About 2012, Ty Black and I developed some leather pockets for the inside of tool chests that would hold important stuff. One held a block plane. The other held pencils, pens, knives, 6” rule and other skinny things that could get lost in a tool chest. We never intended to make th … | Continue reading
Years ago I used to make all my sticks with the 5/8” Ray Iles rounding plane. I think I must have had a bump on the head at some point because I cannot remember when or why I stopped using it. Last year I bought one from Classic Hand Tools in the UK, and I... | Continue reading
“The Anarchist’s Design Book, Expanded Edition” is now a free download for everyone. You don’t have to register, sign up for dumb marketing or give up your email address. Simply click here, and the book will start downloading to your device. If you want to read more about what is … | Continue reading
The following is excerpted from “The Essential Woodworker,” by Robert Wearing. In our opinion, “The Essential Woodworker” is one of the best books on hand-tool usage written in the post-Charles Hayward era. Wearing was classically trained in England as a woodworker and embraced b … | Continue reading
The following post is from our friend Mattias Hallin, who has been using linseed oil paint for a lot longer than have we – his approach is different than ours. (For starters, he’s willing to put in a significant amount of time whereas I, a pushy American, haven’t his patience! An … | Continue reading
It has been a crazy chair week here in the shop…so no different than usual (except we had eight people working in here instead of the usual two). So today, we’re happy to take it a little easy and answer questions at the computer. You know the drill: Post your woodworking questio … | Continue reading
Below are the classes being offered at the Lost Art Press shop in the second half of 2024. You can click through now to the Covington Mechanicals registration site to read the class descriptions, but you cannot register until 10 a.m. Eastern on Monday, Feb. 19. (It looks like you … | Continue reading
The following is excerpted from “Chairmaker’s Notebook,” by Peter Galbert. Whether you are an aspiring professional chairmaker, an experienced green woodworker or a home woodworker curious about the craft, “Chairmaker’s Notebook” is an in-depth guide to building your first Windso … | Continue reading
This Covington Mechanicals Library post feels like a sales pitch; sorry ’bout that. We’re up at top center of the shelves now, and that’s where we keep the stuff that’s incredibly important to Lost Art Press but – now – rarely needed. That’s all of John Brown columns from Good Wo … | Continue reading
It’s Open Wire time, where you can pose your woodworking questions in the comments section below and we’ll do our best to answer them. Chris is also getting ready for a class that starts Monday, and I’m getting the class pages ready for the July-December 2024 classes (they’ll be … | Continue reading
Today I had a few minutes of free time so I whipped up this quick T-shirt with my Cricut (yes, I have a mint green one) and the artwork of Rudy Everts. (If you love chair art and woodblocks and Escher stuff, check out his store.) Anyway, Rudy kindly consented to put this design u … | Continue reading
When we started fundraising last year to help repair the Anthe Building (the location of our warehouse in downtown Covington), we thought that surely, we would be ready to show it to the public in early 2024. Unfortunately, old buildings don’t care about our plans. Right now the … | Continue reading
Great news: We are honored to welcome back Lie-Nielsen Toolworks to the Lost Art Press storefront for the first Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event since before the pandemic! Details on the event from Lie-Nielsen are here. (The company’s 2024 Hand Tool Event schedule is here.) Details: F … | Continue reading
The following is excerpted from Nancy R. Hiller’s “Kitchen Think: A guide to design and construction, from refurbishing to renovation.” For two decades, Nancy made a living by turning limitations into creative, lively and livable kitchens for her clients. This, her final how-to b … | Continue reading
In a nod to Christopher Schwarz’s talks this weekend at Colonial Williamsburg’s Working Wood in the 18th Century Conference, below is an excerpt from “The Art of Joinery,” the first book Lost Art Press published – itself an excerpt from Joseph Moxon’s “Mechanick Exersises,” which … | Continue reading
Today, we are delighted to have Andy Glenn, author of “Backwoods Chairmakers,” here to answer your woodworking questions – particularly those relating to post-and-rung chairs of the Appalachian region, as that’s the core of his new book. But, he’s a long-time woodworking teacher … | Continue reading
None of us likes accidents, but they are sometimes unavoidable. When possible, we’ll disguise workshop oopsies with wood – a plug, shim, wedge or dutchman. Sometimes we’ll add a metal plate (a decorative one if it shows) to keep a split from getting larger (and even when we know … | Continue reading
Chris will be presenting in Colonial Williamsburg this weekend and I’m up to my hairline in work – so we asked Andy Glenn, author of “Backwoods Chairmakers” (the most recent book release from LAP) if he’d like to take a Saturday stint of answering your woodworking questions. Read … | Continue reading
The following is excerpted from Andre D. Glenn’s “Backwoods Chairmakers: In Search of the Appalachian Ladderback Chairmaker.” For more than 200 years, chairmakers in Appalachia built ladderbacks to sell to neighbors and the occasional tourist. It was a tradition that was handed d … | Continue reading
A few weeks ago, I wrote about our experience with linseed oil paint. I’ve used it more since, and must update the suggestion to thin it with mineral spirits (low odor or otherwise). I’ve experienced some shiny vs. not-shiny spots on several projects that I think are a result of … | Continue reading
Whenever I teach a chair class, I build a chair along with the students. I don’t always sell my classroom-built chairs because I always push myself to try something different on the chair – something I’d be afraid to do to a chair that I am counting on to put food on the table. D … | Continue reading
We’ve just finished a stick chair class – so I might actually be able to answer your chair questions in today’s Open Wire! (But who am I kidding – I’ll leave those for Chris.) You know the drill (with or without lasers): Leave your woodworking questions in the comments below, and … | Continue reading
The following is excerpted from “Campaign Furniture,” by Christopher Schwarz. For almost 200 years, simple and sturdy pieces of campaign furniture were used by people all over the globe, yet this remarkable furniture style is now almost unknown to most woodworkers and furniture d … | Continue reading
When I set out to write, “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” my intent was to create a “pattern book” of vernacular furniture. The book didn’t turn out that way, which is sometimes how it goes. But during the research, Suzanne Ellison turned up a little book that fulfilled my original … | Continue reading
Chris is getting ready for his talks at Colonial Williamsburg’s Working Wood in the 18th Century conference (Jan. 25-28), and had all (some?) of the books he’s discussing arrayed across several benches. So we grabbed the microphones and a camera, and recorded a little bit about e … | Continue reading
It’s time for our (almost) weekly Open Wire, where you can pose your woodworking questions in the comments section below and we’ll do our best to answer them. Note that there may be a lag between your asking and our answering. Chris has a class starting Monday and a trip to Colon … | Continue reading
We just received our first printing of “Backwoods Chairmakers” by Andrew D. Glenn. If you placed a pre-publication order, Gabe and Mark are packing up your book now. If you would like to purchase a copy, you can visit our online store. (If you aren’t sure if you ordered the book, … | Continue reading
Especially during seasons of life when the days feel impossibly full, there is something quite captivating with the notion of some overnight magic that makes the next day just a bit easier. As such, our week improved greatly when Randall Wilkins suggested a new product offering a … | Continue reading
The following is excerpted from “The Belligerent Finisher,” by John Porritt. After walking you step by step through creating a believable aged finish, the book includes a gallery of just some of John’s gorgeous work. I think the phrase “standing on the shoulders of giants” has th … | Continue reading
Work on my next book, “The American Peasant,” has slowed my chairmaking a bit, but it hasn’t stopped me. I have six more chairs in the works right now. Today I am offering this low-slung comb-back in ash. This chair is completely set up for lounging, and is about as comfortable a … | Continue reading
Two quick promotional notes: 1) We have lump hammers back in stock in our store (with no dings, unlike my well-used one shown above). 2) European readers can take advantage of our reluctant sale (to reduce a metric ton – possibly more than a metric ton – of inventory) on “The Ana … | Continue reading
Chris and I have been experimenting with linseed oil paint for about a year now, since he started working on his next book, “The American Peasant,” and we’ve both painted a lot of wooden stuff with it – from large flat surfaces on chests to fiddly roundish bits on stick chairs to … | Continue reading
The final project for Chris’s next book, “The American Peasant,” is done, dusted, painted and hung on the wall – the coat and mug rack shown above. (The coat is the Lost Art Press Chore Coat, made in Cincinnati; the Lost Art Press Coffee Mugs are handmade for us in Minnesota.) So … | Continue reading
We are temporarily lowering the price of “The Anarchist’s Design Book” to $37 (down from $52) in a sincere effort to clear out a huge section of our second floor devoted to warehousing this title. This is not a junk title – “The Anarchist’s Design Book” is our second best-selling … | Continue reading
Now you can brand almost any garment with Lost Art Press using our iron-on applique. All you need is a household clothes iron, plus a cotton or cotton/poly sweatshirt or shirt. The applique letters are vinyl with a soft “flocked” coating, so they are nice and fuzzy, and they reca … | Continue reading
I’m always a bit surprised by what sells well each year. I look at our sales every morning, track inventory and try to figure out our next step. But rarely do I step back and look at the big sales picture. Except for today. Here are the 10 best selling Lost Art Press/Crucible pro … | Continue reading
The following is excerpted from “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years.” When we started on The Woodworker project more than a decade ago we didn’t intend to publish “Honest Labour.” The series was going to have four books that covered handwork: Vol. 1: Tools; Vol. 2: Techn … | Continue reading
All my books that you buy through Lost Art Press will be signed by me through 2024. It takes a few hours of my time each week, but we are thrilled we can offer this small personal touch now that we have our fulfillment center up and running in Covington, Kentucky. We also will of … | Continue reading
I have been stuck in a little too deep on peasant furniture and have forgotten to announce this: I am presenting at Colonial Williamsburg’s 26th annual “Working Wood in the 18th Century” conference Jan. 25-28. This year’s theme is “By the Book,” and it will focus on the relation … | Continue reading
Sorry it’s been awhile since my last library post – I’ll try to finish up the not-yet-covered cubbies in the next month to six weeks (I believe there are still three or four to go). This week, I had to get out the stepladder and stand on my tippy toes to reach the top left... | Continue reading
I’m writing this on Friday night. There’s a small chance Megan and I will not survive to see a new day. We ate dinner at Purple Poulet, and the food there is so rich and delicious that our hearts might simply stop. But if we do live, we are happy to answer your woodworking questi … | Continue reading
Please forward this to any budding author in your life. It’s the last week of December, so our inbox is filling up with queries – people who want to write a book and would like us to publish it. We don’t accept unsolicited queries (it’s right here on our “About Us” page where it … | Continue reading
I love using Cold-Bend Hardwood for the bent parts of my stick chairs. During the last 10 years I have basically a 0 percent failure rate with the stuff (the only failure was my fault – more on that in a bit). When I steam-bend arms, I typically lose about one-third of my bends. … | Continue reading
Lost Art Press Editor Megan Fitzpatrick has been featured on The Queue – the American Craft Council’s column on noteworthy artisans and artists. Check out the feature here. Congrats Megan on some long-overdue recognition. — Christopher Schwarz | Continue reading
I keep telling myself that modern spade bits are not great, but they’re OK. But I am lying to myself. Anytime I use a NOS (New Old Stock) Irwin spade I am shocked by how good the old ones are compared to the modern stuff. During the last few chairmaking classes I taught, the mode … | Continue reading
The following is Excerpted from “Honest Labour,” a collection of essays from The Woodworker magazine while the legendary Charles H. Hayward was editor (1936-1966). This book is be the fifth and final volume in our series from The Woodworker. And here’s hoping that, if you want to … | Continue reading
Andy Glenn’s long-awaited book, “Backwoods Chairmakers,” is just about complete at the press in Tennessee. We should get the books sometime between Thursday and Jan. 4 (barring weather or other delays). If you order the book before midnight on Sunday, Dec. 31, you will receive fr … | Continue reading
Good tidings and joy! Today begins the Twelve Days of Tooltide and a new song for all woodworkers. This song will lift you from post-holiday doldrums and carry you, all bright and shining, into the first week of the new year. As with the making of dovetails, dowels for a stick c … | Continue reading