MENTOR, Ohio – Several years ago, a craft-hobby opened John Richards’ world. And since then, he has made sure it keeps opening up everyone else’s world as well.
Richards converts objects – a whole lot of different objects – into bottle openers that he sells.
Tubs filled with, well, stuff are stored neatly and smartly on the garage ceiling of the home where he and his wife, Carol, live.
“We don’t have a lot of storage in our house so we have to make do with what we have,” he said.
Anything is fair game: Baseballs, Star Wars characters, tap handles, billiard balls. Fishing reels, tools, even practice grenades (the primer and pin are real, but the color blue denotes practice, so no potential for detonation.)
He guesses “5,000 or 10,000 objects are tucked away” in his home.
He blames his mother for the crafting gene, which he inherited indirectly. She was a teacher and did her own craft shows. He had the grunt-work job of hauling her tubs.
“I don’t know if that really got me the bug,” he said. “At that time I was more of the pack horse, the mule, in high school. That’s how it kind of evolved.”
In 2013 a friend saw an opener at a gift shop in Willoughby. He told Richards: " ‘These are pretty straightforward. You should try to make some of these.’ "
He did. Richards started with golf clubs. Soon a neighbor wanted one. Then co-workers asked for them. They remain fun for him and popular for buyers. The hobby took off.
John Richards is always on the lookout for unique golf clubs.
“The thing got kind of a life of its own,” he said.
“I just like fixing things,” Richards added. “It was a natural progression to get into this.”
But before he attaches an opener to an object, he has to find the right object. The couple makes regular treks to flea markets, garage sales and estate sales.
“This is a labor of love,” he said. “We do this on weekends and holidays. … You have to keep variety.”
“Variety” is the right word. Richards’ array of items is limited only by his creativity.
A curling iron, 50-caliber shells from the 1940s, spark plugs, fishing lures (sans hooks), antlers, tools and a piggy bank once served different purposes. Now they open bottles.
“People started asking ‘Do you do hammers, fishing rods?’ That’s why you see this cornucopia of things,” he said. “We had to expand our horizons to things people were asking for. Probably the most bizarre one was people asking for tattoo equipment.”
Sports make up a good chunk of Richards’ hobby. Pieces from a game-used broken bat from Wil Cordero at Progressive Field lay near cut-up parts of seats from the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium. One slat even has a glob of gum still stuck to it, painted over. A piece of a tennis racket. Segments of a hockey stick. He is partial to golf clubs made with persimmon wood, which shows off the grain.
The couple modestly took two totes to the first show they did. They graduated to hauling more than a dozen totes to the multi-day Christmas Connection at the International Exposition Center. They added a trailer a couple of years ago. While Covid capped the shows they did in 2020, they bring an eclectic assortment to show there’s something for everyone.
“We call it our fun booth; we try to have a little bit of everything,” he said.
Yes, even action figures make for bottle openers.
All the creations are repurposed, said Richards’ wife Carol, a natural marketer.
“It’s just a unique gift. What I like to tell people is ‘Get a six-pack of beer, take (an opener), and you put it on with a bow. … Whenever I tell them that, it’s sold.”
Once, some people sauntering by their booth inquired about action figures, so Richards started converting – carefully – the moveable figurines into openers. He would find, tinker and surgically take them apart to attach the opener without ruining the vocal mechanism.
One figure, Han Solo’s son, still says: “I’m impressed. … You underestimate my powers.” Occasionally, Richards said, one of them winds up getting a lobotomy and the voices don’t work anymore.
Prices range from billiard balls costing $20 to Great Lakes Brewing Co. tap handles running $45. Speaking of taps, they have a distant familial connection to Jim Koch, co-founder of Boston Beer Co., so they are partial to Sam Adams handles.
No matter what he works with, he said, “The whole trick is to figure out how to secure it without destroying it.” Of 5,000 pieces he has crafted, only one has broken, Richards said.
He grinds, epoxies, and drills the items before applying them with quick-drying lacquer for durability and to bring out the colors.
For most items, there is a market. He recently started making openers from firehose nozzles; one woman buys them for her firefighter sons. Not everything sells well. Harley-Davidson items, surprisingly, don’t move well.
What does sell are memories.
A woman who had to put her dad in a nursing home bought a golf-club opener, which he keeps on his bedside table. It’s a conversation starter.
John and Carol Richards.
“It makes me tear up,” Carol said.
For Richards, his hobby satiates a creative side while bringing in “fun money.”
“My theme is I can work in my garage, I can have ESPN on TV, I drink beer, and I make this stuff and get paid for it. What else can I do? Another thing we tell people is every piece goes through a QA process.”
Quality assurance?
“We open a beer with it.”
About North Coast Bottle Openers
Richards buys used golf clubs and is open to commissioned orders for his bottle openers. Contact him at ncbo2013@gmail.com. His website is ncbottleopeners.com.
Upcoming 2021 shows
• 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 8: An Affair on the Square – Medina
• 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, Sept. 18-19: Village Peddler Festival - Lake Farmpark, Kirtland
• 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, Oct. 9-10 and Oct. 16-17: Christmas in the Woods – Columbiana
Related coverage: Woodworker fashions old Great Lakes Brewing Co. tap handles into openers, trophies
I am on cleveland.com’s life and culture team and cover food, beer, wine and sports-related topics. If you want to see my stories, here’s a directory on cleveland.com. Bill Wills of WTAM-1100 and I talk food and drink usually at 8:20 a.m. Thursday morning. And tune in at 8:05 a.m. Fridays for “Beer with Bona and Much, Much More” with Munch Bishop on 1350-AM The Gambler. Twitter: @mbona30.
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