Design for a Tool Chest
George A. Jones of Palmetto Florida
Patented March 29, 1921 (D57,436)
– Jeff Burks
‘By Hand & Eye’ Now Shipping
“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.
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
Miscellaneous Wood Planes
Under the above heading there comes what are known as Fancy Planes. There are several manufacturers in this country who make these lines of Planes. Some make better planes than others and we try to procure the best. None of the American makes equal those of the best English and Scotch makers. The Englishman said of American beer, ‘They cawn’t make it you know, they aven’t the Ops,” and perhaps this is true of Moulding Planes, ”We haven’t the Beech you know.” As a matter of fact, for Moulding Planes, Spoke Shaves and similar tools the English and Scotch beechwood is greatly superior to the American, and the best Moulding Planes we have ever seen are those made by Mathieson, of Glasgow, Scotland.
While to a great extent the Combination Planes like the No. 45 are taking the place of the Moulding Planes, they do not by any means cover the entire ground. Where a considerable quantity of a certain kind of work is to be done, the Wood Planes are so much lighter and so much more convenient to handle, that it is not always the best economy to use a Combination Plane for this class of work.
We recently had an instance of this. A mechanic in boasting about the merits of his Combination Plane (a No. 45) stated that he had beaded 5,000 ft. of ceiling on a summer hotel job upon which he had been employed. We did not consider that this was very much to boast of, and think that any man who would use a plane weighing 3 ½ lbs. for six or eight days, when he might have bought a 1 Inch Bead Plane, weighing about 10 ounces, for 40 cents, and with it have done the work in 15 to 25 per cent less time, and with correspondingly less expenditure of strength, is rather closely related to that useful— though humble — animal, with kicking proclivities, long ears, and an unmusical voice.
The lines of Miscellaneous Planes shown here we usually carry in stock. Can furnish other sizes than those given here in many of the styles. Special sizes cost more, it takes time to procure them, and we would suggest that the stock—or listed—sizes be used whenever possible.
Chas. A. Strelinger & Co. – Detroit, Michigan 1897
– Jeff Burks
Update: Roubo, Studley & Handworks
We just wrapped up two days at the Handworks show in Amana, Iowa, and loaded almost nothing back into the van for the return trip – except for some T-shirts and one box of books.
Dang it was a good show.
With about 31 minutes left until my bedtime, here is a quick rundown of some of our current projects and their status.
‘To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry’
The layout and editing is complete, with us just cleaning up some typographical errors. Our goal: To get the deluxe book to the printer by the end of June. If we succeed, it will ship out at the end of July.
We are planning on printing 600 and we have sold more than 400 already. If you would like to place a $100 deposit on one, there is still time. Send an e-mail to john@lostartpress.com to get on the list. We hope to have a final price in early June.
The trade edition (which will cost about $60) will follow shortly behind to the press. More details on that as we know them.
‘Virtuoso: The Toolbox of H.O. Studley’
At Handworks, we made our first presentation that discussed this project in detail with an entire hour of photos, commentary and details on the tools in the chest and the life of H.O. Studley. If you weren’t there, I’m afraid you will have to wait until we publish the book for full details.
When will that be? Don’t hold your breath. Author Don Williams needs to complete the two Roubo volumes before the Studley book will come out. It will be at least two years before this book is in print. So save your pennies (it will be worth it).
Other updates on books:
‘By Hand & Eye’ by George R Walker and Jim Tolpin has arrived. It looks great and is entering the mail stream now.
‘Art of the Saw: Making Sharpening & Use’ by Andrew Lunn will be released in 2014 – Andrew is scheduled to turn the book over to us at the end of 2013.
‘Campaign Furniture’ by Christopher Schwarz will also be complete at the end of 2013 and released in early 2014.
‘Art of Joinery’ by Joseph Moxon. Megan Fitzpatrick is smoothing over the text a bit to make sure we have all the long “s” characters correct. I really want to get this out before Christmas.
Joiner’s Hats: Yup. We are making these and will have some more details in the coming weeks. If you don’t like baseball hats, you might like these. Or not.
That is the news on the latest products. I’ll post more about our new corporate sign and upcoming projects in the coming weeks.
— Christopher Schwarz
Dividing Saw Plates
An easy method of dividing plates of hardened steel, such as saw plates; and also of perforating them, when requisite.
Workmen frequently wish to divide a broken saw plate, for the purpose of converting it into scrapers, square-blades, or small saws; this is usually attempted by notching them to a small depth with a cold chisel, and then breaking them along the lines so made. When the plate is very hard, this method will not succeed, and the plate is frequently destroyed in the attempt. When it does succeed, the plate is generally twisted, and buckled, in the operation.
The Editor had a hard plate, which he was desirous of cutting into strips, to make small saws for a working model of a saw mill; this, although too hard to yield to the chisel, he divided with the utmost facility, piercing the ends at the same time, for the purpose of stretching the saws; this was effected in the following manner.
The saw plate was made sufficiently warm to melt bees-wax, which was then rubbed over it, so as to coat it completely on both sides, when it was suffered to cool. Lines were then drawn through the wax on both sides of the plate, with a steel point. It being of great importance that these lines should be exactly opposite to each other, this was effected by making a saw-kerf in the strip of wood which was used as a straight-edge, and the plate being placed in the kerf, the opposite lines were easily drawn. A mixture of sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol) and water had been prepared, and suffered to become cold; the proportions about one part of acid to six of water.
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