Category: Crucible Tool

I’m in the middle of refining a recipe for a liquid hide glue that uses food-grade gelatin as the base product and is essentially clear. If all goes to plan, we should start selling the glue by the end of the year.

Our working name for the stuff is “Death Grip Glue,” which is a bit goth for my taste (even though I came up with the name). So we decided to hold a contest among our readers to see if there’s a better name floating out there.

Here are the qualities of the new glue, which might help spur an idea for a name:

1. It is essentially clear liquid hide glue with no discernable smell
2. It is reversible, like other protein-based glues
3. It is made from three ingredients: gelatin, salt and water
4. Its shelf life is indefinite as long as it is treated properly
5. It is made from hides and connective tissue of pigs and cows
6. It is made in Covington, Kentucky, one batch at a time
7. Like other protein glues, hardened squeeze-out can be cleaned up with a little hot water

Here are the rules of the contest: One entry per person, please. Give us your one best idea. The winner will receive the very first bottle of glue off the line, all signed by us here at Lost Art Press. Plus a $200 gift certificate to our store.

How to enter: Post your single best idea in the comments. If you don’t include your email in the comment field, we won’t be able to find you and give you the prize. So please include your name and email in the appropriate fields (only we can see your email address).

This contest runs until midnight on July 3. The winner will be determined by us, using no objective criteria except that we love it.

— Christopher Schwarz

We’ve just added the last of our inventory of Anthe Lump Hammers and Redneck Pencil Gauges to our store.

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.

— Christopher Schwarz

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.

— Christopher Schwarz

We use pencil gauges as much as marking gauges or cutting gauges. That’s because a pencil line is sometimes the better choice, especially when marking out bevels or curves.

When we construct our shop-made pencil gauges, we include a “face plate” or “curve attachment” to one face of the gauge’s head. The face plate – basically two bumps – allows the gauge to mark both inside and outside curves. You can also use the gauge against a straight, flat edge. The face plate is an incredibly handy feature that was patented by Stanley in 1886 (the patent has long expired).

For years, I’ve wanted to make a Crucible pencil gauge with a face plate, but we have never found a way to manufacture it economically. During the pandemic, however, I devised a way to make an inexpensive gauge by MacGyvering a British marking gauge made by Joseph Marples.

Marples agreed to sell us 200 basic gauges at wholesale for an experiment. When the gauges arrived, we pulled out the steel pin (it’s included in the package if you want it). Then we drilled a hole in the gauge’s beam that will hold most pencils with a tight compression fit (and we’re including a pencil). And we added a stainless steel face plate (a part that we sourced from the kennel-making industry).

The result is our Crucible Redneck Pencil Gauge that works like a charm and fits your hand beautifully, thanks to the half-round shape of the head. But it is a little rednecky (I can say that because I’m from the Ozarks). If I were going to design the gauge from scratch I would use a brass thumbscrew and machine the face plate from solid brass. It would look nicer, but it wouldn’t function any better and it would cost you three or four times more.

Now available in our store for $37 plus shipping.

Specifications:
Beam: 3/4” x 3/4” x 8-1/2”
Head: 1-1/16” x 2-3/16” x 2-5/8”
Weight: 4 ounces
Pencil: Made by Musgrave USA, included