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Early Results of the Gummy Bear Glue

Posted on December 19, 2022December 18, 2022 by Lost Art Press

After making a test joint with Haribo Gummy Bears, I let it sit overnight then subjected the joint to all sorts of abuse with a nail hammer. The joint held as well as any joint I’ve made. And the red squeeze-out had turned from a jelly to rock hard.

So Megan Fitzpatrick agreed to a real-world test: Gluing up a Dutch tool chest with Gummy Glue. I bought some less expensive gummy worms (59 cents) at the gas station up the block (I also got some lovely Indian food there). I melted the worms into the goo left from the bears and added a bit of water until the mixture was like good hot hide glue.

Together, Megan and I glued up the carcase. I was a little worried we would run out of glue because Roy Underhill and the other students kept sampling it.

Bam, bam, bam. And the case went together. We put clamps on it and let it sit.

Some observations: the stuff sets up slower than traditional hot hide. It took an hour for the gummy squeeze-out to gel to the same point where the hot hide gets in 30 minutes.

But after sitting overnight, the gummy stuff was hard as glass.

After posting our original experiment here and on Instagram, we got a lot of comments saying things like: The glue won’t hold. It will only last a couple seasons of moisture exchange. You’ll get ants. Bugs will eat the glue.

To all this I say: Shut up. You don’t know. You just love to hear your tongue rattle in your cake hole.

The finished tool chest is now owned by Roy. He’s going to fill it with his favorite tools and leave it to his daughters. If you really want to know how the glue fared, ask them in 50 years.

— Christopher Schwarz

The Future Awaits Roy Underhill

Posted on December 17, 2022 by Lost Art Press

Roy Underhill announced he will close his Woodwright’s School in Pittsboro, N.C., at the end of the 2023 season. But this is not the end of the school or his career as a woodworking educator.

There is a new television show under discussion. Plus his school may appear in another location or in another guise. The most we can say right now is to stay tuned.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. Ed Lebetkin’s tool store (upstairs from the school) will also close its doors, so it’s time to make that pilgrimage to complete your tool kit.

Roman Workbenches for Chairmaking (& Other Things)

Posted on December 16, 2022December 15, 2022 by Lost Art Press

“Ingenious Mechanicks” is my worst-selling book. Since it was released in 2016, we’ve sold about 4,000 copies. But I don’t care. That book changed my workshop life more than any other project I’ve been involved in.

Roman workbenches are insanely useful creatures. The only operations I don’t use them much for are dovetailing large casework and planing large tabletops. Otherwise, I can always find a way to hold my work and get the job done.

Since I built my first Roman bench, we’ve had one or two of them in the shop constantly. And when someone else is teaching in our bench room, I take a seat on the Roman bench and get to work on my personal stuff.

Last week, I built a stick chair plus the base of a dining table on my Roman bench while Megan Fitzpatrick taught a tool chest class.

Most of the work is secured by my body or by pressing it against the Hulot block at one end of the bench. Or I pressed the work into one of the holdfast holes in the bench with one hand and planed the stock with the other hand.

For complex shaping operations, I used my carver’s vise to hold the odd pieces then could freely plane, rasp and scrape my work. Carving the legs of the dining table was easy with my body holding the work against the benchtop (though I wish I had more padding in my rear end for this job).

One thing I cannot overstate is how much energy you save while using these benches. Sitting down and working allows me to work longer hours, and I’m less whupped at the end of the day.

Heck, you don’t even really need to build a Roman bench using the plans from my book. This bench is a sitting bench from Skansen I made years ago. Then I made a few holes in it. Any sitting bench will do.

If you have limited mobility, or you have a tiny shop space, limited funds for a bench or you work in the living room, a Roman workbench is a good thing.

— Christopher Schwarz

Hide Glue from the Gas Station

Posted on December 15, 2022December 14, 2022 by Lost Art Press

Furniture maker Phil Lowe once showed me two 55-gallon barrels filled with clear stuff that looked like sand. He got the barrels from a factory that made gummy bears (I think he said the factory went out of business). Anyway, he used the stuff in the barrels – gelatin – to make his hide glue.

Since that day I’ve had the following stuck in my head: gummy bears = hide glue.

Today I decided to see if I could reverse-engineer the process and turn gummy bears into hide glue.

I bought a package of Haribo Goldbears gummy bears from the gas station up the block from Roy Underhill’s school. I put them in a cup with a little water and put the cup into his hide glue pot.

An hour later, the bears had melted and stirred like thin hide glue (I might have added a little too much water). Gummy bears are not just pure gelatin, of course. They have a lot of sugar and other stuff in them. But despite all this negative information running through my head, I had a question…

Does it stick?

I painted some Gummy Glue on a piece of poplar and performed a rub joint. The glue tacked right up with some nice pink squeeze-out. After 10 minutes, the stuff gelled up. The joint looks promising (right now).

I’ll let the joint sit overnight to see how strong it is.

Let the jokes begin.

— Christopher Schwarz

Kitsch & Class at Tamarack

Posted on December 14, 2022December 14, 2022 by Lost Art Press

Whenever Megan Fitzpatrick and I pass through West Virginia, we make a stop at Tamarack Marketplace in West Virginia for gas and a look at the furniture and crafts.

Some years we are wowed by… how do I put this?…. what people will pay good money for. Other years there is a balance of beauty and future firewood. This year was one of those good years.

We saw a lot of epoxy tables. (I promise you that this form has a half-life and will not endure. In fact, we might be entering the Late Epoxy Period.) But we also saw some nice pieces of work. You might think I’m joking, but I almost bought a Crown Royal-themed quilt.

Below are some of the photos I took, along with some occasional snark. If you have ever wondered if Tamarack is worth a stop, the answer is yes.

— Christopher Schwarz