Free Chair Design Tool, Plus a Dire Warning about Toolmaking

And free clamp rack plans

View this email in your browser Amazing Chair Design Tool & What We Like (and Hate) in Chisels A quick look at all the stuff Lost Art Press published during the last seven days. I'm teaching a chair class this week (which is why this digest is late). Megan is designing the pages for her Dutch Tool Chest book, and Kale is assisting my class and building a chair as well. Here's what we published last week. Lost Art Press Blog The Human Form Hidden in Plain Sight A quick excerpt from "By Hand & Eye," George Walker and Jim Tolpin's first book together. This is the landmark design book that laid out their ideas for how furniture design is governed by simple whole-number ratios. In this excerpt, they explain what is behind those ratios. 'Set & File' Back in Stock (Yay); Delays on Other Books (Boo) Matt Cianci's fast-selling book on saw sharpening is back in stock. Unfortunately, two other titles have been delayed by manufacturing problems with the covers (the post includes photos of the problems). Digital Chair Design Tool (It's Free) A reader has developed a free web-based tool that allows you to "build" your own lowback stick chair to your exact specifications of rake and splay and number of sticks. You simply move sliders to change the specs. Then you click a button and you get all the layouts for that chair. Amazing. P.S. There's also a free tool there for laying out dovetails. The American Peasant Substack People Take Warning Toolmakers – even big and successful ones – can disappear in almost no time. This post shows how the woodworking machinery industry was turned upside down in the 1990s. And it warns what could be ahead for the hand tool industry. (Free for everyone) Willard Street Words Every workshop has pithy or pitiful expressions that are said when things go horribly wrong – or go kinda right. Here is a lit of our workshop's words. (Free for everyone) The Anarchist's Apprentice Substack I'm Ready for My Close-Up Kale published the construction drawings and cutting list for the clamp rack they just built. Plus, a video tour of the rack. (For paid subscribers, with a free preview) A Little Rust? No Problem How to remove small spots of corrosion with rubberized abrasive. (For paid subscribers, with a free preview) Never Sponsored Substack What Makes a Good Chisel Chris and Megan explain what they think are the important aspects of a good chisel (hint: it's not edge retention). There's also a video with the post that explains these key points. (Free for everyone) On Instagram This Week It's Whitey Miller week on Instagram. We're posting short video excerpts from her new video for beginners on building a Swedish Tool Chest. Visit Lost Art Press Copyright (C) 2024 Lost Art Press. All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the Lost Art Press blog. Welcome! We try our best to make this a good experience for both of us... Our mailing address is: Lost Art Press 407 Madison Ave Covington, KY 41011-1519 USA Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe