Lost Art Press

Real-work Repair

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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I’m sure you’ve heard this: What separates a good woodworker from a great one is his or her ability to hide mistakes.

Which is complete and utter crap in my opinion.

The really fantastic woodworkers I have worked with don’t make many mistakes at all. What they do encounter – like all of us – are times when the material fails. A weak spot in the grain breaks off or a tool encounters something unexpected in the wood.

These problems do require repair, and that is a good skill to have.

While there have been books and articles written about repairing woodwork, I’ve found them lacking. Usually the “mistake” was created by the person writing the article. So it usually requires a simple and straightforward fix.

And that is rare in the world of woodworking.

So here is a real-world repair I had to make last night on the campaign chest I’m building. After about 160 dovetails in the case and drawers, I was assembling the final joint when a corner of one of the tails disintegrated.

The joint was perfect enough. The wood was unexpectedly weak because of a resin pocket in the pine.

The bad news was that the part that crumbled went missing into the shavings. The good news is that I wouldn’t have wanted to use it anyway.

Step. 1. Stabilize the existing wood. I cut away anything that seemed loose or could be crumbled away with my thumb.

Step 2. Make a surface for joinery. Using a chisel, I cut the wounded wood until it was a regular rabbet. I measured the width of the rabbet at both its wide and narrow ends.

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Step 3. Make a patch. Using the drawer’s pin board as a template, I drew in the shape of the patch I needed on a piece of scrap pine. Then I sawed out the patch and smoothed the part with a block plane.

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Step 4. I glued up the drawer without the patch. Then I glued the patched in place, driving it in with a mallet. Finally I sawed and planed the patch flush. Right before I finish the piece I’ll draw in some grain lines to imitate the pitch – probably with a sharp permanent marker (orange ink).

— Christopher Schwarz

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Comings and Goings at Lost Art Press

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ty_IMG_0550Two big changes are afoot at Lost Art Press that are worth note.

1. Ty Black, my shop assistant, is moving to Jacksonville, Fla., with his wife and kids. They’ll be setting up shop down there is due time, and I hope that Ty will still be able to contribute to what we do here in the Midwest.

Ty’s been working in my shop three days a week since August and has made himself quite valuable. He volunteered to work here unpaid and could come and go as he pleased. As I never – ever – want to manage any employees, that’s the only arrangement I could bear.

However, I did hire him as a freelancer to work on several Lost Art Press projects. The biggest one – the one I cannot talk about – took him months of scanning and coding. When we announce that project (soon!), you will fully appreciate his skills and his time served here.

2. John Hoffman, my business partner at Lost Art Press, is leaving his day job with the government at the end of May to work full time for Lost Art Press.

I could not be more excited about this.

Though I am frequently the face and the name that goes with Lost Art Press, John is an equal partner in this business. Without his behind-the-scenes work on the business, Lost Art Press would still be puny. As it stands, we are growing fast enough to support our families and continue to publish four titles (or more) a year.

While I am sad to see Ty move (who will eat at Eli’s with me?), I cannot overstate how important it is that John is going to be working on Lost Art Press all day, every day.

So stay tuned.

— Christopher Schwarz

Wood Bench Planes

Posted on by fitz

Chas. A. Strelinger & Co 1897

Many of the best mechanics prefer the Wood Bench Planes to the Iron and combination iron and wood planes, but have been compelled to use the latter, owing to the poor quality of the wood bench planes commonly sold.

The fact is that the majority of Wood Plane makers for several years past have been trying so hard to find out how cheaply they could make planes, that they have forgotten all about what a good plane means, and the result is that 90 per cent of the wood planes sold in the stores are almost good for nothing, and the other 10 per cent are but little better. The wood is unseasoned and spongy, and the irons so poor that they hardly hold an edge from the oilstone to the work.

It is a positive fact that a first-class double Plane Iron cannot be made and sold at the price that many of the so-called first quality planes are sold at complete.

We have before us a catalogue just issued by a firm who deal quite extensively in mechanics’ tools. In this catalogue the net selling price of a so-called first-class Smooth Plane with 2 ¼ inch double iron, is $0.56. We quote from the description of these planes, “The irons are guaranteed to be the best in the world.” Turning over a page or two we come to Plane Irons priced separately, and find that 2 ¼ inch double plane irons are sold at $0.58. Quoting again from the description of the Plane Irons, “These Plane Irons are guaranteed to be the best made.” It seems a little funny that the “Best irons in the world” should sell at $0.56 with the balance of the plane thrown in, while the “best made” plane iron only, is held at a price of about 4 per cent higher.

The brand of Plane Irons referred to is of excellent quality; in past years we have sold quantities of them, but, in our judgment, they are very far from being the “Best made,” and will not compare favorably with the Plane Irons made by any of the better class of English makers—say Moulson Bros., I. Sorby, Spear & Jackson, or Ward & Payne, French plane irons made by Peugeot Freres, or American plane irons made by Buck Bros.

Our Bench Planes

As we could find no Bench Planes in the market that are suitable for our class of trade, we are compelled to have these planes made to our special order. All of our planes are made of well-seasoned Eastern Beech, are oiled, polished and shellaced; they have steel starts, and the jack, fore and jointer planes have bolted handles. The plane irons used are the Ward & Payne (Sheffield) brand, and if these irons are not the “Best in the world,”they are certainly equal to any, and are the best we have ever been able to find. Every plane is stamped with our name, and we do not believe that the equal of these planes can be found elsewhere.

Chas. A. Strelinger & Co. – Detroit, Michigan 1897

– Jeff Burks

Free Download: ‘Smith’s Key’

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f47.highresOne of the “Rosetta Stones” of 18th-century tool forms is a book with the long-winded title “Explanation or Key, to the various manufactories of Sheffield: with engravings of each article designed for the utility of merchants, wholesale ironmongers and travellers.” Most people just call it “Smith’s Key” because the editor/engraver was Joseph Smith.

What is it? It’s collection of beautiful plates of all sorts of tools for woodworking, some other trades and a big section of cutlery, always a popular item in Sheffield, England.

The Early American Industries Association published a reprint of it in 1975 with a nice essay by John S. Kebabian and an important price list. According to the Kebabian essay, it is likely this “key” was used by salesmen who represented different manufacturers and needed to show the lines of several makers.

There are earlier tool catalogs than this circa 1816 example, but this one is particularly important because it might have been used extensively.

For us, the catalog is important because it shows tools in their new states, without any user modifications from sharpening, mishandling or simple use. Most significant is the page on saws, which shows backsaws with blades that get narrower at the toe. I wrote about this years ago, and saw wright Matt Cianci of the thesawblog.com has been crowing about it, too. (Yay Matt!)

If you’ve ever looked for a copy of “Smith’s Key,” you probably decided to instead spend the money on a mortgage payment or a trip to Europe. And that’s why I’m pleased to present this link, courtesy of Jeff Burks, that allows you to download “Smith’s Key” from Gallica.bnf.fr.

Click here to get started. The link to download the entire book is at the top right part of the screen. It’s a fantastic scan. And though it doesn’t include the essay or price list from the 1975 EAIA edition, it does offer some of the plates in color.

Check it out. Download it now.

— Christopher Schwarz

The Roorkhee Chair – and the Improved Roorkhee

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Though I have been actively building campaign furniture for 17 months for a forthcoming book, I felt like I was treading water – until yesterday.

I got my hands on a copy of the 1907 “Annual Price List” of The Army and Navy Co-operative Society. This incredible 1,284-page book is an illustrated compendium of all the objects sold by the co-operative to its members. In the catalog is a nice section on campaign furniture, plus some other sections that are relevant to my research.

The book cost more than my first pick-up truck, but it was well worth the price and the wait for it to arrive from England.

This book shows the breadth of portable furniture available to officers, colonists, students and urbanites at the turn of the last century. It is so staggering, it makes you want to pick up the telephone and ring them at Westminster No. 69 to order some hard goods.

army_and_navy_book_IMG_5804I’ll be reproducing at least a hundred drawings from this book to illustrate the ingenuity and scope of this neglected style.

One of the first surprises in the book was a form of “Improved Roorkhee” chair called the Bartlett Chair. It has all the hallmarks of the standard Roorkhee – plus extendable rests for your feet, like the classic planter’s chair.

Also of note (to me) are the odd-shaped turnings shown on the standard Roorkhee. The top and bottom of each leg look more like a sphere that any Roorkhee chair I’ve seen. The drawings of the turnings of the improved Roorkhee looks more like the ones I’ve seen in the wild.

But, as Joseph Moxon knows, you can’t always trust an illustrator to draw wooden objects perfectly.

Lastly of note: These chairs were available in ash. I’ll have to make some in ash before all our country’s ash is lost to the Emerald Ash Borer.

Enough yackity yack. I’ve got to get back to scanning this book (each page takes 20 minutes) and editing chapter 14 of A.J. Roubo.

— Christopher Schwarz

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