New Periodic Table of Tools Book and Poster!
Periodic Table of Tools Book and Poster!
I am super excited to announce that I have a new book coming out! Tools will be released on October 24th, but you can pre-order it now for delivery on the day. Here's a link for buying it. I've been using and fascinated by tools for as long as I can remember. I mean that literally: many of my earliest memories are of tools (people apparently being a seconday concern in my life?). In this book Nick and I have photographed hundreds of lovely tools in the style of my earlier books, and I tell you stories about all of them.
And I am even more excited to announce that after almost 20 years I have published a new periodic table poster, a Periodic Table of Tools! I was originally resistant to the idea of organizing tools into a periodic table, but my publisher was right that this would be a cool idea, and it worked out really well.
Similar tools are grouped into columns, and as you go down a column they get heavier, just like the elements. The diagonal line between metals and non-metals turns into a diagonal line between drills and wrenches. The square for copper is all about brass and bronze tools. It's fun, and actually results in a fairly well-organized collection of tools. So many tools.
And it's just beautiful.
So, after you buy severeal copies of the Tools book and poster for all your spouses, children, friends, nieces, nephews, random kids, and your old shop teacher from high school, I want to give you an update on my other products. As some of you may remember, I announced about a year ago that I was getting out of my side lines making quilts and acrylic mechanical models, and selling autographed books (mainly due to being forced, again, to move my whole operation to a new location).
Things have now settled out this way. My long-time assistant Gretchen decided to take over the quilt-making business (and kept the machine in exactly the same location, so I didn't have to move it!!). She's planning to keep selling all the same quilts through my website, as well as come up with new designs of her own. So contrary to earlier projections, you can actually keep buying these quilts, and I encourage you to support Gretchen in her new business! Order now to ensure X-mas delivery: quilts take time to make.
Transparent acrylic models sadly are going to remain unavailable for the foreseeable future. I have the laser cutter up and running again, but all the parts bins are still packed in boxes and will stay that way at least until spring, maybe forever. I feel bad because these really were wonderful kits, but it's just too complicated to keep the business going. It's possible I'll start again with a limited selection of just the most popular kits, but not for a while.
Autographed copies of my books are in a bit of a probationary status. It's quite a hassle to handle them and I feel bad when I can't get to writing a custom inscription for several weeks and then someone misses a birthday. So I've decided to raise the price to $50, and stop doing custom inscriptions (unless you go to the trouble of emailing me separately and accepting that it might take a while). Hopefully this will discourage most people from ordering autographed copies unless they really want one. If you want a regular copy of the book it's just so much easier to order it from Amazon or your local bookstore. They can sell the books almost cheaper than I can buy them from the publisher, often with free shipping which I don't know how they aren't losing money on that.