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'Honest approach'
I have been a loyal customer of Lost Art Press for many years and have even visited the storefront. Not only do they provide books and tools not available elsewhere, they do so with an honest approach to their customers and the authors.
– Mark
'First-rate'
LAP's videos are first-rate: highly instructive, and easy to understand.
– Rich Daugherty
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When I wanted to connect with something harkening back to simpler times when people used their hands to make useful things with function and purpose, Lost Art Press was the only place with the resources and guidance to get me on the path.
– Justin Meehan
This is a Test of the LAP Broadcasting System
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...
LAP Open Wire, April 27, 2024
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 black wax…
Flaking Out on Friday
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, Mark and I began our day with...
More Classes with Chris (Near & Far)
I have two more classes this year that have open spots. One in Germany, and one in Indiana. I’m teaching people to build the Dutch Tool Chest in Munich July 14-16. You can register and read more about the class here. The class takes place next to Dictum’s lovely Munich showroom...
Points to Know About the Screwdriver
There are many varieties of screwdrivers, some made for special jobs and others for general work, but from the woodworker’s point of view and disregarding for the moment such luxury tools as the spiral or the ratchet, there are two main patterns known as the London and the cabinet types...
From Truths to Tools
By Jim Tolpin and George Walker
Illustrated by Andrea Love
You can download a pdf sample here.
Good books give you a glimpse of small truths – about workbenches, joinery or sharpening, for example. Great books, on the other hand, stitch together seemingly disparate ideas to present a new way of looking at the whole world, from your marking awl, to your hand or to the line of the horizon.
“From Truths to Tools” is a hand-illustrated work that masquerades as a children’s book. There are funny drawings. There aren’t a lot of words. You can read the entire 208-page book in one sitting.But “From Truths to Tools” somehow explains the craft, the entire physical world, our language and geometry in a way that makes you feel like the authors have revealed a huge secret to you. One that has been sitting in front of you your entire life.
The book begins with an explanation of a circle and a single point, and it then shows how those simple ideas can be used to create an entire set of layout tools – a try square, a straightedge, dividers etc. that allow you to build furniture.Once you understand the language behind your tools, very complicated things become easy to understand. Compound joinery. Fitting odd miters. Making curves that taper.
And once you get those ideas in your head, it’s a short hop to grasp how those same ideas can be applied to building anything of any shape imaginable – skyscrapers, boats, bridges. When you can calculate if a tree will hit you when you fell it in the forest, you’ll be able to calculate the circumference of the earth.
“From Truths to Tools” is the third book from the geometry-loving team of Jim Tolpin and George Walker. Their first book, “By Hand & Eye,” makes the case that simple whole-number ratios are the underpinning to the built world and our furniture. Their second book, “By Hound & Eye,” gives you the exercises that open your eyes to the way geometry and ratios govern our world. And the third, “From Truths to Tools,” shows how geometry creates our tools and, once understood, leads to a deeper grasp of the things we build, the world around us and even our language.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
The Awl 8
Dividers 13
Rulers 16
Story Sticks 21
Compass 27
Spiling Baten 34
Bending Battens 47
Marking Implements 49
Plane Generators 58
Gauges 69
Squares 95
'Smart' Square 108
Plumb Line 117
Libella 122
Center Finder 128
Sector 136
Proportional Dividers 141
Scale of Chords 145
Protractor 149
Large-Scale Layout Tools 155
The Triplet 157
Carpenter's Ten-Foot Pole 160
Thirteen-Knot Cord 164
Cord of Polygones 168
Groma and Merchet 172
Cords of Magnitude and Angle 175
Chorobate 179
Cross Staff 182
Logger's Felling Gauge 186
Appendix 191
Epilogue 193
About the Authors
George Walker
Raised in northeast Ohio, George Walker spent the first 20 years of his woodworking in design purgatory. Then after stumbling onto the design language of the artisans, he can’t shut up about it. After four books (and working on a fifth with Jim Tolpin), and scores of magazine articles, he’s just getting started. No matter how ordinary the circumstances, George is regularly struck by the majesty and wonder of life – the way millions of colorful warblers gather at Magee Marsh before their migration across Lake Erie; the way a medieval drawing found in an old monastery can inform his work through the understanding of geometry; or the way he can now build a beautiful piece of furniture, without plans or a tape measure, using instead a stick, a piece of string and dividers. Visit George and Jim’s By Hand & Eye’s online atelier (design studio) to help you unlock your potential as a builder or maker by honing your design skills.
Read more about George in our full profile.
Jim Tolpin
Jim Tolpin, who grew up on the East Coast and now resides in Port Townsend, Washington, has been making a living at woodworking since 1970, mostly in the finish carpentry and custom cabinetmaking trades. In the last 15 years he's been writing books on woodworking and design and, after helping found Port Townsend School of Woodworking, teaching the trade. Jim is, above all else, a teacher, and the best kind, because he never believes he knows it all and never stops learning. He also believes in passing it on, while you still can. “There are a lot of people out there who want to know this stuff and that includes me,” he says. “I personally love being in the position of not knowing but maybe going to find out.” Visit Jim and George’s By Hand & Eye’s online atelier (design studio) to help you unlock your potential as a builder or maker by honing your design skills.
Read more about Jim in our full profile.