We were quite bummed when we put up the last of our Anthe Lump Hammers on Friday and no one bought one. Not a single one.
“Oh well,” I said. “I guess no one loves us any more.”
Turns out our store was cranky and refusing customer’s addresses when they tried to buy the hammer. The problem is fixed now. If you want one, please try again.
— Christopher Schwarz
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:
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 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.
Comments for this Open Wire are closed.
— 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
Drew Langsner’s “This is Not a Chair” exhibit celebrates 25 year’s of the artist’s work, and features abstract “multi-hollow servers,” sculptures from found materials and his most recent work, sculptures made from deconstructed chairs, as well as examples of his furniture.
While Drew is perhaps best known in woodworking circles for his school Country Workshops (opened in 1978), and his many books on traditional woodworking and handcraft (including “Country Woodcraft: Then & Now“), he holds a master’s degree in painting and sculpture – read more about his fascinating journey in this profile by Kara Gebhart Uhl.
“This is Not a Chair” runs through July 28 at the Madison County Arts Council, 90 South Main Street, Marshall, N.C.
