Like every company, Lost Art Press has been buffeted by the increased costs of raw materials during the last three years. We have tried to keep our prices steady, but it’s just not possible anymore. On July 7, we will increase retail prices on the following books and tools. The p … | Continue reading
The following is excerpted from Nancy R. Hiller’s “Making Things Work: Tales from A Cabinetmaker’s Life.” Standing in contrast to James Krenov’s “The Impractical Cabinetmaker” from 1979, Hiller’s “Making Things Work” is not about waiting for a particular plank of wood to tell you … | Continue reading
Some quick administrative stuff. To try to meet demand for classes on building a stick chair, I’ve scheduled a class in building a Welsh-style comb-back chair at our Covington storefront for Nov. 18-22. Registration for the class will open at noon (Eastern) on June 24. You can re … | Continue reading
We kicked off the Chairmakers’ Gathering with a welcome, then a few words from Patrick Cecil, a ladderback chairmaker from Cannon County, Tennessee. Patrick shared the rhythm of his work week, from cutting parts to loading 20-30 chairs onto a truck on Fridays – then doing it agai … | Continue reading
Chris is out of town this weekend, but Wally and I are here and ready to answer your woodworking and cat-treat-related questions. But unlike Chris, I will not start responding at the buttocks-crack of dawn – I like to sleep in a bit on Saturdays. And every day. (And Wally sleeps … | Continue reading
Our final (I hope) inventory sell-off ends at midnight on Saturday. We have seven titles for sale, from 38 percent off to 54 percent off. My most recent book, “The Stick Chair Book,” is one of those books and is just $29 until Saturday. The sale has cleared out the space we need … | Continue reading
Most of my students last week at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking are much stronger than am I. They cranked those K-bodies down … probably more than need be to close the baselines of their Anarchist’s Tool Chest dovetails. And because we used shims over the tailboards (so … | Continue reading
The following is excerpted from “The Intelligent Hand,” by David Binnington Savage. It’s a peek into a woodworking life that’s at a level that most of us can barely imagine. The customers are wealthy and eccentric. The designs have to leap off the page. And the craftsmanship has … | Continue reading
Matt Cianci’s mom was reading a book in her living room, having just put Matt down for a nap upstairs, when she saw his 4-year-old body fly past the living room window and crash into the ground. She screamed, jumped up and threw open the door. Matt was in the bushes, a blanket ti … | Continue reading
Today’s Open Wire is hosted by our friend John Cashman, a historian long-time woodworker (mostly hand tools) who lives in eastern Massachusetts. He’ll no doubt be assisted by Inigo and Fezzig; all misspellings are theirs. If anyone has questions on Shaker boxes, now is your chanc … | Continue reading
When we released “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” (almost 13 years ago to this day), the goal was to create a book that looked like an odd old text that you might find on a library shelf in the basement. We chose a vintage tan cover cloth, binding process and diestamp that all fed in … | Continue reading
Learn to build a Dutch Tool Chest from an American in the beautiful city of Munich – in July. I still have a couple spots open in my tool chest class on July 14-16 at the Dictum store in Munich, Germany. If you are looking for a quick and fun vacation, this could be it.... | Continue reading
I’m teaching a class this week and will be spending Saturday in recovery (aka hanging out on the couch with my two cats), and Chris is teaching a Peasant Coffer class on Saturday and Sunday. So, we’ve asked our friend John Cashman – whom you might better know through Instagram as … | Continue reading
The following is excerpted from “James Krenov: Leave Fingerprints,” by Brendan Bernhardt Gaffney. After years of research and more than 150 interviews, Gaffney produced a definitive biography of Krenov, featuring historical documents, press clippings and hundreds of historical ph … | Continue reading
This chair is a close cousin to the chair offered here a couple weeks ago. Same great wood and same finish. The only difference is this chair has a stout H-stretcher, making it suitable for all sitters. I am selling this chair for $2,600, and that price includes the crating and s … | Continue reading
In addition to this Lost Art Press blog (long live the blog!), we also write three other blogs hosted by Substack. These blogs go deep into woodworking topics we are passionate about. They’re not for everyone. But they might be for you. For the entire month of June we’ve removed … | Continue reading
In between rearranging the shop (again) and finally organizing his chair plans in a new (vintage) lateral file, Christopher will be on hand until around 5 p.m. today to answer all your woodworking questions. And I’ll be on hand, too, until around 2 p.m., and am finally happy to a … | Continue reading
After a long dry spell (five months), we finally have two new products in our store that we have been working on for a long time (nine years on the saw sharpening book!). “Set & File: A Practical Guide to Saw Sharpening” by Matt Cianci is in our warehouse and shipping. It is $32. … | Continue reading
Business Insider recently released a video on India’s shellac industry with amazing footage of how it’s made. You can watch it here. While we think of shellac as a finish, it’s also used to coat candy and pills, preserve fruit, make bangles and more. Learn how the Kerria lacca in … | Continue reading
The following is excerpted from the third edition of “Make a Chair from a Tree,” by Jennie Alexander (though for this chapter in particular we are indebted to Peter Follansbee – he’s shown doing the work here!). This third edition of Alexander’s “MACFAT” is the culmination of a l … | Continue reading
It’s a bit difficult to put a label on this book. It’s not really a catalog of the pieces produced by Nakashima Woodworkers, but it is filled with drawings and images of the pieces the company makes. It’s also a short history of the workshop, a close explanation of how they work … | Continue reading
The following is excerpted from Vol. IV of “The Woodworker, The Charles H. Hayward Years,” which covers the shop & furniture. As a general classification some six general types of doors have been evolved over the years, though the variations on each are almost unlimited. Only a f … | Continue reading
Chris is already hard at work (shocking, I know) on a second LOTR-inspired chair, and I’m belaboring every word in my Dutch tool chest book manuscript. But we’re also here to answer your burning hand-tool woodworking questions. Or cat questions. Or late 19th- early 20th-century R … | Continue reading
Because of the Backwoods Chairmakers event in Berea, Ky., on June 2, we have decided to open our storefront doors here in Covington, Ky., on June 1 and June 3. This will allow travelers who are coming from out of town to stop by on their way to or from the event. These days we... | Continue reading
This chair is based off a couple chairs I built a few years ago, which were based off the chairs I built for my two kids, which were based off a chair that Bilbo Baggins briefly sits in during “The Fellowship of the Ring.” I haven’t watched the movie in ages, but I remember the.. … | Continue reading
We just sent the “American Peasant” book to press, but it’s a lot like landing in a foreign country (yay!) and having to wait behind 1,000 people at the immigration window (ugh). Normally, our books come out about five or six weeks after we send them to press. But these are not n … | Continue reading
The following is excerpted from Matthew Bickford’s “Mouldings in Practice.” In this book, Bickford shows you how to turn a set of complicated mouldings into a series of predictable rabbets and chamfers that guide your hollow and round planes to make any moulding that has been mad … | Continue reading
I think the last time these saw vises got used was during Matt Cianci’s last saw sharpening class in our shop. In 2019. We unearthed them from our respective basements for Matt’s class going on today and tomorrow – and we will have our ear plugs at the ready. (It is not a quiet c … | Continue reading
I hope no on has a heart attack upon reading this…but I will be turning in the completed manuscript for the long-promised Dutch Tool Chest book by the end of this month. This year. In two weeks. Why is it so late? I am definitely the problem. I’m not great anymore at working 18 h … | Continue reading
Join via Zoom (if you can’t make it to Bloomington in person) at 6 p.m. Eastern on May 24, for the 2024 Rosemary Miller Lecture, this year celebrating the life and work of Nancy Hiller (1959-2022). Duncan Campbell will speak about Nancy and her deep commitment to historic preserv … | Continue reading
The last year has been chaotic here at Lost Art Press as we doubled in size, bought a warehouse, fixed it up and launched new ways of teaching people the craft. This blog entry is a brief update on… everything. But especially the “teaching people the craft” part. First let me say … | Continue reading
We’re having one last sale to get our inventory under control. We have put seven books on sale from now until June 14 – some of them deeply discounted. You can see all the titles on sale here. We don’t like to put things on sale, so why do this? Last year we bought a... | Continue reading
The following is excerpted from Vol. IV of “The Woodworker, The Charles H. Hayward Years, The Shop & Furniture.” This fourth book in our “Woodworker” series covers three different topics: 1) The Workshop, including the design and construction of workbenches, tool chests and wall … | Continue reading
I just completed this large comb-back chair in ash and elm and am selling it via a silent auction (details below). The chair is set up for dining and keyboarding, with its back tilted at 13° and the seat tilted at 2°. This chair is probably the tallest comb-back I’ve made in year … | Continue reading
This may or may not work. For the last month, our blog has been sinking into madness. Subscribers weren’t receiving emails, our RSS feed was jacked up and this week we started receiving fatal errors whenever we tried to post. We have lots of technical help, and I hope in the comi … | Continue reading
If you, too, would like to get bunny ears from Chris while making a chair in our shop, log in to our ticketing site at noon (Eastern) today. Signups go live for: Build an Irish Armchair with Christopher Schwarz (Aug. 12-16) and Build a Welsh-style Comb-back Chair with Christopher … | Continue reading
I find this difficult to believe…but it must be true. Chris and I have never flown to a place to teach concurrent classes. Or flown concurrently to different places to teach classes. But it is finally happening: Chris and I are both presenting at the London International Woodwork … | Continue reading
The following is excerpted from “The Stick Chair Book,” by Christopher Schwarz. “The Stick Chair Book” is divided into three sections. The first section, “Thinking About Chairs,” introduces you to the world of common stick chairs, plus the tools and wood to build them. The second … | Continue reading
What follows is a broad overview of historic styles, by Henry R. Birks, who was an instructor in cabinet work t Regent Street Polytechnic in London. He earned City and Guilds first-class honors in cabinet work. This article is from Vol. IV (which covers Furniture and the Workshop … | Continue reading
Chris is getting ready for a chair class that starts on Monday, and if all goes as planned, I’ll be gluing up panels for a Shaker project…but we’ll be also be online off and on until 5 p.m. to take your woodworking questions. So post ’em in the comments below (as always, brevity … | Continue reading
For more than two weeks, our blog has been hobbled by problems with our Domain Name Servers (DNS). Basically, the majority of our email subscribers weren’t receiving updates when we posted something new. Also, our RSS feed took a dump. So even fewer people knew we were posting an … | Continue reading
This stick-back armchair is designed for reading and relaxing. It is based on Irish examples I’ve studied during my travels, and I have gradually tweaked this design to get it right where I want it. I’m offering it for sale for $1,700 via a random drawing. The price includes crat … | Continue reading
Several people have asked my permission to teach classes in making stick chairs using my designs. My answer is always: Please do. All my designs I give freely to the public for any purpose, including commercial uses. My book on the topic, “The Stick Chair Book,” is a free downloa … | Continue reading
The following is excerpted from “To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry,” translated by By Donald C. Williams, Michele Pietryka-Pagán & Philippe Lafargue. It is the first English-language translation of the most important woodworking book of the 18th century. While … | Continue reading
We’ve gotten many requests for more stick chair classes this year, so we added two more to the calendar. Both classes will be held at our Covington, Kentucky, storefront and the cost includes all materials and hearty lunches – plus pastries, coffee and tea each day. Some students … | Continue reading
As Megan and I mentioned yesterday, we are having serious problems with our WordPress site. We have a technical expert working on it. WordPress has mostly ignored our pleas. In some ways, we are still trying to find out what is wrong with our Domain Name Servers (DNS). Some reade … | Continue reading
Chris should be done with the chair above by the time you’re reading this. As I write and schedule this post, he’s doing the “make pretty” on the arms, legs and seat, and the backrest will be installed by lunchtime. Then he’ll spray a coat or two of shellac and rub on a coat of.. … | Continue reading
Thankfully, things have calmed around here since the madness of last week’s multi-day move of inventory from storage to Anthe. With all books now on site we’ve been able to focus our energy towards the vision for Anthe (as well as packing and shipping orders, of course). Gabe, Ma … | Continue reading