Lost Art Press

On Your Feet

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Today I made the feet for my teak campaign chest. From the outside, this looks like a one-hour job: Turn the feet and their tenons. Glue the tenons into holes in the four square base blocks.

But many campaign chests have removable feet that unscrew from the base blocks. So if you want to do it right, it’s a bit more complex.

I tapped the base blocks with a 1-1/2” tap – the largest I have. Then I screwed the base blocks to the underside of the base.

I turned the teak feet – the quickest part of the day – and bored out their centers with a 1-3/8” x 1-1/2”-deep mortise. To join the feet to the case, I made maple tenons that fit snug into their feet and threaded the tops so they would screw into their base blocks.

Finally, I threaded the tenons into the base blocks and glued the feet onto the tenons – rotating them so they would show the nice cathedral grain facing front.

I turned the chest on its feet and stepped back to look at my day’s work.

Very unimpressive for six hours of futzing around.

— Christopher Schwarz

Mechanics’ Tools

Posted on by fitz

Mechanics_Tools
The first thought that comes into my mind concerning this subject is borrowing and lending tools. I wish I were able to do this part of the subject full justice, but perhaps space in Carpentry and Building would not be available for me to enlarge upon it. When I began the trade it was expected that every journeyman should furnish his own tools to work with. Nowadays it seems to be that each one expects some one else to furnish him tools. It is said, and I believe it is true, that there is no other trade which has so large a proportion of botches to skilled workmen as that of carpentry. The question arises—why is it so? It seems to me that borrowing tools causes more of it than all other reasons put together. This perhaps is a broad assertion, but arguments can be advanced in proof of it.
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H.O. Studley Shirts Now in Stock

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Our H.O. Studley T-shirts are now for sale in our store for $20 plus domestic shipping. The front of the shirt features the engraved nameplate fastened to Henry O. Studley’s famous tool chest. The back of the shirts have the name of the forthcoming book by Don Williams: “Virtuoso: The Toolbox of Henry O. Studley.”

These T-shirts are made from 90-percent cotton/10 percent polyester by American Apparel in California. The screen printing is done in Indiana. Sizes available are medium, large, x-large and XXL.

To order a shirt, visit our store here.

— Christopher Schwarz

‘By Hand & Eye’ Now Shipping

Posted on by Lost Art Press

BHAE_cover_IMG_6202“By Hand & Eye” by George R. Walker and Jim Tolpin is now available for immediate shipment from Lost Art Press. Our retailers – Lee Valley Tools, Lie-Nielsen Toolworks and Tools for Working Wood – have received their shipments and will have the book in their stores shortly.

If you wish to order the book from our store, click here. It is $34 plus shipping.

This is our most ambitious book to date, especially in the manufacturing. This book is full color and printed on a heavy #80-pound matte stock that is very white and took the ink beautifully. As with all our books, “By Hand & Eye” is Smythe sewn, casebound and produced entirely in the United States.

Here are some details on the other editions of “By Hand & Eye.”

Leather-bound books. I am taking 26 blocks to Ohio Book tomorrow for them to bind them in leather. We will use the brown leather with an aged finish, like we did with “Mouldings in Practice.” When those are finished – I hope in six weeks – we will put them in the store. They will be $185 – domestic shipping is included.

Electronic editions. Because of the complex layouts in “By Hand & Eye,” we will not be able to offer it in ePub or Kindle formats. We simply are not happy with the way the book looks in these formats. So we will instead offer it in pdf format, which will work on both iPad and Kindles. I should have that available in the store within a week.

One last thing: We are still building a webpage that we discuss in the book and are having some trouble with the url. Until I get that sorted out, you can download the animations referred to in the book (with complete instructions) using the link below.

~By Hand & Eye Animations

The file is zipped. Simply double-click it to decompress the file. Inside the folder you will find instructions (read them, please!). The animations will work with every browser we have tried.

I hope you enjoy reading the book as much as I enjoyed editing and working on it with George, Jim and the main editor, Megan Fitzpatrick.

— Christopher Schwarz