Short Studio Business

I had some time today and decided to go ahead and try to finish the narwhal piece.  I had come up with an idea on how to hang it.  Right now it's just a flat piece of wood, with no place to attach a wire and too thin to screw something to it.  What I came up with was to glue some pieces of wood to the back of the narwhal board, and then to run a wire through those.  Had a length of half inch pine strip in the Studio that could be used, and plenty of hanging wire.  I figured I'd cut two small pieces of wood, run wire through drilled holes, glue it all to the back of the piece, and it will be plenty strong enough to hold up the relatively light thin sheet of wood the image is carved into.  Just one problem- when I went to check on the narwhal block today I found that the black ink was still wet.  This is water based relief ink rolled onto the block- should be dry in hours, but so far it isn't days later.  Is this an effect of the humidity that has settled over this part of the country?

Under the circumstances, I don't want to attach anything right now.  Don't even know if the glue would dry.  But I knew I could make the parts, so when it's safe to put it all together, it will be ready.  As I said, I had wood and wire already, and I am known as a person with an outstanding collection of tools.  And I'd much rather do this kind of thing in my Studio than in my apartment, so I went up there before noon. My idea was to use a hand driven brace and bit style drill to make a larger hole in the broad side, and an electric drill with a small bit to drill a small hole through the narrow side, so that the two holes would be connected.  Then run the wire through the new extended hole, wrap it around before I glue it in place, and it should be a fairly permanent hanging wire, despite the lack of a frame.

Normally the hand cranked drill and its large bits make short work of any wood they need to drill, but this piece of pine was the toughest I've ever seen.  Luckily I had decided to drill first and saw the pieces off later.  The two little side holes were easier- I randomly selected a small diameter bit to fit the electric drill (an all metal body with a large rear handle that holds the trigger- looking like a weapon from a Flash Gordon serial, manufactured long before I was born and likely to last for decades to come, inherited from my grandfather who was in the hardware business most of his life) and it made the connecting hole in seconds.  A quick test showed that the wire would pass through the connected holes.  The sawing of the wood was handled with a modern keyhole type saw, very quick and efficient. I still think my idea will work, but I won't know for sure until I can glue it all together.  Meanwhile, all the pieces and tools came home with me.