Lost Art Press

‘Death Row’ Router Table

Posted on by Lost Art Press

While other magazines, books and television shows promise you the “ultimate” router table, it’s only Lost Art Press that dares to show you the “Death Row Router Table.”

Before you watch the video, please endure the following story. And before you comment on this article, read every word of this article.

For the April 2000 issue of Popular Woodworking I wrote a story about the woodworking that is done by death-row inmates. It was a topic that took me more than a year to research and write.

For the most part, death-row inmates aren’t permitted to use machines or many power tools, and yet despite their isolation and the limitations put upon them, they build some amazing things. Imagine if you had limited materials, limited tools but (nearly) unlimited time.

That is why the story really interested me – it was a story about woodworking that occurs in some of the most unlikely places.

But you can’t write about anything dealing with the death penalty and avoid controversy. My story never took a stand on the death penalty and didn’t make the subjects out to be particularly sympathetic – I made sure to mention their crimes in the story. Yet, several readers cancelled their subscriptions – one reader even taped the pages of that story together so that he would never encounter it again.

And my boss at the time has said several times in public that we shouldn’t have published that story. I disagree with him. But that’s not why I’m telling you this story.

During my reporting I went down to visit Kentucky’s death row at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville, Ky., and take some photos of the woodwork of the inmates. It was my first visit to a death row and as you can imagine, it was pretty spooky. The Eddyville facility is on Lake Barkley and looks like a foreboding castle overlooking a gorgeous river.

The warden of the prison, like all corrections officials I’ve dealt with in my career, was as open and as hospitable as possible. He gave us a lengthy tour of the facility, let us take as many photos as I liked and showed us an amazing display of prisoner-made weapons they had confiscated.

The most incredible thing about the weapons was how often little bits of woodworking equipment were used in making shanks – red clamp handles were a common handle. Jigsaw blades were a common blade.

During our tour, the Eddyville officers showed us the woodworking shop, where the prisoners made furniture for state offices and to learn a skill. And that’s where I saw this “router table.”

Note that the death row inmates weren’t allowed into the woodworking shop, so calling this a “death row” router table is completely disingenuous – just like every other router table story ever published. But this router table was the only thing the prisoners used – both for pattern-routing and for edge-forming.

I thought it was quite ingenious.

Note that I’m not advocating you do this in your shop. The safety police will come to your house and de-louse you and then take your router away forever. And if the safety nannies post comments here on this router table, I’m going to delete them – so be forewarned.

I am presenting this video as a nearly lost art and a document of how woodworking is done behind bars because it is interesting. I am not glorifying criminals. I’m not telling you to do something unsafe – no more than stories about airplane crashes encourage more airplane crashes.

— Christopher Schwarz

Roubo Pre-publication Offer Extended to Jan. 31

Posted on by Lost Art Press

squares

This is going to sound like marketing garbage. It really isn’t.

Several readers have requested that we extend the deadline for taking pre-publication orders of the forthcoming deluxe edition of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry.”

These readers have requested the extension because they have lots of bills due from the holiday season – and an extra 30 days would help them shore up their finances before placing the $100 deposit on the book.

Because we haven’t placed our order with the printer yet, we can extend the deadline. And so we will.

That means you now have until Jan. 31, 2013, to place a $100 deposit on the luxe edition of “To Make as Perfectly as Possible” and have your name listed in the book as a “Subscriber.”

For more details on this version of the book, read our description in the store here.

This week I’ll post an update on the Roubo project and include an FAQ on all the Roubo-related books in the pipeline.

— Christopher Schwarz

Dutch Tool Chest: Painted, Handled and Waiting for Hinges

Posted on by Lost Art Press

dutch_handles_IMG_5306

Between bouts of loading 6,000 pounds of books, several holiday dinners and shoveling snow, I managed to make some progress on the Dutch tool chest.

I added two coats of General Finishes Milk Paint – lamp black color. I have serious doubts how much “milk” is in this paint, but the stuff is easy to brush or spray when wet, and it is tough as heck when dry. Plus it has that chalky look in the end.

I added one tool rack in the top area of the chest (with another to come) and made some handles. I wanted to use oak for the handles, but I have so many mahogany scraps left from building Roorkhee chairs this year that I couldn’t imagine going out and buying a plank of 8/4 oak for this.

The handles aren’t really Dutch. I made mine to look like old bearing blocks or maybe a mantle clock. The ends were laid out using basic geometry and a compass. The round bits are scraps from Roorkhee chair stretchers that I turned down to size and added a couple details.

I’ll make the saw till for the lid tonight. Then I’ll set the project aside to wait for the hinges and hasp.

Next up: A portable workbench.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. The casters are NOS (new old stock) stuff from the 1940s that I found on eBay. They are made in America, move as smoothly as a goose on ex-lax and cost me less than $20.

dutch_chest_painted_IMG_5304

Changes in Our Shipping Department

Posted on by Lost Art Press
truck
Our inventory filled up this truck. Dang.

Starting immediately, all of our packages will be shipped out of our Fishers, Ind., warehouse – aka my partner John Hoffman’s garage. This change has some good points and bad points for you, which is why I’m writing this blog entry.

First the good stuff.

Shipping and customer service will be much faster. During the last 18 months, my family has been shipping all of the orders from our Kentucky home. It worked OK, but it required me to juggle packing boxes, editing books, building furniture, blogging, writing freelance magazine articles and a somewhat crazy travel and teaching schedule.

So we would sometimes get behind. And when we made a mistake or a book was damaged in transit, it took us a few days to fix the problem.

Hoffman and his family have more space to warehouse the books and more time to deal with shipping and customer service.

So not only will your books ship faster, I’ll have more time to write and edit, which means more new books from Lost Art Press.

The bad news is that – for now – I won’t be able to directly autograph all of my books that we sell. Instead, each book will have a bookplate (the publishing world’s name for a sticker) affixed to the inside that I’ve signed. Yeah, I know it’s not ideal. But it’s the best solution we have right now. My 2013 travel schedule is the most brutal one yet, and adding monthly trips to Indiana to sign books just simply isn’t going to work.

greenupThese changes – good and bad – are the result of the growth of Lost Art Press. When we started five years ago, we mailed out three or four books a day on average. Now we’re shipping out more than 12,000 books a year to customers and our handful of retailers. And that’s a really low estimate – I am a bit afraid to do the math.

During the next few years, we plan to purchase a building and consolidate all of our operations – building, publishing and shipping – under one roof. We’re actively looking for an old building with a storefront, warehouse and living quarters. (The photo shown here is one we looked at last week.) But we are taking our time, and we refuse to borrow money and saddle the company with debt. Our accountant thinks we are nuts not to get a mortgage, by the way, but I’ve seen too many publishing companies drown in debt service.

So thanks for your support – that’s why we are growing. And apologies in advance for the temporary and poopy bookplate solution.

— Christopher Schwarz

The Wandering Wood Butcher’s Advice on Chests

Posted on by Lost Art Press

tool_tote
From WANDERING WOOD BUTCHER, Alexandria, La. In looking over the issue for December last, I noticed a plan of a tool chest furnished by “R. S. M.” of Dover,
Mass., which is only one of many plans that have appeared in the paper during the past 20 years. These have greatly interested me, but I observe that in nearly all cases one thing, which in my opinion leaves the chest incomplete, has been omitted, and that is an ample shoulder box or tray for carrying the tools to and from the place of work – a box 10 inches deep by 12 inches wide, which can be dropped into a chest as a tray or till when the day’s work is over, the key turned and the carpenter can go away at peace with himself and his fellow men. I dislike to see a carpenter come on a job in the morning with a hand full of tools and then make 10 to 15 trips during the day to the chest for more. Then when noon or night comes he is running all over the building, fussing with the other men about his tools being lost, stolen, or mislaid. If he is lucky enough to find them in the dark, or even the light, be has to drag them to his chest, possibly necessitating two trips in the operation. Such a chest is a poor excuse, no matter how nicely made and trimmed. In the box as above de­scribed a carpenter can take such tools as he usually requires, or the nature of the particular work demands, to any part of the building and have them always ready at hand. When the words “pick up” are given, he can do so in an instant and go home rejoicing, instead of feeling annoyed at the necessity of having been obliged to grope around in the rubbish for his tools. Another thing I might suggest in connection with tool chests is not to put such panel tops on them, but cover with galvanized iron so far as to make the chest sun proof and water proof, and baggage smasher proof, if good comer irons of the same material are put on with clout nails and clinched.

If one cannot have his chest arranged as above de­scribed, I would suggest at least having one of which he ­will not be ashamed to take it to a job or among strangers as an example of workmanship, skill and taste. Of late years it is not an uncommon sight to see men calling
themselves carpenters coming on a job with a gunny sack for a tool chest, or an old box picked up in the backyard of some store with the name of the manufacturer of snuff, tobacco, boots and shoes, or some other commodity printed all over it until it looks like a bill board or traveling advertisement. If for the latter purpose it is a great hit and a success, for it announces to every beholder that the owner is a hobo, tramp or fraud who­ travels for notoriety as a wandering wood butcher. Another thing I would suggest to the young chips is that if they cannot have many tools, make sure to have good ones and keep them in good order and looking clean. Do not be like two of those wandering wood butchers who by letter applied to me a few years ago for a job and described themselves “carpenters by profession.” I brought them 150 miles to work and found they had pieces of limbs of trees with the bark on for hammer handles and as soon as they landed took a saw in one hand and a file in another and went to nearly every man in the town, from the Section Boss to the Town Marshal, saying “Please, Mister, will you file me a saw?” Now the reader may not be able to understand the sort of an impression they made on the foreman, or what remarks the rest of the crew made about the foreman’s new hands, but I do. I did not hear the last of them for a year and even now I meet some one who refers to my “imported carpenters.” I would say to the young chip, though be he not a full-fledged carpenter, do not be ashamed or afraid to own up. Tell the boss the truth and nine times out of ten he will help you through, for he himself had to learn by having others show him. If you lie to him he will catch you in the course of time and then one may expect to hear some hard remarks. Right here is the reason some foremen are considered hard to work for and why they get a hard name. When you hear a man speaking hard of a foreman, you may safely assume there is something wrong with himself.

— Carpentry and Building, April 1903. Thanks to Jeff Burks for unearthing this gem.