‘The Woodworker: The Charles H. Hayward Years’ –
After six years and hundreds of hours of work, our biggest publishing project is finally coming together.
“The Woodworker: The Charles H. Hayward Years” is a massive compilation of the best writing at The Woodworker magazine while Charles H. Hayward was editor, from 1936 to 1966. Many of the articles were written and illustrated by Hayward himself, but this authorized compilation also features stories from other great workshop writers such as Robert Wearing and W.L. Goodman.
When we say this project is big, we mean it. This 8-1/2” x 11” hardbound book will easily be more than 1,200 pages long and feature articles on all aspects of hand tool use, joinery, furniture styles and workshop philosophy.
The book has taken a team of people including myself, Megan Fitzpatrick, Phil Hirz, Ty Black, John Hoffman and Linda Watts years to put together. It started with us purchasing every single annual edition of The Woodworker from Hayward’s tenure, a $2,000 bill.
Then we spent many beer- and wine-soaked evenings sorting through all of the annuals, culling out the best articles, weeding out duplicates and trying to make a cohesive book that included a fair sample of Hayward’s pioneering publishing work.
That was the easy part.
Ty Black scanned all of the articles and wrote a program that would process the images and turn the stories into editable text, which then had to be compared against the originals.
And now Linda Watts is laying out the entire book in a cohesive, vintage-looking package that will present Hayward’s work to a new generation of hand-tool users.
I will be honest: We bit off more than we could chew with this book. It would have been easy to scan all the articles and reprint them as-is. We took the hardest and most expensive road possible in resetting all the text, reprocessing each image and creating new page layouts.
“The Woodworker: The Charles H. Hayward Years” will be published this fall. We don’t have pricing information. But you might want to start saving your dimes and English pesos now. It will be worth it.
As a small taste, here are all of the sections of the book:
1-Tools & Techniques
Sharpening
Setting-out Tools
Handplanes
Saws
Boring Tools
Carving
Turning
Veneering & Inlay
General Techniques
Miscellaneous Tools
2- Joinery
Panel Joints
Frame Joints
Dovetail and Carcass Joints
Miscellaneous Joints
3-Workshop Appliances & Storage
Workbenches & Workholding
Tool Chests & Storage
Appliances
4-Furniture & Details
Furniture Styles Styles
Projects & Drawings
Miscellaneous Details
5-Chips from the Chisel
And below is a bigger taste: The full table of contents for the book.
TOC
More details as they become available.
— Christopher Schwarz
