NEW EDITION IS BEING RELEASED MID 2025

The Anarchist's Tool Chest by Christopher Schwarz, 2nd Edition. A Lost Art Press publication.

You can download the entire book in PDF format here. If you'd like to hold this beautiful cotton bound book in your own hands, you're in the right place.

This book places woodworking tools at the heart of a life dedicated to crafting furniture that will endure for generations. It showcases the importance of quality tools (something we strongly believe in!), asserting that you can build almost anything with fewer than 50 high quality tools. It guides you on how to select real working tools, regardless of their vintage or brand.

The Anarchist's Tool Chest not only instructs on building a proper tool chest following ancient carpentry rules but also makes a compelling argument that creating this chest and filling it with the right tools is one of the best actions you can take to preserve our craft.

Like all publications from Lost Art Press, this book is printed and bound in the United States on acid-free 60# paper. The hardcover, measuring 6” x 9”, is Smythe sewn and covered in linen, ensuring it lasts for many generations. The book contains 494 pages and includes a full index.

About Lost Art Press:

Lost Art Press LLC was founded in 2007 by two enthusiastic woodworkers, John Hoffman and Christopher Schwarz, while attending a Lie-Nielsen Toolworks Open House in Warren, Maine. The company started with a question: What happened to all the great woodworking books that used to be published? The books that changed the course of the craft and people’s lives? The books that explored our ever-diminishing link to the handwork of previous centuries? Flash forward to today, Lost Art Press ships about 60,000 books a year, which makes them still a tiny publisher in the grand scheme of things, but allows important, valuable texts to be produced, fairly and equitably for generations to come. As a family business ourselves, we absolutely love the principles and foundations that Lost Art Press is built upon, and proudly stock a large range of their books.