Toolemera Blog

Mr. Moody's Scroll Saw & Baseball Emporium

2012-05-23T21:43:58-04:00

This just in from that great auction house in the sky: Edward H. Moody's Illustrated Catalogue of Scroll Saws and Scroll Saw Material, Athletic And Theatrical Goods. c1884. Complete with mouse luncheonette, free of charge. Now that the mouse has finished his meal, I can proceed to tell the tail. I wanted this catalog primarily due to the complete line of scroll saws Mr. Moody offered to the discerning Scrollers of the Nineteenth Century. His was a full service, one stop shop for everything scroll and fret. Not to miss a chance to capitalize on anything hot, Moody included in...

And It's Not That Bob Lang Is Also Right...

2012-05-18T22:46:24-04:00

Bob Lang has written a statement that should be engraved in bronze and hung one every workshop wall. Read it here: Don't Believe Everything You Read Till next, Gary

It's not that I'm right...

2012-05-17T16:53:44-04:00

There is this modern marketing spin on making rods and reels as light as possible. Somehow, by saving a few ounces, that will allow you to fish longer, catch bigger fish, cast further and get more dates. I was just out on the Charles River this afternoon at a quiet spot. There was a young guy (in other words, a guy who still had a full head of hair) fishing a modern baitcaster on a carbon rod. I sort of set him up by asking what he liked about it. It's light weight, plenty of feedback, casts long, etc. etc....

Rust, Hollows & Rounds

2012-05-04T13:12:40-04:00

Adam Cherubini wrote up a very interesting blog post on the handling of Rust, aka, Corrosion, over at Arts & Mysteries: Rust Prevention For Woodworkers In the same vein of hand tools, Matt Bickford has recently expounded upon the importance of the lowly Hollow and Round set in the making of complex molding profiles: A Textbook Example For Hollows And Rounds Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four My mind is now atwirl with the nomenclature of the variations on the hollow and round. Coming soon: Hollow and Round Mutants Till next, Gary

Digital Archiving, Or, Tell Me It Ain't So

2012-05-02T20:05:09-04:00

Over on Google+ there arose the question of how do I handle archiving digital stuff? It's a question that arises every now and then on this blog and a question that bedevils archivists, librarians and IT people daily. Now that I'm retired from that whole hulabaloo, I can safely say there is no answer. There is no safe way to preserve digital material. Eventually, it will all degrade, corrupt, be unreadable, hardware will become outmoded, software out of date, media will get all kinds of rot and viruses will do who knows what. It's all just a pack of bits...

The Undeath Of Wooden Planes

2012-05-01T12:56:07-04:00

On many a forum I hear of the passing of wooden planes in favor of the modern metallic plane. Who wants to sweat the details of fettling an old wooden plane? Who knows what that thing is called, what it does, how to use it or if it is even usable? My most recent two posts on rabbet and fillister planes seems to say there is an interest. The visitor numbers jumped off the scale for those days. Even with the discussion of the vagaries of fillister and rabbet planes, of which many varieties were left out, readers found their...

And Shoulder Planes

2012-04-29T20:02:24-04:00

The other member of the Rebate - Rabbet - Fillister family is the Shoulder Plane. These are finishing planes at their finest. Very low angle blades extending through the stock such that the cut can shave right up to the corner of the cut. The shoulder plane is used after the rabbet and/or fillister has done it's job. It's also used when making tenons with a backsaw. It's a precise plane, allowing for very thin shavings to be taken, leaving a right angle, clean of marks and ready to be glued or admired. Because the mouth of the shoulder plane...

Rebate, Rabbet, Fillister, Fillitster and Why

2012-04-29T11:33:51-04:00

Whatever you call them, they cut squared off segments. Add in the halving plane, the fenced rabbet, the jack rabbet, the ship, skewed or straight, nicker or not, handled or not, boxed, full boxed and the possibilities go on. This is and was one important part of the tool kit of any worker in wood. Add a fence to the sole, take away the conical escapement for a straight escapement and it becomes a moving fillister. Give it a permanently fixed width of cut stop and it becomes a standing fillister. A primary difference between a rabbet and a fillister...