Lost Art Press

Clocking Screws on a Campaign Trunk

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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The following is a composite of letters I’ve received about my personal problem of clocking screws. Note that I don’t think you should clock your screws. in fact, I don’t think you should even think about clocking screws. Think instead about screws with slots at all random angles.

— Christopher Schwarz

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Dear Mr. Swartz,

I just read your article about clocking screws and I don’t know where you get the idea that professional cabinetmakers ever clocked their screws. Clocking screws means the screws are either over-tightened or under-tightened, so it is a mark of a poor craftsman with a mental problem.

I bet you line up all your pencils on your desk. Or lick light switches.

Woodworkers wouldn’t have taken the time to clock screws anyway.

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I’ll bet you got all your little Communist flags all lined up in your caviar bowls when you have your little anarchist friends over to talk about your anarchosyndicate communes. And you line up your pita crisps, too.

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Oh, and good woodworkers never overcut their baselines when dovetailing, either. That – like clocking screws – is just sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.

God Bless America, you Red Overcutting Screw Clocker.

— Lord Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftsbury

Last Chance for Free Shipping on Roubo

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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There are only three more days left to order “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry” with free domestic shipping. After Oct. 10, shipping will be $7 or $8.

Today I received my advance copy of the standard edition of the book, and it is impressive. The paper is heavy and bright, making the text and plates really leap from the page. The binding, as per usual, is nice and tight. It is a substantial chunk of a book.

To order it with free shipping, click here. This is our final reminder – I’m off to Charleston, S.C., to see my dad and then Pittsboro, N.C., to teach. So I won’t be around to nag you.

I made a short video of the book so you can see what it looks like. I have spared you the banjo tunes this time and have used Bach’s “French Suite 4” as covered by Slayer (kidding about the Slayer part).

Click here to see the video. WordPress’s embedding function is sub-functional today.

“To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry” will start shipping to customers after Woodworking in America next week.

— Christopher Schwarz

Let the R2 Games Begin!

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Late next week some time, the back-and-forth flow of edited manuscripts for “To Make As Perfectly As Possible: Roubo on Furniture Making,” or “R2” for short in our internal correspondence, will begin between me and Michele Pagan, eventually making their way to my external readers for contextual critiques, and finally to Philippe Lafargue for the ultimate smoothing of the 18th-century French-into-English.

The details of the working process are a little too “inside baseball” to recount here, but I trust the headaches we had with traffic-control on the first volume will be reduced for the second through a much more streamlined process (my directory holds almost a thousand documents for R1). It better be. “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Furniture Making” is almost exactly twice as large as “Roubo On Marquetry.” I can almost see Chris and John reflexively grabbing to protect the corporate wallet. The latter volume took us six-and-a-half years, we are hoping for the former to be complete and on Chris’ desk by this coming spring.

We’re going in.  Wish us good fortune!

— Don Williams

P.S. – Here’s a teaser. For the recent French Oak Roubo Project, Philippe and I worked intensely on the contents of Plate 11 so that I could print and present a polished manuscript on 85# parchment paper – the “owner’s manual” as Jameel Abraham called it – to each participant. I hope it is not unseemly that I believe the result was totally awesome. I hope Chris will bring his copy to WIA for you to see for yourself. My copy is somewhere in  the multitude of boxes in The Barn.

Beware of the Saw

Posted on by fitz

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A hoosier, on a visit to Cincinnati, a few days ago, called on a business at a planing machine establishment in the Third Ward. The planing department had not yet been started but a small circular saw, which was set nearly at the edge of the bench, and projected a scant inch above its surface, was in full blast. Mr. Green, as the hoosier may be called, looked around, but finding nobody visible, concluded to seat himself on the bench while awaiting somebody’s appearance. Neither noticing nor mistrusting anything, he squatted plumb upon the saw—one spring nearly to the ceiling, and a pitch forward to the floor, indicated his astonishment at finding an incision of six inches in the length of his seat. His cries brought assistance. Dr. Eaton closed the flesh wound, and a skilful tailor that in the pantaloons.

Scientific American – November 25, 1848

—Jeff Burks

Don’s Vices are Vises (or is that Vises are Vices?)

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Don Williams, the primary force of nature behind “To Make as Perfectly as Possible,” is a man of few vices but many vises.

He doesn’t drink, smoke, curse or even drink coffee. But the man will travel to the ends of the earth to examine pianomakers’ vises. This peculiar, beautiful and woefully undocumented form is featured prominently on H.O. Studley’s workbench. And so Don has spent weeks researching, restoring and examining original pianomaker’s vises.

He has been documenting his findings on his blog. Have you bookmarked it yet? You should.

Here are some recent entries on these cool vises.

Searching for Studley-esque Vises in New England 2013
New England Vise Tour Day #1
New England Vise Tour – Days 2 and 3
Vise Tour Day #4 — Meeting the Studley Tool Cabinet’s Previous Owner
New England Vise Tour 2013 — Days 5,6, and 7

Keep track of Don’s blog and the cool things he does at his web site: donsbarn.com.

— Christopher Schwarz