Lost Art Press

The Wolfenbüttel Joiner

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Jeff Burks turned up a great print dated 1651-1725 (artist unknown), that is owned by Herzog August Bibliothek in the German city of Wolfenbüttel.

Lots of interesting things to see here:

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1. A “slab” bench. I don’t write about these styles of benches much because I haven’t seen any in person yet  – only in paintings and drawings. The benches show up fairly regularly in the images in Mendel’s and Landauer’s house books. They appear somewhat built-in at times, and sometimes have a suggestion of an undercarriage.

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2. The shoulder vise/pierced crochet. This is my favorite part of the drawings (besides the guy’s hat). The shoulder vise is a lot like the vise shown (poorly) in Joseph Moxon’s “The Art of Joinery,” which he calls the “bench screw.”

c. The Bench-Screw (on its hither ſide) to Screw Boards in whiſlt the Edges of them are Plaining or Shooting; and then the other edge of the Board is ſet upon a Pin or Pins (if the Board be ſo long as to reach the other Leg) put into the Holes marked aaaaa down the Legs of the Bench…

The bench screw in the Wolfenbüttel illustration appears to be made with a through-tenon that is pegged.

3. The sawbench/axe bench. These proto-Windsor-chair things show up in early illustrations a lot. I like this one because of its slightly curved legs.

What Jeff and I can’t quite get our arms around is the text below the illustration: Wil ich mein Sach mach schlecht und grecht bin ich alzeit ein armer Knecht. A Google translation of the text doesn’t turn up anything meaningful.

If anyone out there can offer a better translation, we’d be grateful.

— Christopher Schwarz

Neither Fine Nor Substantial

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A mechanic that is always in a hurry is incapable of doing good honest work. The excitable man who is always “flying around,” and whose tools are never at hand when wanted, does not amount to much; he may be busy all day, and apparently — in fact, does — work hard and seems to get over a great deal of ground, but what he does do is neither fine nor substantial. The cool, calm workman who allows himself neither to be driven nor persuaded to do more than a solid day’s work is the man who leaves his impress on each piece of work he turns out, and a hundred years hence it may be found as good and as solid as the day he completed it; but where! Oh, where! will be the work that was thrown together at the same date, by the man who was always “flying around?”

The Builder & WoodWorker – March, 1881, Fred T. Hodgson, editor.

Sharpening Block: Now Smaller and Stupider

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I left my little block of wood that sets my honing angles for chisels and plane irons in Australia, so the first order of business on Sunday was to build a new one.

After a decade of messing around, I pretty much sharpen all my edge tools with a 35° secondary bevel. This is a good all-purpose angle. It’s robust. It works with all my tools. And it keeps life simple.

In theory, I should use a lot of different honing angles to adjust the cutting characteristics of my tools, lower angles for paring tools, higher for chopping tools. I’ve been down those rabbet holes, and I’ve concluded that “sharp fixes everything.”

What’s important for me is that I get sharp fast and without fuss or error. Having one honing angle makes my life simple.

So this little block reflects that idea. One face of the block sets 35° in my side-clamp honing guide for chisels and plane irons. The other face sets 35° for wacky tools – shoulder planes – in my Kell honing guide.

I made the guide out of mahogany (leftovers from the campaign furniture book) and used waterproof glue and nails to assemble things. These are important details if you use waterstones. The water will rot the wood and loosen the glue. Promise.

Now I can get back to work on this campaign chest. Wait, I have to edit three books? Crap.

— Christopher Schwarz

The Road to a Moxon Revision

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Getting through U.S. Customs Saturday was a harrowing experience. I was certain they would pull me aside and go through my luggage because my declaration card was filled with red flags I’d gathered during my three weeks in Melbourne, Australia.

I always err on the side of declaring everything – everything, even breath mints – when I pass through immigration. Honesty is so much easier than trying to hide a backsaw in a body cavity.

So my declaration card included:

• Old tools with wooden components.
• Random chunks of timber, some with bark.
• Lots of expensive and pointy bits of stuff.
• Bizarre Australian candy for the kids.
• Antique Japanese paring chisel with a rosewood handle.

When it came time to go through my luggage, the Customs officer didn’t give a second look at the tools, timber or other pointy bits. It was the candy that received the scrutiny. Some of the wacky sweets looked like bananas. Fruit and meat are a no-no. After the “bananas” were determined to be completely artificial, I was free to go.

After a big sigh of relief, I sprinted to catch my connecting flight.

Of all the stuff I brought back, the biggest treasure is five small sticks of King Billy Pine (Athrotaxis selaginoides) I picked up from toolmaker Chris Vesper. It’s a slow-growing and endangered species from Tasmania that has a long, fragrant and storied history in the history of the region. It’s a protected species and difficult to get here. These sticks were acquired entirely ethically.

I got just enough to build two Roubo try squares. One of them will be part of my payment to Wesley Tanner for redesigning our revision of Joseph Moxon’s “The Art of Joinery” with my commentary.

“The Art of Joinery” was the first Lost Art Press book and is now out of print. This year we’re reissuing the book, which will be expanded to include the following parts:

1. The text from Moxon’s writing on the art of joinery which has been lightly “translated” by me to make it easier for the modern reader to digest. Most of the “translation” consists of removing the long “s” from the words and breaking up some long sentences with semicolons.

2. The “translated” text will have some commentary from me and the engravings from Moxon’s book placed in situ – e.g. the image of the chisel will be next to the chisel.

3. The original text, untranslated and with all its 17th-century peculiarities. The text will be entirely reset in a font picked by Wesley. We’re adding this section to the book because several readers complained that they really really really wanted the source text without any commentary. There were also grumblings that my light “translation” was like rewriting the King James Bible in the voice of Austin Powers.

4. We’ll be offering the whole book in either cloth or leather bindings, plus in ePub and Kindle versions.

Work is proceeding on the book, and it should be out by the end of the year.

— Christopher Schwarz

My Signature Series Workbench…

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… will never exist.

Since my first book on workbenches came out in 2007, I have been approached by several manufacturers about producing a “Schwarz Workbench,” where I’d be paid a royalty for every bench sold.

It would feature my illegible signature (my kids say my signature looks like “C-star Slimy”) and be built to my specifications. And that’s the point in the negotiations where I just start laughing.

My fondest hope is that you will design your own workbench that will make it easy for you to work on the faces, edges and ends of boards and assemblies. It will be the perfect size for your shop, your height and your tools. The vises will easily grip the sort of work you are fond of – big, small, curved, flat.

And it will cost you exactly what you are willing to pay: Almost nothing to several thousand dollars.

You can sign the bench as illegibly as you please, and then it will become your signature workbench.

—   Christopher Schwarz

P.S. I am perfectly willing to enter into negotiations for Schwarz-signature suppositories or toilet-seat covers. I have a lot of particular ideas about those that will blow your mind.