Lost Art Press

Category: Crucible Tool

Special Sale on Blemished Holdfasts

Posted on by Lost Art Press

A batch of our holdfasts was exposed to moisture during shipping, and they developed some surface rust. After weighing all the options – from melting them down to media-blasting them – we decided to sell them at a discount instead.

These blemished holdfasts are fully functional. The castings passed inspection. The only thing wrong with them is some surface rust. You can remove the rust if you like, or leave it. Most holdfasts develop patina in time.

These blemished holdfasts are sold as-is. The price is $99, which is a significant discount from our retail price. Quantities are limited. Click here to order.

— Christopher Schwarz

Sliding Bevels & Scrapers Back in Stock

Posted on by fitz

We’ve just added 23 Crucible Sliding Bevels to the store – our biggest batch yet – and Crucible Card Scrapers are back in stock.

We’re working slowly but steadily to keep up with demand on the sliding bevels; as Norm Abram says, “we’re gaining on it.” We hope by June to be far enough ahead on production to start offering them through our retailers.

For Sale: 5-Year Anniversary Lump Hammers

Posted on by fitz

To mark the five-year anniversary of Crucible Tool, we collaborated with artist Jennifer Bower to hand engrave one side of 10 Crucible Lump Hammers with our logo surrounded by decorative foliage.

These 10 special tools are now available, and are $350 – which basically covers the costs of making these special tools and no more – plus actual shipping charges. They are available only in the U.S.

So that everyone who is interested has an equal chance of getting one, we’re asking those who want one to send an email to lapdrawing@lostartpress.com with the subject line: hammer (please do not send other email to that address; it won’t get read until our next drawing). In the email body, please include your name, phone number and mailing address. All emails must be submitted by 5 p.m. (Eastern) on Wednesday, Feb. 2. That evening, or possibly the next day, we’ll randomly select the winners from among the entrants. The winners will receive an invoice they can pay online.

And if we don’t have 10 interested parties, well, I’ll get a gorgeous new hammer (one that I won’t use to knock out old plaster)!

– Fitz

Coming Soon: Super Woobies

Posted on by Lost Art Press

One of the tools we use about 50 times a day is the “Super Woobie.” It’s basically a microfiber towel that has been absolutely saturated with oil. With it, I wipe down all my tools before putting them away, plus I use it as I work to keep pitch and dust from accumulating on tools.

We’ve experimented with a lot of different rags through the years. And yes, they all work fine. But our favorite – hands-down – are the Norton dry-tack cloths. They hold a lot of oil and dispense just enough when you wipe. You can buy these from a variety of woodworking suppliers.

We decided to ask our Super Woobies to do two jobs: prevent rust and remind us of the value of our work. So we have contracted with a local embroidery firm to stitch “Don’t Despair: Nothing Without Labour” onto one corner, plus the image of a friendly bee – the long-time symbol of woodworkers and other trades.

And we are packaging the woobie in a quality 3mil plastic bag with a zipper. The bag is ideal for the initial oil soaking of your woobie and for storing or transporting it. We don’t like to use plastic packaging, but this is one case where it is ideal.

The Super Woobie will ship dry and ready for the oil of your choice. You can use almost any oil. We like jojoba and camellia oil. Other people like 3-in-1 light machine oil or mineral oil. They all work fine, and yes you can mix them.

We hope to have these up for sale in a month. Right now, Megan and I are prepping the Norton towels for the embroidery shop. I don’t have a retail price yet.

I know this product will cause some eye-rolling in some corners of the internet. And if you’re the kind of person who uses your socks from your 6th-grade gym class to wipe your tools (using only oil harvested from your own body – to save money), then this isn’t for you. I wish you happy wiping.

But for those who like nice things – and nice things imbued with meaning – you might want one.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. The term “woobie” is from the 1983 movie “Mr. Mom” – as is “220, 221, whatever it takes.”

Restocks (Including Sliding Bevels)

Posted on by Lost Art Press

I have a few important restock notices today. We’ve just posted a big batch of Crucible 4” Sliding Bevels. The machine shop is cranking them out as fast as they can, and we hope to catch up with demand before February.

Also – we have Crucible Card Scrapers back in stock. I wish I could blame the supply chain crisis for these being out of stock, but that would be a lie. I plum forgot to order the steel when we ran low on the tools and then – bam – we ran out.

The other news is that we have chore coats in stock in the new cavalry twill. Tom Bonamici, our clothing designer, wrote this up about the new fabric.

“We’ve tried a few different fabrics for our chore coat. The first was a hauntingly nice heavy sateen from Japan, custom-woven for the project. It was amazing, but outrageously expensive. Like, sell-a-kidney expensive. So we switched to a nice sturdy brushed twill from a U.S. vendor for the next two production runs. 

“For our latest run, which is now available, we’ve switched to a mid-weight cotton cavalry twill from Brisbane Moss, a long-running mill in West Yorkshire, England. Cavalry twill is a tightly woven hard-wearing double twill, originally developed for military riding breeches. It’s very similar in construction to wool whipcord, with a harder face that’s easy to brush clean of sawdust and plane shavings. And it’s slightly lighter weight than our last two fabrics, making a chore coat that’s really the perfect weight for a year-round layer in the shop. 

“The coat’s construction is the same as ever – reinforced lower pockets, custom debossed buttons, and a fit on the trim side of regular. And we’re proud to keep working with Sew Valley here in Cincinnati for the cut and sew.”

One more note about the coats. We had them listed at $135, which was a price we were selling out some small sizes in the old material. I forgot to restore the price back to $165. So some of y’all got the bargain of the year (I know, it’s early in the year).

— Christopher Schwarz