When a flat-sawn board has reversing grain it will usually exhibit a swirling grain pattern on its faces or edges, warning you that it could be difficult to plane.
I have always heard this swirl as being called a “cat’s face,” though I cannot remember where I first heard it. In 1993 in a hand tool class? Who knows.
Whenever I teach handplaning I warn students to look for a cat’s face nested amongst the cathedrals of the plainsawn boards. Mostly they think my explanation is nuts. So I point it out to them.
“Look. That’s a cat. See it?”
I swear that they don’t even humor me. And you wonder why I stopped teaching.
Today I was sanding down the first coat of paint on 1.2 miles of moulding for our new storefront and the sun reflected this perfect cat’s face. Our Cincinnati Zoo is famous for its white tigers, and that’s exactly what I saw.
When my friend Dean and I added the 1,000-square-foot addition onto my existing house, I made all of the moulding myself from rough stock using a combination of electric routers and moulding planes.
Every baseboard, casing, shoe mould and backbend was cut and installed by me during a six-month period where I don’t recall sleeping.
Today I went to Hyde Park Lumber Co. and plunked down $800 for all the moulding at our Willard Street storefront. I’m not happy about it, from a maker’s point of view, but the numbers don’t lie. I needed more than 300 linear feet of moulding, plus specialized corner blocks to match the original Victorian interior.
By contrast, the cost of the rough stock and the tooling I needed to do it myself was more than $1,100.
The moulding I bought today is cut, sanded, primed and delivered on Thursday morning.
Fantastic news for those of you attending our book-release party for “The Anarchist’s Design Book” on March 12. Copperplate artist Briony Morrow-Cribbs is flying in from Vermont for the event and will be there to sign books and some original plates – we’ll have two sets there to sell.
More details on the plates soon.
We’ll also have T-shirts, free stickers, pizza and beer.
Work on the storefront has stalled this week because I’m finishing up a tool chest for a customer. But we are making progress at Willard Street. The drywall guys hung the wallboard on the new wall, restoring the front room’s original shape.
And Mike Sadoff, my right-hand worker bee these days, has begun the joyous process of priming over the purple paint.
After staring at the back room for a long while today, I think I know what to do with the brick archway to restore that area’s Second Empire/Victorian feel. More details when my head catches up with my gut.
If you are considering coming to Covington, Ky., for the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event, or to visit our storefront or attend a book-release party at our store at 837 Willard St., here is a quick brain dump on the geography, the food and the amenities.
Our storefront is one block off of Main Street in Covington, and it’s a 10-minute walk from the Ohio River and the bridges directly to Cincinnati, Ohio. As a result, you can easily walk from the riverfront and downtown hotels to our store.
If you don’t want to walk (or the weather sucks), consider taking the Southbank Shuttle (it’s all of $1 to ride), which can take you from downtown Cincinnati to Covington and Newport, our next-door neighbor. Details on the Southbank Shuttle are here. There also is bus service throughout all three cities that is run by TANK.
Where to Stay Until they finish construction on the Covington Hotel near our store, the options are to stay at one of the nice and fairly inexpensive chain hotels on the Covington riverfront, book a room through AirBnB, or stay in downtown Cincinnati.
The hotels on the Covington riverfront include: Hampton Inn, Courtyard, Extended Stay, Marriott, Embassy Suites and Holiday Inn. All are clean, safe and offer decent amenities within walking distance.
If you opt to stay in Cincinnati, I highly recommend the 21c Hotel (no, we don’t get kickbacks). It is a full-service hotel. Amazing restaurant (the Metropole). Fantastic breakfast. Great bar and bartenders. And there’s a semi-secret rooftop bar (the entrance is in the alley). Plus you are steps away from the Contemporary Art Center, my three favorite restaurants downtown and Fountain Square. They also feature challenging modern art in the lobby and are exceedingly nice people.
Entertain Your Family One of the things we love about raising our kids here is the city is very family friendly. The downtown area (Cincinnati, Covington and Newport) feature enough to keep kids busy for days. Really. Days.
The Newport Aquarium is a short walk from downtown. The Fire Museum is awesome if you have kids who like fire trucks. If your kids are a little older (8 to 10), try the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC). Start at the top floor where they have a wild area for kids to create art. We’ve spent days there. Plus the contemporary art throughout is top shelf. And the Zaha Hadid-designed building is fantastic to explore.
If it’s nice outside, go down to the riverfront on the Cincinnati side to the Smale Riverfront Park to blow off steam and ride the merry-go-round. Plus there are a ton of places to eat there at The Banks. (Morelein Lager House there is great for kids and adults.)
The ace in the hole for entertaining the kiddos is the Cincinnati Museum Center. You can spend two or three days solid here without boring the kids (or yourself). The Children’s Museum is there, plus the History Museum, an IMAX theater, the Natural History Museum, an ice cream parlor and all the old train station stuff that kids love. We lived there every weekend when our kids were young.
If your kids like art, head up to Mt. Adams (one of the hills 5 minutes from downtown) for the Cincinnati Art Museum. They have kids programs, including a dedicated space for kids to run wild, art style. Check it out here. And the museum features free admission.
All the above places can be visited easily with public transportation.
Where to Eat Oh this is difficult. I live to eat. This list could go one for a long time and only scratch the surface. For this entry, I’ll stick to places in Covington only and avoid the chains.
Frida 602, great tacos and margaritas. Cock and Bull, totally solid pub, great fish and chips and insane draft beer. Goodfellas, totally solid New York pie. Go upstairs for amazing bourbon. Keystone, great brunch; fantastic mac and cheese. Riverside Korean, just fantastic. Never fails. Kung Food (aka Amerasia), cheap, tasty and one of the best beer lists in the city. Bouquet, fancy but really good. If you love wine, go here. NuVo. This is a place to get your mind blown. One of the three best meals I’ve had in this city was here. If you are food-obsessed, it’s a must. Left Bank Coffeehouse, best coffee in Covington. Great place to vegetate. Anchor Grill, bring cash. The goetta is made across the street at Glier’s. The best place to nurse a hangover and is just one block from our store (coincidence?).
If you are going to eat across the river, things get even more nuts. Stay tuned.
Vermont artist Briony Morrow-Cribbs produced the 12 beautiful copperplates for my new book, “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” and soon we will post a documentary on the intense hand-work process she used to produce the plates.
The short film is being made by my cousin Jessamyn West, also of Vermont, with still photos from my aunt Liz West. Aunt Muffet, as she is known to me, took the above photo of Briony with the plate for the six-board chest. You can check out her Flickr feed here.
You’ll be hearing more about the plate-making process in the coming weeks. And if you are coming to Covington next month for the book-release party and Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event at Braxton Brewing Co., you’ll be able to see all 12 plates first-hand and close up.
