We are quite pleased to have joiner Peter Follansbee as the host of today’s Open Wire.
Peter’s specialty is 17th-century woodworking, though lately he has returned to chairmaking as well. If you love this kind of stuff, I recommend you subscribe to his brand new substack, which is named Follansbee’s Substack.
Today Peter has given up part of his Saturday to answer your woodworking questions (feel free to ask about his bird watching hobby as well).
Here’s how it works: Type your question in the comment field. Peter will answer it. It is that simple.
This is the final bit of our run of special edition Anthe hammers, which help fund our restoration of our new headquarters on Madison Avenue in Covington. We won’t be making these again.
The Redneck Pencil Gauges were a grand experiment with a lower-priced tool using scavenged parts and some MacGuyver-ing. If we offer pencil gauges again, they will be more expensive because we will mill the heads ourselves. So this is the last chance to get a 100-percent functional pencil gauge for inside and outside curves for $37.
Thanks to our two new employees – Gabe and Mark – we now have 250 more GoDrillas in stock and ready to ship.
The GoDrilla is a bit extender that works with any 1/4” hex tool and any 1/4” hex rod (a 12” hex rod is included). The GoDrilla locks on your bit with fearsome strength, eliminating any wiggle or runout. I still have our first working prototype (shown above) and it is going strong after drilling thousands of holes for my chairs and those of my students.
Here’s a quick movie that shows how the GoDrillas work.
GoDrillas are made in Tennessee. And are never made using bits of gorilla.
Last week an amazing thing happened a block away from the Anthe Building (the site of our new headquarters). Workers began removing the ugly brick cladding from a building at the corner of Fourth Street and Scott Boulevard. What was below the brick was a link to our family’s past.
Lucy’s family ran the chain of Grote Drugstores in Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati in the 20th century. They had two stores in Covington. One was at the corner of Pike Street and Madison Ave., what is now The Hannaford, a trendy bar.
The other store was at Fourth Street and Scott Boulevard. But Jane May nee Grote (Lucy’s mom) couldn’t remember exactly which corner it was on – the area has changed a lot.
On Sunday, Lucy and I visited the construction site at Fourth and Scott. The work had revealed a gorgeous storefront that still had some intact glass. Two windows said “Prescriptions” and one said “Hy-Pure Drugs,” an old brand.
I showed Jane the photos and she confirmed that yup, that was the drugstore her father owned and ran. Jane said she worked the lunch counter there when she was 15 or 16 and would fill in for the employees who were on vacation. The lunch counter was inexpensive, close to the courthouse and a quick place to get a bite.
It also is one block from the Anthe Building. We are thrilled that the drugstore storefront is coming back to life and can’t wait to see what it will be in its next life.
The third floor with the not-to-code partitions taken down.
During the last few weeks there has been so much going on at the Anthe Building I don’t know where to start. We are now waiting on permits and inspections (we passed our first electrical inspection last week), so things are at a bit of a lull, which is frustrating and welcome.
Here are some highlights:
HVAC: On and running. I’ve installed humidity monitors throughout the building to get a sense of where we are. The building has never had air conditioning (OK, there was one window unit for all four floors). And we’ve sprayed hundreds of gallons of water to clean the walls and floors. So things are moist. Right now the relative humidity is at 45 percent. That’s OK, but I think/hope we will get it in the 30s, which will be the ideal environment for storing books.
Some adhesion testing going on.
The Floor: For the last couple weeks, the first floor looked like the LAP Chicken Ranch. Our contractor spread five garbage bags of planer shavings to continue soaking up any oil on the floor. It worked (though my neatnik urges were tingling). This week, Megan and I will apply a finish. I’ve been doing adhesion tests with shellac and oil-based varnish to see what combination of finishes will work best for us. Mostly, we’re trying to keep the small amount of remaining oil on the floor off of our shoes.
Electrical: The electrician removed all the unnecessary conduit and boxes that powered the lathes and mills. Plus they dismantled the dozen fluorescent light fixtures on the first floor from the 1980s. He replaced them with a handful of low-profile LED fixtures. Now we can see the lineshaft in all its glory.
The fulfillment center. Looking from the rear of the building toward the storefront (now covered in a blue tarp).
Looking toward the back of the fulfillment center. The flags mark areas that need repairs (we have a soft spot for flags).
Rough framing: We have some stud walls up for the bathroom and the partition between the storefront and the fulfillment area. But we are waiting for the county’s permission to add drywall (as a firebreak) then the beadboard. Speaking of beadboard, the painter has been painting and glazing ours off-site. We need a lot more beadboard than we salvaged, so the painters are matching the color and the grime from the existing walls.
Upstairs: While we wait for permits and inspections, the crew has dismantled some of the 1970s-era partitions on the second and third floors. This has opened up the space and given us views that are making my brain tick as we plan our future work there.
The elevator: No progress.
The timeline: If our permits and inspections come through this week, we hope to occupy the building in mid-July. That’s a bit optimistic, but that’s how we roll.