That deep exhaling noise you just heard is probably coming from Kentucky, Virginia, Ohio and Maryland. Today we finished initial production of the long-awaited “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture.”
Weighing in at 470 pages, this book represents too many hours of work by too many people on too many continents. As I paged through the final product today before sending it to our printers for a quote, I could feel only relief. Not joy. Not satisfaction. (Those feelings might come later.)
Instead, today I have only to tell you something that we rarely say: This project was difficult at every stage. It ground all of us down to a nub. I am glad that I’ll never have to repeat it. And I am fearful to tally up all the money that we spent on it.
Was it worth it? I hope so. Like all of our difficult and protracted publishing projects, I know “Roubo on Furniture” was the right thing to do for the craft and the historical record. But when I count up the hours and calculate the communal grief, I question its value.
All of us can see how much better this project could be if we only had 20 more years to explore this, that or the other thing from the original text.
But some of us won’t be around in 20 years. So here is what we have. It’s not perfect. But it is done with all the precision possible.
In the next week or so, we will offer “With All the Precision Possible: Roubo on Furniture” for sale in our store (and through our network of retailers worldwide). And then we will start work on the deluxe edition of the book (details to follow on that). But as of today I don’t have any more information for you on this book. No prices. No delivery date.
But those details are coming. Soon.
— Christopher Schwarz