Every time we get questions about our setting jigs, I joke that I’m going to start making them to sell. Had I done it years ago, I could probably now afford that paint job my house needs…or at least afford some fancy cat treats!
The questions have ticked up recently, due to the publication Christopher Schwarz’s book “Sharpen This.” But I still can’t bring myself to make these jigs, ’cause it’s so easy to make your own. But also because different honing guides require different placement of the blocks (it has to do with how far the blade projects)… and I don’t have time to make these for every guide out there. So here’s how to make the one we use, for our Lie-Nielsen honing guides:
Screw two pieces of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMW) to a block of plywood. Done. No magnets. No magic.
OK, OK…here are a few more particulars:
The 1/2″-thick plywood block is 4-1/4″ long x 2-1/8″ wide. (Other sizes would work.) We like plywood because it is unlikely to warp as much as solid wood.
The 1/4″-thick UHWM plastic is left over from another project – but it’s the perfect thing for this. It doesn’t get munged up as easily as a block of wood when you register a blade against it, so it lasts a lot longer. The two little blocks of UHWM are 1″ wide x 1-1/8″ long.
The plastic is screwed in place with brass screws, because they won’t rust.
The 35° block is 7/8″ from the front edge; the 30° block is 1-5/32″ from the front edge.
Those are the only two angles at which we hone/polish 99 percent of our edge tools (and really, we mostly use only the 35°). But if you want a lot of angle choices on your jig, Lie-Nielsen Toolworks has a free download for a fancy one. But we don’t do fancy when it comes to tool sharpening – ’cause making them dull is a lot more fun.
To use it, register the blade against the block, then tighten the jig. Easy, fast, repeatable.
But what if you don’t have a Lie-Nielsen honing guide, or you want different angles? Well, you’ll just have to figure out the proper projection to get the setting block in the right place. Here are two ways to do that.
Put a blade in your guide, then put a Tilt Box on the blade and register the bevel against a flat surface. Adjust the guide until the readout matches your goal angle. Tighten the guide, then measure the distance from the body of the guide to the end of the blade. That’s the distance from the guide’s body the setting block should be secured to the setting jig’s base.
The Tilt Box II in use.
Or put a blade in your guide and register the existing bevel against a flat surface. Put a protractor upright on that same flat surface. Align the business end of the blade with the center of a protractor (make sure the 0° on said protractor is on the edge – they aren’t all). Adjust the guide until the angle matches the one you want.
When I purchased our storefront here on Willard Street in Covington in 2015, I was certain of two things: 1) It was the final old building that I was going to bring back to life; 2) It would be the final resting place of Lost Art Press.
Until this month, I’ve never given more than 2 seconds of thought about what will happen to this company after John and I die. We’ll be dead, so we won’t care.
But this month, it looks like everything I wrote in the first sentence of this blog entry is incorrect. We have just purchased an old woodworking tool factory at 407 Madison Ave. in downtown Covington. This building housed the Anthe Machine Works, which made woodworking cutters from the time the company started in 1897 until it closed in 2019.
The first floor of the Anthe building behind the office. Note the lineshaft, which powers the elevator.
The building is a time capsule, with few modern improvements. Original floors, mouldings, elevator, windows, lineshaft and (yikes) toilets. It is a gorgeous space that is flooded with light. And it has no modern amenities.
The Anthe building has more than 5,000 square feet of space that is in need of preservation and restoration. And it is big enough that it now helps us see Lost Art Press as a multi-generational enterprise.
This building will allow us to bring our fulfillment operations here to Covington and have room to grow (if we want to). By June, all of our inventory will be on the floor of the Anthe building. And we will be able to mail out orders to customers with the same personal touch we bring to everything else we do.
We are thrilled by all this. But we are also a bit terrified.
In order to buy the building, we agreed to take on debt for the first time in our history. It’s not a huge loan. In fact, we will save money by transferring our inventory to Covington. But it is a debt.
More important is that we have taken on an obligation to this building, which is a historic structure with virtually no alterations. The storefront is all frame-and-panel woodwork surrounded by cast iron. The doors – all original. The trim around the windows? The original Greek key steel trim.
Though the building is in decent shape, it needs an almost endless amount of love. It needs a plan for its sensitive restoration. And it needs a lot of skilled help.
So this is the part of the blog entry where I do something I never wanted to do: show my ass.
The purchase of a huge building is something we’ve never done. And here is the other thing we’ve never done: ask for your help to restore it.
The first stage of restoring the Anthe building is to make the first floor a safe and comfortable working space. Plus maintain humidity levels to protect our books in inventory. That means we need to:
Add HVAC to the first floor (with plans for systems on the other two floors).
Pave the gravel drive to our loading dock to allow us to receive and send shipments.
Provide basic amenities. Offer a working bathroom. Add locks on doors that work. Fix the original stairs. Remove some modern “improvements” to the front office.
Get the freight elevator running.
The gravel drive that allows us to load in and out. This needs to be paved.
The building’s original freight elevator. We love it.
To help pay for these initial projects, we are asking for your help. We have four tiers of support, and each tier offers something useful or beautiful in return. You can purchase any of these tiers in our store now. Links below and here.
* A special one-week stick chair class in February 2024 here in Covington. This will also be a food tour as all your meals and drinks will be included. Together we’ll each make a stick chair (you’ll get to pick the design) from some premium wood (not bog oak – I don’t have enough; think maple, white oak, walnut). We’ll have nice lunches brought in to the shop. And we’ll go out every night to one of our favorite places in Cincinnati or Covington. Oh, and there will be a Sunday bluegrass night the evening before. The exact date will be decided by the six students, so it is a little flexible.
* Signed copy of “The American Peasant” made out to you when it is released in December
* Invitation to our Opening Day Party in early 2024
* Signed copy of “The American Peasant” made out to you when it is released in December
* Invitation to our Opening Day Party in early 2024
If you can help, thank you. If you cannot, we totally understand. Simply being a customer of Lost Art Press helps support and sustain our work.
In the coming weeks I’ll write more about the building and our plans for the future of Lost Art Press – beyond this current generation. I can tell you one thing right now: We would sooner give it away than sell it to a venture capital firm.
So if you have children, start feeding them a steady diet of Roy Underhill and Charles Hayward. We might need them here in Covington.
— Christopher Schwarz
The top floor of the Anthe building. Everything is original. And everything needs love.
For the last five weeks we have been shooting and editing a long-form video on how to build a stick chair using simple tools (plus a few – mostly inexpensive – specialty tools that make the job easier, which are covered in the video) with wood from the lumberyard.
The video clocks in at more than four hours long with 18 separate chapters that cover all aspects of construction, from selecting the lumber to applying the finish. The video will be available to stream or download (without any digital rights management). Above is the trailer, which says “Available Now” at the end; you’re getting a sneak peak – it’ll be available on Aug. 15.
Purchasers will also receive a digital file with full-size patterns for the chair shown in the video, which can be printed out at any reprographics firm or office supply store. Plus, notes on the sizes of the chair parts and sources for tools used in the video.
The video will be released on Monday, Aug. 15. For the first two weeks, we will sell it at an introductory price of $50. After that introductory offer, the video (and its downloads) will be $75.
This is our first in-house video for Lost Art Press. For previous videos we hired professional videographers, video editors and sound technicians. While that process produced a slick-looking product, the filming process was difficult and exhausting. Hiring a professional crew is expensive, and so there was always a rush to get the thing shot because of the hourly bill.
Thanks to new technology and a lot of practice on our part during the last two years, we now are confident we can produce high-quality video (and sound) without hiring a crew. As a result, this video was shot in painstaking detail and took five weeks. (It usually takes me two-and-a-half days to build a chair, so this was a sloth-like process.)
We were also able to incorporate graphics and details that had to be glossed over with a professional crew.
This, however, is not cinematic art. (Your spouse will likely sleep through parts.)
I consider the “Build a Stick Chair” video as a companion to “The Stick Chair Book.” But not a substitute. The book took about 56 weeks of work and goes into details that are impossible for a talking head to explain on your television. But the video shows bodily motion in a way that print never can. Some things about chairmaking are so simple if you can just see the process unfold before your eyes.
I’m not saying you should get both the book and the video. Instead, start with the one that appeals to you most. If you are a visual learner, the video is probably the correct choice. If you are first a reader, the book is what I would recommend.
Above is a short trailer I put together that shows some of the processes that are explored in the video. There is a cat in at least one shot.
Thanks to Harper Claire Haynes (our summer intern) who did the bulk of the shooting and editing. And Megan Fitzpatrick, who filled in every day and helped immensely with getting the video into its final semi-polished form.
Last word: Don’t expect a flood of long-form videos from us. Our first love is books. But when we can do a video (and it we think it will help people) we now have the technology and skill to do it.
OverDrive bits (left) work for shallow angles. Bits with longer lead points can tilt much more.
One of the most common questions I get is why I don’t use Forstner bits much in chairmaking. The bits are readily available, make flat-bottomed holes and cut cleanly.
The answer is basically this: The Forstner’s lead point is too short*. That means if I want to drill anything other than a shallow angle I need to start the bit nearly vertical then tilt my drill to get to the desired angle. It’s do-able, but it’s easy to over- or under-shoot things.
So most of the bits I use in chairmaking have a long lead point. This long lead point allows me to tilt the bit to the right angle, lock my elbows then drill. Here are the three bits I use the most, with their advantages and disadvantages.
Star-M F-Style bit.
Star-M F-Type Bit, 16mm, by WoodOwl
This is my favorite bit, but good luck finding it. Most reliable sources are regularly sold out. This bit can handle just about any common chairmaking angle. I can tilt up to 30° off vertical if I make a small starter divot with an awl for the bit’s point.
Other advantages: It cuts clean holes without any splintering on the exit side. This makes drilling through the arm and seat a quick and painless operation.
Disadvantages: The side flutes are sharp. So if you move your drill sideways while boring, you will end up with an overly oval hole. The solution is to practice (sanding down the flutes doesn’t seem to help much).
The bit is metric and drills a 0.629”-diameter hole. So you’ll need to adjust your tenon-cutter to get a snug fit.
Finally, the bit seems to dull faster than my other WoodOwl bits. This is a problem with the other two bits discussed below. I get about five chairs out of one of these bits, and I haven’t found a way to sharpen them (yet).
WoodOwl’s OverDrive bit.
WoodOwl OverDrive Bit, 5/8”
This bit is much easier to find than the Star-M. So keep searching. Lots of little suppliers have them in stock. The bit makes a true 5/8” hole (0.625”). And it also leaves a clean exit hole.
So what’s the catch? The lead tip isn’t long, so you are limited in the chair angles you can bore. I can easily bore 11° off vertical. And 14° when I am pushing things (and if I make a small starter divot with an awl for the bit’s point). That range of angles will get you through most dining chairs without too much trouble.
Like the Star-M’s, the side flutes are sharp – so practice makes round. And the bit doesn’t last as long as its big auger cousins from WoodOwl, which seem to last forever.
WoodOwl’s spade bit.
WoodOwl 5/8” Spade Bit
Really, any spade bit will do. The WoodOwl just happens to come sharper than most cheap bits. Another good option is to look for vintage (meaning ye olde 2020) Irwin bits that have the rim cutters. Other people have had luck with Milwaukee and Makita bits. Basically, look for spades that look like the WoodOwls. The bit needs two rim cutters (the little cat ears). The bit’s faces need to be surface ground (otherwise the bit will fail to bore gouda). And the lead point should *not* be a screw. These lead-screw spades are a sin against the Chair Gods.
Spades can handle almost any angle – up to 34° off vertical with ease. They can be resharpened. You can adjust their diameter on a grinder in seconds. They are cheap and plentiful. And they don’t have the side-cutting problems that the two above bits do.
But they blow out the backside like an American tourist after 10 currywursts. So you need to clamp backing blocks below the arm and seat when you make through-mortises.
— Christopher Schwarz
*There are Forstners out there that have a long lead point – usually a replaceable brad-point bit. But they are hard to find. And expensive when you do.
A lot of what Nancy writes about in her forthcoming “Shop Tails” centers on conditions. The myriad conditions she lived in as a child and teen, from a traditional suburban two-parent home that went through some of the same cultural shifts as the world at large in the 1960s to an English boarding school to a small London flat. She writes about the conditions of her varied work environments, and the conditions agreed upon and sometimes imposed on by employers, employees and clients. She explores the conditions in which she found her human and non-human partners, and the way their actions and interactions helped and hindered, informing who she is today.
Film director Werner Herzog said, “I think it is a quest of literature throughout the ages to describe the human condition.” It’s perhaps the not-so-hidden quest of “Shop Tails,” too, even if that wasn’t Nancy’s initial intention. Her essays within will make you laugh. They will make you angry. They will inspire you to create something beautiful (a piece of furniture, a garden, a better relationship, a home). They will break your heart. And they will stay with you.
On the lighter side of the human condition here’s an excerpt from Chapter 14, “Alfie and the Cat Whisperer (2012).” It begins with working conditions that are utterly undesirable all thanks to a sweet and small pale-grey tabby with an oddly pinched face. Enjoy!
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
Not long after I adopted Tom, the gray tabby kitten I brought home with Lizzie in 2004, he developed a terrible case of diarrhea that sent us to the vet. It turned out to be feline infectious peritonitis. I did my best to keep him hydrated and comfortable, hoping he’d recover, but his condition just got worse. I had him euthanized when we were finally past the point of hope, then buried him among the daffodils behind the shop. Fortunately, Lizzie had escaped contagion.
I wanted to adopt another male tabby. I returned to the shelter, where the cat room was again beyond capacity. To accommodate the overflow, the staff had put a couple of crates in the lobby at the front of the building, across from some monstrous rabbits, evidently bred to exceed the size of the largest Maine coon cat. Perhaps the idea behind this exercise in genetic engineering was to improve a rabbit’s self-defense options by making a single bunny capable of smothering a cat to death simply by jumping on top of it.
In one of the crates nearby I spotted a small pale-gray tabby. “Alfie” was printed on the label. He was a skinny guy, his face oddly pinched. His eyes had a far-off look that struck me as wistful, as though he was begging Take me – though in retrospect I realize the look was a sign of ill health. I filled out the paperwork, and the next night I brought him home to be my shop cat.
When Daniel and I arrived at work the following morning we realized Alfie was suffering from some sort of digestive problem. Small brown puddles of diarrhea were scattered across the floor; the smell was so acrid it burned our eyes. “I’m not going in there,” choked Daniel, reversing back out through the door. After filling my lungs with fresh air, I dashed in and started the cleanup. I opened the windows and turned on a fan, but even an hour later the stench was enough to turn our stomachs.
I took Alfie to the vet, who prescribed a course of antibiotics – sadly, all for naught. The poor cat slept, ate and shat. This was no ordinary defecation. We’re talking epic shitting. One of us would turn off the sander, only to hear a sickening sound like that of a sex worker at an all-night pancake place attempting to squeeze the last dregs of ketchup from a plastic bottle at 5 in the morning. Twenty years before, a customer had told me to burn a candle as an antidote to nauseating smells. I took to burning crumpled sheets of newspaper, setting up miniature pyres around the shop and lighting them as necessary, hoping my insurance agent wouldn’t show up for a surprise inspection.
“You know, this is really not OK,” said Daniel after a couple of weeks. “You can’t expect people to work in these conditions.”
