Kale Vogt grew up just south of Covington, in Burlington, Kentucky, in a close-knit family – mom, dad and an older brother, T.J. A self-proclaimed “art kid,” Kale was athletic, playing soccer through high school, and loved to spend time outdoors. Kale’s mom is a special needs bus … | Continue reading
Megan is teaching a class on building a Shaker silverware tray here at the storefront this weekend, so y’all are stuck with me and Wally the cat for Open Wire. We are happy to answer your woodworking questions here on Open Wire. Simply type your question into the comment box bel … | Continue reading
With Chris out of town this week, Megan and I determined this a perfect time to wreak havoc around the shop. And by “havoc,” us nerds mean finally getting around to finishing my first Dutch tool chest. In this video, Megan demonstrates her dado cutting process using hand tools wh … | Continue reading
The following is excerpted from Robert Wearing’s “The Essential Woodworker” – one of the two of our books I most frequently recommend to those getting started in hand-tool woodworking. (The other is “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.“) “The Essential Woodworker” is filled with more tha … | Continue reading
The following is by Steve Voigt, whom you might know primarily as a maker of wooden planes. But he’s also passionate about traditional finishes, and has been taking a deep dive into that subject as he works on a book for Lost Art Press. The working title is “Oil, Resin, Solvent & … | Continue reading
Chris is in Florida through next week to teach two classes, and is then taking a few well-earned days of vacation with his wife, Lucy May. (I expect he’ll pop in from time to time to answer, or comment after hours on chair questions and the like.) In the meantime, I’ll be here ed … | Continue reading
One of my pieces from 2018 – Monticello bookcases in walnut and pine – are now up for sale on eBay. These were commissioned by a Michigan customer and came out rather nice. He’s now putting them up for sale, with the starting bid at $1,500. Normally I don’t promote third-party sa … | Continue reading
After much analysis and debate, we have decided to put “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” – our bestselling book – on sale for the month of March. Until March 31, the book is $34 – that’s 34 percent off the $51 retail. Plus, all copies sold through us are signed by the author and inclu … | Continue reading
If you’ve ever wanted to meet Roy Underhill and toast his vast contributions to the craft, here is your chance. At 6 p.m. Saturday, March 23, we’re holding a happy hour for Roy at Juniper’s Gin Bar, which is a short walk from our Covington storefront. The restaurant has kindly ag … | Continue reading
The following is excerpted from “By Hand & Eye,” by George R, Walker and Jim Tolpin. The book is a deep dive into the world of history, architecture and design. And the authors have emerged with armloads of pearls for readers. Instead of serving up a list of formulas with magical … | Continue reading
We have the Lie-Nielsen folks in this weekend for the first Hand Tool Event in at least three years. So we are not able to answer questions online today. If you are in the area, stop by the storefront and a whole host of people will be happy to answer your woodworking questions. … | Continue reading
I’m always on the lookout for local materials I can use to build stick chairs. Elm is my favorite wood, but it can be difficult to find for purchase. Last month Shea Alexander of Alexander Bros. gave me a couple boards of honey locust to try out for a chair seat. It looks a lot.. … | Continue reading
Typically, I’m not a fan of Print on Demand (POD) publishers who take low-quality scans of books in the public domain and sell them alongside antique books. I have been fooled a couple times and ordered a POD book by accident. But here is one exception. The Forgotten Books websit … | Continue reading
The following Covington Mechanicals classes go on sale today at 10 a.m. Eastern. They will likely sell out quickly – some in seconds – so be ready to register. (But before you do, please check your calendar to make sure you can attend the class for which you want to register). If … | Continue reading
We are thrilled to host Lie-Nielsen Toolworks this weekend for a Hand Tool Event at our storefront at 837 Willard St. in Covington, Ky. (Details here.) If this is your first trip to Covington, or you haven’t been here since the pandemic, there is a lot to chat about. During the … | Continue reading
Last summer, a mysterious package arrived for me in the mail. It was from Suzanne Ellison, whom you know better as Suzo, our indefatigable researcher, aka The Saucy Indexer. Inside was an incredible handmade book, written and illustrated by Suzo, “The Dream of the Joiner.” And it … | Continue reading
It’s time for Open Wire, our almost-every-Saturday woodworking question and answer session! Next week, however, Open Wire will be in-person only at the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event here in our shop. So if you have questions and can’t make it to next weekend’s shindig, ask now in t … | Continue reading
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