Lost Art Press

Mechanical Library: Workbenches & Tool Chests

Posted on by fitz
A small but mighty important section.

Christopher Schwarz might disagree, but I’d say this is the formative section of the collection: books on workbenches and tool chests – two things that are not only of importance in any shop, but of great importance to Chris’ woodworking history (and now mine – at least on the tool chests side of things).

I don’t know how many benches Chris has built over the years, but my guess is at least 150 when you add up all the articles for Popular Woodworking Magazine, the various “ancient” forms in “Ingenious Mechanics,” “The Anarchist’s Workbench,” the many bench-building classes he’s taught…. It’s a lot.

The first book in this section reflects everything Chris knew about bench building circa 2007, when “Workbenches: from Design & Theory to Construction & Use” (Popular Woodworking) was first published. It’s alongside a couple copies of the revised edition from 2015, to which PW added a couple appendices Chris wrote for the magazine after he’d left to concentrate on Lost Art Press full-time. It’s followed by “The Workbench Design Book: The Art & Philosophy of Building Better Benches” in which all the benches published in Popular Woodworking Magazine up until that time (2010) were collected, followed by a critique of each after it had seen some use. (“The Anarchist’s Workbench” is a distillation into one perfect-for-him bench of everything Chris learned in his many years of bench building…a time he claims has concluded. I don’t believe that.)

Tucked alongside those PW books are two bench-building magazine covers…the benches featured are in better shape than their builders, I fear. (The bench on the left is currently holding a pile of linden in the horse garage – parts for American Peasant pieces; the bench on the right is currently holding a pile of linden in my basement – parts for an upcoming tool chest class.)

Next up is a copy of “Roman Workbenches” that Lost Art Press published in 2017; it was a short run of letterpress books printed on an old Vandercook proofing press (the book was later incorporated into “Ingenious Mechanics”), and the May 1981 issue of The Magazine Antiques – a look at the cover (below) will tell you why.

We have several copies of Scott Landis’ “The Workbench Book” – early editions from Taunton (it was first published in 1987) as well as our 2020 hardcover edition. Those are followed by Lon Schleining’s “The Workbench” (Taunton, 2004) and Sam Allen’s “Making Workbenches” (Sterling, 1995). These were all purchased for research – before one writes on a subject, it’s good practice to read as much as one can about what’s already been written on it.

And that concludes the workbench section (though I suspect there are others lurking elsewhere on the shelves), and takes us to two copies of Jim Tolpin’s “The Toolbox Book” (Taunton, 1995) – a must-have introduction to the world of the many ways to contain one’s tools (it’s also, to the best of my knowledge, where the Dutch tool chest first shows up in contemporary literature…but not the last – stay tuned). (“The Toolbox Book” is also of course research for Chris’ “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.”)

The OG DTC.

Finally, we have in this small sections two copies of Scott Landis’ “The Workshop Book” (Taunton, 1991) – another must-have, the most complete book about every woodworker’s favorite place: the workshop. It includes inspiring workshops, from garage to basement shops, from mobile to purpose-built shops. In fact, we think it’s important enough that we reprinted it in 2021.

– Fitz

This is the 11th post in the Covington Mechanical Library tour. To see the earlier ones, click on “Categories” on the right rail, and drop down to “Mechanical Library.” Or click here.

LAP Open Wire, May 6, 2023

Posted on by Lost Art Press
I found a way to level tapered sticks in a vise for tenoning. A laser.

Welcome to the LAP Open Wire, where we endeavor to answer your questions about woodworking – plus our tools, books and apparel.

Here’s how it works: Type your question in the comment field. I will do my best to answer it. It is that easy.

Before you ask a question, please read this.

  1. If you could limit the number of questions you ask to one or two, my fingers might not catch fire. And remember brevity is appreciated. 
  2. If your question is your first comment here, it will automatically be flagged for moderation. Your question will appear after I approve it.

So here we go…. Note that comments for this entry will close about 5 p.m. Eastern. 

— Christopher Schwarz

Anthe Update No. 1

Posted on by Lost Art Press
The south wall of the first floor after a cleaning.

It’s been one bonkers week since we closed on our purchase of the Anthe Building, which will become our new headquarters here in Covington, Ky. (If you don’t know what I am talking about, click here.)

This blog entry is a brief update on a shed-load of work. But before you read further, please take a moment to digest the following.

This project is being done to code by licensed and bonded professionals. We are following all applicable federal, state and local guidelines. If you feel compelled to make some comment like “that’s not safe,” “that’s not right” or “you should do this instead” know that the world will never see your wisdom. I’m going to delete it. The only thing worse than armchair woodworkers are armchair plumbers, electricians and general contractors. Thank you.

We have three big goals before June 1, which is when we plan to start fulfilling all orders from here. (Note, we are actually already fulfilling some orders from here at Willard Street, breaking in the shipping software and building new processes.)

  1. Clean the first floor room and make it safe and appropriate as a climate-controlled fulfillment center.
  2. Add the bits we need to make accept and send deliveries (a paved driveway and a rollup door).
  3. Build an ADA-compliant bathroom and amenities for our two new fulfillment employees.

This week was all about No. 1. How do we remove 125 years of oil from the floors and walls? The answer: Dawn Degreaser. I have never worked with the stuff before, but it is amazing. The clean-up crew wets the surface with the degreaser at full strength. They wait 10 minutes. Then they scrub with a stiff-bristled brush (or an electric floor scrubber). The sludge is sucked up in a shop vacuum immediately and disposed of properly.

One 10-minute treatment of the walls gives you this before-and-after.

The difference is shocking. In one week we went from a room that reeked of oil to barely a wisp of smell. In fact, the degreaser is working so well that we think we can use the original floor with a few repairs and patches, instead of covering everything with a floating floor.

Also in the process, the carpentry crews have been dismantling the modern improvements made to the building (I have been helping a bit because I love this process of discovery). Also, the HVAC crew put in the three mini-split heads for the first floor.

And we are starting to draw and plan for No. 3 (the bathroom). 

What about No. 2 (paving and a new rear door)? Glad you asked. Site-prep and pouring begin next week. Then the rollup door can be installed and the broken modern metal doors at the back can be removed and sent to the scrap yard.

— Christopher Schwarz

A small patch of floor treated with the degreaser and water. I never thought the floor could look this clean.

New Class: Build a Cricket Table, Aug. 2-4, 2023

Posted on by fitz

Derek Jones will be visiting from England and in our shop Aug. 2-4 to teach a class in building a cricket table. Tickets for this new class go on sale Monday, May 15, at 10 a.m., on our ticketing site.

Cricket tables range from the most basic stick variety to complex joined examples* that can only be resolved when you’ve broken free of 90° and square. In three days, Derek will help you break free as you use hand tools to create joints for tops and bottoms and all the pieces in between to build a version of this historic form.

You can read more about cricket tables in these posts.

Derek – an outstanding teacher – runs the Lowfat Roubo site, where he sells tools and offers courses in the U.K. He is currently working on a book on the cricket table form for Lost Art Press, due out late this year. He is former editor of Furniture & Cabinetmaking Magazine. 

* Derek is also teaching a week-long class in a complex, joined version Aug. 7-11, as well as a 2-day Focus on Handworks class Aug. 12-13, at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking in Franklin, Ind.

Coming Soon: Build a Gibson Chair Video

Posted on by Lost Art Press
One of my earlier Gibson chairs. This one without a saddle.

Megan and I are now filming and editing a long-form video about how I build a Gibson chair, one of my favorite Irish chairs.

The video, which should be released late next week, will include a pdf of the full-size templates needed to build the chair, plus drawings for the simple jigs I use, plus a cutting list and sources for all the tools and equipment shown in the video.

The video will be $50 for the first 30 days it is on the market. After that it will be $75.

Gibson chairs look unusual to people at first. They are low and have a back that rakes at 25° – a shocking tilt angle. It might seem like a chair for sleeping, but I assure you it’s not. It sits very much like a comfortable comb-back chair. In fact, in Ireland, these are sometimes called “kitchen chairs” because they are used for eating in the kitchen.

My version of the Gibson is a little different than the originals (we hope to do a book dedicated to the chair sometime in the future). Like almost all traditional Irish chairs, Gibsons have a flat seat. The seat in this video will be saddled, both for looks and comfort. I don’t think the form really needs a saddle, but it does look like a more expensive chair.

I’ve also made a few other small alterations here and there to the chair that I explain in the video.

I’ve tried to make the construction process as accessible as possible. All the mortises are straight holes (no tapered joints), so you can use augers you already own. The tenons are made with plug/tenon cutters chucked in a cordless drill, which are cheap and easily available. (Or you can use a Power Tenon Cutter from Veritas, which I also show in the video.) There is no steambending. You don’t need a lathe or a shavehorse. Most of the work is at the bench or the band saw.

Like all our videos, this one will have no Digital Rights Management (DRM) nonsense. So you will be able to download the video and put them on any of your devices, including your phone, laptop and pad. 

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. The next video will be on building my hobbit chair. I’ve convinced myself that it is different enough than Bilbo’s and I won’t be thrown into the fires of Mordor, which are filled with lawyers.