Christopher Clarke Antiques has released its latest catalog of campaign furniture called “An Officer’s Room,” which you can download for free from the company’s web site here.

Sean and Simon Clarke were extremely generous and helpful as I was researching English military and travel furniture for my book “Campaign Furniture.” The brother’s catalogs are a wealth of information on campaign furniture and include lots of original research into the makers and patents that are important to the style.

This catalog is no different. I’ve read it through twice – especially the section on the Fenby patent chairs, which I am researching now so I can reproduce them.

If you like campaign furniture, this catalog is a free little treat for you. By the way, all of the pieces in the catalog are for sale, in case you are also a furniture collector.

— Christopher Schwarz

You can now watch two episodes on Roy Underhill’s “The Woodwright’s Shop” on campaign furniture that we taped earlier this year by following this link.

Use the arrows below the main screen to scroll over to the episodes you want to watch.

One of the episodes is an introduction to the style and a demonstration of cutting lapped full-blind dovetails. The second episode shows my strategies for fitting inlaid corner brasses and campaign pulls.

I wish we would have demonstrated something additional: Roy trimming my hair. All I can think while watching these episodes is: Get a haircut, hippie. And a job.

The pieces shown in the episode are also featured in my book “Campaign Furniture,” which is available in our store and through our retailers. We are almost sold out of the the first edition of this book and we will be returning to press…

This is a re-post from an earlier entry.  Say what you will about British imperial policy of the 19th and 20th centuries.  They certainly worked out minimalist travel with a fair amount of style and comfort on a very personal level.  These old catalogs give

From The Army and Navy Co-operative Society Store, London 1907

There are some excellent items here that should give some inspiration for fabricating some classic and classy gear.  From an era before the activity of “camping” was fully segregated from “regular living”.

Much more of this to come…

In my last post I mentioned that the QT2A-X was larger than my previous carry light (the Fenix LD10). In this post I’ll show you what I did about that.

After carrying the QT2A-X for a week There are some things I would like to change about it. The length needs to be brought down to something smaller (I can manage with the QT2A-X’s size, and for prolonged use it’s actually pretty comfortable, but at 5.8 inches I have to use the pocket clip, as it won’t sit right in my pocket unless it is clipped to it. On that note, with the standard pocket clip it rides a wee bit too high to be comfortable when I am sitting and standing frequently (I am constantly getting up and sitting back down in my job, so this became apparent pretty rapidly).

So how do we make it better?

My ideal…