The first thought that comes into my mind concerning this subject is borrowing and lending tools. I wish I were able to do this part of the subject full justice, but perhaps space in Carpentry and Building would not be available for me to enlarge upon it. When I began the trade it was expected that every journeyman should furnish his own tools to work with. Nowadays it seems to be that each one expects some one else to furnish him tools. It is said, and I believe it is true, that there is no other trade which has so large a proportion of botches to skilled workmen as that of carpentry. The question arises—why is it so? It seems to me that borrowing tools causes more of it than all other reasons put together. This perhaps is a broad assertion, but arguments can be advanced in proof of it.
(more…)
H.O. Studley Shirts Now in Stock
Our H.O. Studley T-shirts are now for sale in our store for $20 plus domestic shipping. The front of the shirt features the engraved nameplate fastened to Henry O. Studley’s famous tool chest. The back of the shirts have the name of the forthcoming book by Don Williams: “Virtuoso: The Toolbox of Henry O. Studley.”
These T-shirts are made from 90-percent cotton/10 percent polyester by American Apparel in California. The screen printing is done in Indiana. Sizes available are medium, large, x-large and XXL.
To order a shirt, visit our store here.
— Christopher Schwarz
Design for a Tool Chest
Design for a Tool Chest
George A. Jones of Palmetto Florida
Patented March 29, 1921 (D57,436)
– Jeff Burks
‘By Hand & Eye’ Now Shipping
“By Hand & Eye” by George R. Walker and Jim Tolpin is now available for immediate shipment from Lost Art Press. Our retailers – Lee Valley Tools, Lie-Nielsen Toolworks and Tools for Working Wood – have received their shipments and will have the book in their stores shortly.
If you wish to order the book from our store, click here. It is $34 plus shipping.
This is our most ambitious book to date, especially in the manufacturing. This book is full color and printed on a heavy #80-pound matte stock that is very white and took the ink beautifully. As with all our books, “By Hand & Eye” is Smythe sewn, casebound and produced entirely in the United States.
Here are some details on the other editions of “By Hand & Eye.”
Leather-bound books. I am taking 26 blocks to Ohio Book tomorrow for them to bind them in leather. We will use the brown leather with an aged finish, like we did with “Mouldings in Practice.” When those are finished – I hope in six weeks – we will put them in the store. They will be $185 – domestic shipping is included.
Electronic editions. Because of the complex layouts in “By Hand & Eye,” we will not be able to offer it in ePub or Kindle formats. We simply are not happy with the way the book looks in these formats. So we will instead offer it in pdf format, which will work on both iPad and Kindles. I should have that available in the store within a week.
One last thing: We are still building a webpage that we discuss in the book and are having some trouble with the url. Until I get that sorted out, you can download the animations referred to in the book (with complete instructions) using the link below.
The file is zipped. Simply double-click it to decompress the file. Inside the folder you will find instructions (read them, please!). The animations will work with every browser we have tried.
I hope you enjoy reading the book as much as I enjoyed editing and working on it with George, Jim and the main editor, Megan Fitzpatrick.
— Christopher Schwarz
Miscellaneous Wood Planes
Under the above heading there comes what are known as Fancy Planes. There are several manufacturers in this country who make these lines of Planes. Some make better planes than others and we try to procure the best. None of the American makes equal those of the best English and Scotch makers. The Englishman said of American beer, ‘They cawn’t make it you know, they aven’t the Ops,” and perhaps this is true of Moulding Planes, ”We haven’t the Beech you know.” As a matter of fact, for Moulding Planes, Spoke Shaves and similar tools the English and Scotch beechwood is greatly superior to the American, and the best Moulding Planes we have ever seen are those made by Mathieson, of Glasgow, Scotland.
While to a great extent the Combination Planes like the No. 45 are taking the place of the Moulding Planes, they do not by any means cover the entire ground. Where a considerable quantity of a certain kind of work is to be done, the Wood Planes are so much lighter and so much more convenient to handle, that it is not always the best economy to use a Combination Plane for this class of work.
We recently had an instance of this. A mechanic in boasting about the merits of his Combination Plane (a No. 45) stated that he had beaded 5,000 ft. of ceiling on a summer hotel job upon which he had been employed. We did not consider that this was very much to boast of, and think that any man who would use a plane weighing 3 ½ lbs. for six or eight days, when he might have bought a 1 Inch Bead Plane, weighing about 10 ounces, for 40 cents, and with it have done the work in 15 to 25 per cent less time, and with correspondingly less expenditure of strength, is rather closely related to that useful— though humble — animal, with kicking proclivities, long ears, and an unmusical voice.
The lines of Miscellaneous Planes shown here we usually carry in stock. Can furnish other sizes than those given here in many of the styles. Special sizes cost more, it takes time to procure them, and we would suggest that the stock—or listed—sizes be used whenever possible.
Chas. A. Strelinger & Co. – Detroit, Michigan 1897
– Jeff Burks