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1 week ago | 
theanarchistsapprentice.substack.com | Kale Vogt |Christopher Schwarz
My daughter Katherine started work for Lost Art Press this week with a bang. Monday was fulfilling orders (300 came in over the weekend). Tuesday was all about learning to edit video (including this one) and making a carved woodblock. And today she learned all about keyways and pulleys to fix the band saw at our warehouse. It is never dull here. I wouldn’t call it chaotic, but there is always lots to do.
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1 week ago | 
neversponsored.substack.com | Christopher Schwarz
The first time I ever heard about Wood Owl bits was in 2013. We were getting ready for the first French Oak Roubo Project down in Georgia, and I was worried about how we were going to make the deep mortises in the thick French oak. Jameel Abraham, one of the organizers, told me this: “Buy some Wood Owl bits.”“What diameter? Length?” I asked. “Doesn’t matter,” Jameel said. “Just get some.”I bought a bunch (they were difficult to find then, and they were expensive).
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1 week ago | 
christopherschwarz.substack.com | Christopher Schwarz
Scholarship applications are now open for six spots in a special comb-back class in our Covington, Kentucky, workshop Sept. 15-19. The class is offered through The Chairmaker’s Toolbox, a non-profit organization that provides education and support to those who have been historically excluded from the craft. The six students will spend five days building and finishing a vernacular comb-back chair using lots of hand tools and occasionally the band saw.
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1 week ago | 
christopherschwarz.substack.com | Christopher Schwarz
How many of y’all here got started in woodworking because of the seminal work of Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann? You know – the French guy who invented Art Deco. How about André-Charles Boulle? Perhaps the most important French cabinetmaker – ever. Born 1682. Basically, invented inlay as we know it today? Robert Manwearing? Anyone start tinkering in their shed thanks to Big Manny (as he was called at the pub)? Who here wasn’t called to the craft by Beurdeley, Jean-Francois Oeben or (the GOAT) Abraham Roentgen?
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2 weeks ago | 
christopherschwarz.substack.com | Christopher Schwarz
Publisher’s note: Good morning and welcome to Earlywood, a free weekly excerpt from one of the thousands of pieces I’ve written since 1996. Sometimes, it’s from a magazine article. Or a book. Or (in this case) a blog post published in 2015. Each entry has been updated or annotated with some modern context or point of view. Enjoy!The following is not a petition for affirmation. It is merely a reminder to myself not to order so many books at press time.
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2 weeks ago | 
christopherschwarz.substack.com | Christopher Schwarz
New tool development has been caught in the much lately. Our machine shop (Machine Time in Nicholasville, Kentucky) has been swamped with a huge contract that they couldn’t say “no” to. So our pinch rods, which were days or even hours away from production, were mothballed. Until this week. Machine Time sent us an updated prototype to double-check and indicates that production is soon. Now you know everything that I do.
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2 weeks ago | 
neversponsored.substack.com | Christopher Schwarz
I do not want to review honing guides. Why? Because I would run out of ways to say horrible things about them. Most are too complicated. Or expensive for what you get. Or over-engineered. Or just plain idiocy made aluminum. When Veritas released its long-awaited side-clamp honing guide, I simply looked away. At the time we weren’t reviewing any tools (except for the Anarchist’s Gift Guide). Also, several of our students mentioned problems they’d had with the Veritas guide.
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2 weeks ago | 
christopherschwarz.substack.com | Christopher Schwarz |Kara Gebhart Uhl
Note: This is the second article in our series where we do deep research into thorny woodworking topics. The first article was on mahogany, a beautiful material that carries environmental and human rights baggage. This month, we look at wood-drying processes. So buckle up. For the first seven years I was in the woodworking business, I used kiln-dried lumber exclusively. Not by choice. That’s just what was available at the commercial yards here in Cincinnati.
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3 weeks ago | 
christopherschwarz.substack.com | Christopher Schwarz
Publisher’s note: Happy Saturday, happy Earlywood, a free weekly excerpt from one of the thousands of pieces I’ve written since 1996. Sometimes, it’s from a magazine article. Or a book. Or (in this case) a blog post published in 2006. Each entry has been updated or annotated with some modern context or point of view. Enjoy!One of my favorite movies as a teenager had a scene where a 1940s-era G-man goes to a mystic for help in becoming a superhero.
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3 weeks ago | 
christopherschwarz.substack.com | Christopher Schwarz
We interrupt your regular Sunday-morning shitpost with some actual woodworking instruction. When I wrote “American Peasant,” I was happy with my engraving skills – but not with the way I was teaching them. I’ve since taught a couple classes in engraving, which helped me become a better instructor with this tool.
