieces to see how Moxon and Félibien compared. To my surprise, Félibien’s French wasn’t as difficult for me to deal with as Roubo’s. So I asked Brian Anderson to take a look. He concurred and is now engaged in translating the 30,000 or so words that Félibien wrote on woodworking.

We are still working out the details of the book and how we will make it, but rest assured we will create a nice edition that you will enjoy reading and will be affordable for all woodworkers. While we won’t be producing any special editions or leather-bound copies of this book, we will be selling an ebook version for customers who prefer that format.

For those of you who pay attention to our publishing schedule, 2014 will be a busy year. While we usually attempt to publish four titles per calendar year, we likely will publish six in 2014:

“Campaign Furniture”
“Doormaking and Window-Making”
“Windsor Chairs: A Foundation” by Peter’s Galbert
“Princips de l’architecture…”
“To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Furniture”
One last mystery book – to be revealed in the coming weeks.

Good thing I’m not teaching much in 2014. We have a lot of work ahead of us.

— Christopher Schwarz

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The Awaiting Campaign

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You might think that after 10 months of hard traveling on three continents that I’d be ready for the dirt nap.

But with my final teaching assignment of 2013 now behind me, I am sitting in a hotel in San Marcos, Texas, with a beer (New Belgium’s Ranger) and a smile on my face as I plan a brutal schedule for the next 58 days.

By Dec. 31, I will finish my book “Campaign Furniture.” I have only two more projects to build and about half of the text of the book already written. And I have reached the point with the book where I am vomiting out more words than I am taking in via my research – an important tipping point.

I really don’t give a crap if you buy this book. Or if you like campaign furniture. Or if you care for the interesting book design I’ve been contriving. Like all of the books I’ve written, this is just something I am compelled to do.

Now I’ve got to go to sleep. I have to dream up a wack-nutty filing jig and catch a plane before sunrise that will take me back to my shop.

— Christopher Schwarz

Dutch Tool Chest, Day 1

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One of the cool things about the Wortheffort school of woodworking is the workbenches. Shawn Graham, the brains and back behind the school, built enough for 13 students and the instructor. Almost all of the benches are very basic Roubo designs made from construction timber.

No tail vises.

Workholding is all done with leg vises (no garters!), small Moxon-style vises for the benchtops and holdfasts.

All the vises, including the leg vises, use wooden-thread screws, which I think Shawn made himself.

I feel right at home in this shop environment, and it’s fun to show students how versatile these simple benches are.

The only downside is the leg vises are all so new that they screech when you use them. When all the students started to clamp their work up simultaneously, it sounded like someone was clubbing the Vienna Baby Seal Choir.

— Christopher Schwarz

Today we will work like heck to get these chests done. This is a three-day class crammed into two days.