While seeing the completed toolbox of Henry O. Studley is a drool-inducing experience, the real excitement has been taking out each tool, photographing it from every angle and then measuring and documenting everything.
This is where the real questions and answers come from. Which tools did Studley make himself? Was he left-handed? What sort of joinery and moulding profiles did he favor? How did he treat his tools?
It might seem like a brutal slog, but we are having a ton of fun measuring every drill bit, peering into each ferrule and counting every rivet. We get only one chance to do this right the first time.
I have pages and pages of notes and small revelations. My head hurts. But we are going to keep measuring, micing and recording everything we can find.
Anytime I get to examine a piece of work this closely I feel like I know a bit about the builder by the end. This is no exception. This guy was one of the greats.
— Christopher Schwarz