It’s difficult to believe that it has already been 10 years since John Brown died on June 1, 2008. It’s even more difficult to believe that his landmark book “Welsh Stick Chairs” is not in print.
With a little luck, we hope to have “Welsh Stick Chairs” in your hands in June 2018 for the 10-year anniversary of his passing. Today I uploaded the final files to our printer and they should start production on the book on Monday afternoon.
We hope to open pre-publication sales of the book next week. We’re still waiting on a couple elements of the print job to make sure we have the costs correct. We’re shooting for $27 to $29, which will include domestic shipping.
Note that we have the rights to distribute “Welsh Stick Chairs” only in North America. Not in Europe, the UK or – oddly enough – Wales. We’ve been told another publisher in the UK will be publishing a version for that market. But we don’t know when or what it will look like.
Ours will be printed in the United States on heavy and smooth coated paper. The signatures will be sewn for durability. And the book will be covered in heavy 100-pound Mohawk cardstock with a vellum texture. (We love Mohawk paper – it’s made with wind power.)
The dark blue cover will then be stamped with a matte silver foil. It’s going to look crisp and have a lot of nice textures.
When I was a kid, my family had a wide selection of “bathroom books.” These were books that had been taken down from the shelves on a whim and left behind on the shelf above the toilet, either because their contents were intriguing or seemed appropriate for a brief perusal. I remember a manual on grading gravel roads, a book of palindromes and, most memorably, one called “The Art of Chindogu.” Chindogu, as I learned over many short reading sessions, is the Japanese art of the unuseless (yes, unuseless) invention. These creations either fulfilled a need or solved a problem, with the catch that the solution was often overbuilt, silly looking or impractical.
What I grew to like about chindogu was the enthusiasm and professionalism with which the wacky, hyper-specialized or odd inventions were pursued by their inventors. Each one was (somewhat) professionally manufactured and photographed, despite being prototypes that were never meant to be sold. They seem like a byproduct of the design process – sometimes, pursuing something niche, unprofitable or outlandish can teach us a lot about our work that doesn’t fall to such an extreme.
And so, I spent last weekend with Narayan Nayar and Daniel Clay in a coopering class at Tillers International learning to make a handled bucket, called a piggin, despite having no need or particular desire to begin producing buckets or barrels.
Don’t get me wrong – the world still needs coopers and new barrels. Our teacher, Eric Edgin, makes vats and barrels for food fermentation. Just last January, Eric traveled to Japan to learn more about the art of soy sauce vat making. Coopering is also full of clever solutions to unique problems. Coopers have a wide range of woodworking tools and techniques that are at once specialized and widely applicable.
One of Eric’s fermentation vats, made during his trip to Japan. Photo by Narayan Nayar.
But coopering is what I would call an unuseless skill for my work. I don’t plan to make barrels, buckets or piggins any time soon. It was fun to make a bucket entirely by hand, with only a few sharp tools, but the work in no way resembles my own.
The solutions that coopers have found to their particular set of problems, however, are likely to impact or inform the way I do a few things in the shop. The use of a stationary jointer plane, to which one brings the workpiece, makes a lot of sense when tuning the edges of beveled and tapered parts. The “clapper gauge” is really a specialized style of sector, which accurately measures the outer angles of a stave against a desired diameter. The shavehorses used are familiar looking, but the use of a “belly” is common, as are all sorts of clever body mechanics and workholding.
Just like I was looking for an excuse to study something outside my usual practice, I was also looking for a reason to head to Tillers International. Located outside Kalamazoo, Mich., Tillers runs what I call a friendly “Robin Hood” non-profit model. The school teaches classes on woodworking, metalworking and all manner of skills for traditional homesteading and farming to those who can pay for them. Then, Tillers use that money to teach those same skills to those who cannot afford to pay for these classes. The organization has worked with people across the globe and is explicitly dedicated to improving the lives of people in rural areas worldwide, by teaching them skills they can use to be self-reliant and independent. This makes the act of paying a sum of money to learn to make buckets all the more sweet – it’s definitely going to a good cause.
It was a joy to spend time in a beautiful place with good friends, honing my bucket-making skills. I did not walk away a cooper – but I did walk away a furniture maker with a few new tricks. These skills may take some time to come about as a need in my work, but sometimes, a little inspiration from a bathroom shelf or an age-old vessel-making tradition is just the kind of inspiration or enrichment you need. Who knows? Maybe I’ve got a few round cabinets in me.
(From left) Me, Eric Edgin, Narayan Nayar and Daniel Clay with our brand-new buckets.
I am off to Charleston, S.C., for the rest of the week to help settle my father’s estate and clean out his house. So I won’t be posting much on the blog, if at all.
In my absence, I give you this embarrassing reading of the poem from “Ingenious Mechanicks: Early Workbenches & Workholding.” It always takes me a little time to get any perspective on my own work. This book seems to be an unusual combination of deep and difficult research with Cheeto jokes. I can say at this point that the printing job is spectacular. And the paintings that Suzanne Ellison dug up for the book are worth the price of admission.
The poem is an exhortation on the sort of woods that are appropriate for a workbench. The audio was recorded and edited by Brendan Gaffney. The plates are from from M. Duhamel’s “de L’exploitation des bois.”
A photo I took (pre-chocolate) of Thomas Lie-Nielsen at the 25th anniversary.
Recently I sat for a nice interview with Finn Koefoed-Nielsen, a U.K. furniture maker who started his career through home restorations.
One of the things we discussed was how John and I started Lost Art Press. So-called “origin stories” (I got me superpowers after being bit by a horney alpaca) are interesting to me. But I’ve never sat down and hammered out the one for Lost Art Press.
In 2006, John and I attended the Lie-Nielsen 25th anniversary open house. John got to chatting with Christian Becksvoort and asked Chris: “Why haven’t you written any more books?”
Chris gave John a history lesson on how corporate publishing works and how most authors make very little money in the end but the publisher gets rich. I didn’t need the lesson; I was working for F&W Publications and was living the life.
That night John and I sat up late drinking beer and eating melted chocolate. I had brought some Esther Price chocolates (a local delicacy) to give to Thomas Lie-Nielsen. But during the flight and drive they’d melted into one disgusting-looking mass. Like a molten meteor from the Planet PMS.
This is where Finn’s story picks up on his blog. Note his excellent logo. A squirrel. (I assume it’s a red one.)
So there John and I sat with too many beers; chocolate smeared on our faces and hands. Instead of talking about our feelings we talked about publishing. My first book, “Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use,” was working its way into my laptop. And I had a lot of ideas for other books that were not very commercial.
And, like all magazine editors, I was certain I was going to be fired. (Note: In 28 years of publishing I’ve never been to a single retirement party for a magazine editor. Like the moon landing, they don’t happen.)
The next day we were hungover, crashed from the sugar rush and waiting on our plane back to real life. Slumped in our seats in the Portland terminal, we decided to investigate this idea a little more.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. The interview with Finn covers a lot more ground, including details on some of our upcoming projects.
When I built my chest for “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” I didn’t include any chest lifts. Why? I don’t know. I had planned on making some intricate rope beckets. But I didn’t. I guess I’m just an idiot.
Months later, Roy Underhill showed me how to make “dog bone” lifts for a chest. He makes them a little differently than I do, but the idea is the same. These are the lifts I use now when I build chests for customers. Here are the steps:
Make a handle that looks like a dog bone.
Turn down the middle of the dog bone to a cylinder
Shape the remainder of the lift with ogees, ovolos, yodas etc.
Finish and attach.
For each lift, start with a piece of wood that is 1-3/4” x 3” x 13-1/2”. The handle in the middle is 1” in diameter and 4” long. So saw out the excess material as shown in the photo below:
Now chuck the piece in your lathe and turn down the handle to 1” in diameter. I give the handle a slight barrel shape and incise a couple lines (because I am a fancy lad).
Now saw away the excess and shape the ends. I use an ogee and an ovolo. Then I rasp an 1/8” x 1/8” bevel on the hard arrises. Finally, drill the counterbores and pilot holes for attaching the lifts with four stout steel screws.
Finish the lifts. Attach them.
Note that I want these lifts to look handmade (they are). I am not going for the pattern-routed look. I like the sharp silhouette of the chest with the addition of these slightly earthy-looking handles on the ends. You grab them and they feel smooth and worn. It’s Hobbit-y to me.
This is where Finn’s story picks up 
