Category: Antique Tools

Langdon Mitre Box

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools19 Comments

One of the nice things about my job is the autonomy I get when I travel through my sales territory calling on Lowe’s and Home Depot’s in Cincinnati, Dayton and Indianapolis. Often during lunch, I’ll stop by a nearby antique mall and look for old tools. Yesterday I was in an antique mall near Dayton when I stumbled upon this beast. I’ve been buying antique tools for over twenty-five years and have never seen a miter box like this at any tool auction, tool collectors convention or even eBay.

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It’s a huge Langdon Mitre Box with a Disston Miter Saw. On the front it has the patent date of Nov 15th 1864 and was made in Millers Falls, Mass. The front and the wood are painted green, but have no idea whether or not if it’s original paint.

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The saw’s blade is an incredible 7 1/2″ deep and still straight. The etching is barely visible and may be able to pop out with a little bit of restoration. This behemoth must be something they used to install the crown molding at The Biltmore Estate.

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The previous owner flipped the board upside down for some reason. I guess they felt it was nearly all used up so they wanted a fresh surface to cut on. I’m just glad they didn’t throw it away as it looks to be the original board.

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It’s a Disston Saw with an apple handle, but is marked Langdon Mitre Box on the spine. The main saw nut is dirty, but it’s stamped Disston and Sons. I think Langdon Mitre Boxes eventually became part of the Millers Falls Tool Company, but I’m not entirely sure.

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The saw has split nuts on the back which gives a clue as to how old it is. The problem is that I don’t know enough about saws to be able to date it, other than the 1864 patent date on the box. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean it was built during that time.

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Since I’m not too familiar with miter boxes, I was hoping you might be able to help me out.

1) Does anyone know anything more about this miter box? How rare is it?

2) How old is it considering it has split saw nuts?

3) Is the green paint original to the miter box?

Any information would be greatly appreciated!

UPDATE 6/22/14: It was recommended by Trevor that I contact “The Langdon Mitre Box Guy” John Leyden and see if he could give me any more information on the miter box. After I sent John an email, he was nice enough to respond and send me this link. http://oldtoolheaven.com/miter-boxes/northampton-langdon.html. The miter box and saw appear to be the same one I own.

Mid-West Tool Collectors Association

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique ToolsLeave a comment

Last Saturday morning I drove up to Columbus to attend the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association’s annual meeting. I left my house at 7:00 and arrived around 9:00am. The schedule they sent me said the tool room would be open from 6:30 -12:30 so I figured I had plenty of time to browse around. Well sure enough, as soon as I walked in the door, some of the dealers were already packing up and heading home.

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I wasn’t expecting to buy a lot anyway. I went just to meet and greet some of the fellows in the organization. I ended up meeting a fellow named Don from Wisconsin who told me that he owns 1900 molding planes. I was shocked! This guy was my hero. He pulled out a binder about four inches thick where he drew the molding’s profile and maker of each plane he has ever bought on a piece of paper. He said he would be selling off his collection in a couple of years so I gave him my card.

I asked a couple of dealers how the turn out was. They told me that over 300 people came to the show which was a little bit more than when it was in Springfield, MO last time. I zoomed around the room as fast as I could so I wouldn’t miss anything. I was able to take a few pictures of the displays before everything was packed up. By 10:30 the room was nearly empty.

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There were plenty of planes for sale, however the prices the dealers were asking were high. Coming to these conventions are fun, but don’t expect to walk out with deals. These guys know what their tools are worth. The main fun is seeing all the rare planes that you’d never spot in the wild.

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I was able to find a couple of deals. I bought two eggbeater drills for $20.00 each and an Ohio Tool Co No 8 Corrugated Plane for $15.00. The plane was repainted and had a Stanley No 8 blade in it. I’ll eventually part it out and sell the parts on eBay once I remove all the over sprayed paint from the plane.

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In the back of the room there were several displays set up to demonstrate certain tools and the year they were made. This display was of Stanley fiber board planes and the different styles they came in. I have no idea what fiber board planes do, but I think they were used on the exterior siding of houses. I guess I should have read the display. I probably would have learned something.

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If you ever have a chance to attend one of these meetings, I strongly suggest you get there on Friday. Saturday is the day they pack up and head home. From what the dealers were telling me, everyone set up in the parking lot Thursday night and all the heavy selling was done the next day. I have to work, so Friday’s don’t work too well for me.

 

 

 

 

 

Brown Tool Auction Winnings

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools6 Comments

Every few months Clarence Blanchard from the Brown Tool Auction holds an antique tool auction in Pennsylvania. Even though some his auctions are within a day’s driving distance for me, I’ve never been to one. It’s just too easy for me to place a bid online and pay a $3.00 absentee bidder fee for every auction I win. Plus at $3.00, it’s a lot cheaper than spending the money on gas and a hotel room.

I never know what or if I win until about a week later when UPS drops of a box at my door. So you can imagine the excitement when I see a big box at my door. Typically the bigger the box, the more tools I have won.

As soon as I open it up I see molding planes neatly bubbled wrapped up. I love molding planes. To me they’re the router bits of hand tool woodworking. With a little bit of work, molding planes tune up nicely and create some of the nicest profiles that you can’t even produce with common router bits.

After unpacking the box, the results were in. Seventeen molding planes and two Stanley bench planes. All of the planes were in good shape and need only a little bit of tuning to bring them back to working condition.

Of the two Stanley planes I won, one was the Big Boss of Stanley planes, the No 8C Corrugated Jointer. This plane is in excellent condition and with a little bit of work, it will clean up to be a top shelf tool. The other bench plane was a nice Stanley 5 1/2C corrugated plane. Collectors go crazy for the corrugated soles as they tend to bring in higher prices, but for me, the corrugations just act as a place for dried glue to hang out. The theory behind corrugated soles was that they tend to be easier to push because of the less mass on the workpiece, and they were easier to fettle the bed because you didn’t have to remove as much metal. I haven’t found either one of those benefits to be true.

The molding planes were nice with a wide variety of profiles in the mix. Over the next few weeks I’ll tune them up and list them for sale on eBay.

As you can see, I have a soft spot for molding planes. The day I figured out how to tune one up and make it sing, I was hooked. I intend to sell some of my duplicate profiles on eBay in the coming weeks.

Antique Tool Improver

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools7 Comments

I’ve been cleaning antique tools for over twenty-five years. When I was fourteen years old my Grandpa gave me a Stanley No 77 dowel machine that took square stock and turned it into dowels. Since that day, I was hooked on old tools. There was something about taking an old neglected tool that was just sitting around collecting dust and bringing it back to life that appealed to me.

I’ve cleaned hundreds if not thousands of tools over the years. When removing all the dirt and rust from an old tool, the final step is to protect it with a penetrating oil so it doesn’t rust again. For years I used Kramer’s Antique Improver and loved the way it protected the wood and metal of the tool giving it a nice sheen. The only problem I had with the oil was the price. At $20.00 for a 8 oz bottle, the stuff wasn’t exactly cheap, but it worked so well I kept using it even though my wife couldn’t stand the smell of the stuff.

Since my wife was no fan of the smell when I used Kramer’s Antique Improver, it got me wondering if I could make something that worked as well for pennies on the dollar. I didn’t want to reproduce Kramer’s exactly because John Kramer uses turpentine and solvents to make his oil. I wanted something simple that I could whip up in a jiffy using only natural products.

I started with melting beeswax. I bought a small 100% beeswax candle and cut a small 1/4″ slab off of it and melt it in the pot. You can always buy granule beeswax at a woodworkers store if you can’t find a 100% beeswax candle.

Once the wax has melted, I add equal parts of orange oil and mineral oil to pot and cook them for one minute. They sell mineral oil at a woodworking supply stores as butcher block oil however, I found mineral oil at the pharmacy for a whole lot less.

Once the oils have cooked in the pot for a minute I pour it in a container. As you can see, my container is nothing more than a Sweet Leaf Ice Tea drink I bought one day.

Using a paper towel, I rub the oil all over tool penetrating it in every spot. You can see the difference of the tool with just one coat of the oil. I usually coat the tool three or four times letting the oil penetrate the entire surface.

The oil works on wood just well as metal. In fact, I coat all my molding planes with the oil. The great thing about my oil is that it’s completely natural, there is no odor and it lasts just as long as Kramer’s. Not to mention that it’s dirt cheap to make.

World’s Longest Yard Sale: US127 Corridor

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools19 Comments

My wife and I just returned from a five-day excursion on the The World’s Longest Yard Sale down US 127. The yard sale runs every year during the first weekend of August from Michigan down to Alabama. Last Wednesday, my wife Anita rented a Ford F-250 cargo van and we headed down to Chattanooga TN to spend the night. We picked up 127 around the Kentucky Tennessee border stopping at multiple yard sales running all the way to our hotel in Chattanooga. The next day we started heading up 127 back home.

Anita was looking for old furniture to fix up as well as things she could sell in her booth. I was looking for antique tools. We traveled over 1200 miles in five days traveling from Chattanooga, TN to Castine, OH and had an absolute blast. Nothing more fun than the thrill of the hunt. We ran into a little trouble at the top of Tennessee though. It was around 7:00 pm and we didn’t have a hotel booked. We drove all the way to Danville, KY hoping that a hotel on US 127 would have a room but they were all booked. We ended up driving all the way to Lexington, KY to find a room. The next day we got up and had a nice breakfast in neat little restaurant and headed back to Danville, KY to continue up US 127.

I picked up mostly a bunch of planes, some of them needing major cleaning, with a few miter boxes near the end of the trip. What’s amazing about my finds is that most of the planes I had bought had corrugated bottoms. I wasn’t specifically looking for corrugated planes but when I turned over a plane I was interested in, its bottom was corrugated. Twelve of the fifteen planes were that way. Amazing since corrugated planes are not as common as flat bottom planes in the market.

This is the shot of the bottoms of the planes with nearly all of them being corrugated. It’ll take a while but every one of these planes will be cleaned up and ready to be put back to use.

Near Danville, KY I ran into a guy selling a trailer full of cherry hardwood. I couldn’t buy the whole trailer but I did manage to pick up one of his slabs. This piece is 2″ x 16″ x 100″ and the offer was too good for me to pass up. Does anybody want to guess what I paid for this slab of cherry? Post a comment and I’ll let you know.

A Day at the Auction

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools5 Comments

My wife and I went to an auction today in Germantown, OH. I saw the auction listed on Auctionzip.com last night and noticed they had some tools listed. They also had a few pieces of furniture that my wife was interested in so we headed out in the morning. This is what I won, but I didn’t want most of this junk.

When we got there, I bid on a couple of boxes of auger bits. I won each lot paying $5.00 for one and $12.00 for the other one, so I was happy with that. They’re both complete but I’m not too sure that some of the augers are original but I do have some extras.

A few minutes later I won a measuring wheel. I’ve seen Roy Underhill use one of these on The Woodwright’s Shop one time and thought it was neat enough to buy. I believe these were mainly used by blacksmiths for measuring. They had a lot of blacksmith tools for sale there so I figured it went with all the other stuff.

As the auction moved down the tables, I had my eye on a Spear & Jackson back saw. It looked in pretty good shape with split saw nuts and a small bend in the blade which is typical for old saws. I waited patiently for about 45 minutes as the auctioneer was approaching the saw. When he got to the table his helper was moving items toward him. Once he got to the saw, the helper grabbed a bunch of other junk and pushed it to the auctioneer. I got pissed because I just wanted to bid on the saw and not have to compete against other bidders for the stuff he put with it.

Luckily no one else really wanted the saw or the crap that went with it as I won the lot for $15.00. After I won, my wife grabbed a box and threw everything in it and I took it to the truck. Walking to the truck I peaked in the box out of curiosity to see what else I won.

As I said, most of it was junk. I won an old hammer, a sickle of some sort, an assortment of hog ringers, oil can, saws, wire brush, an old blue tool box, pruners, an axe, and a cigar box. I’ll throw the hog ringers in the tool box and sell them on eBay as one lot. As far as the rest, I may just throw them in the garbage with the exception of the axe and wire brush.

When I looked in the cigar box, it was filled with old cut nails which was a pleasant surprise. While I have never used cut nails in the past, it’s nice to know that I now have them in case I plan to make a proper antique reproduction. I thought about selling them on eBay but they only go for about $10/lb, so screw it, I’ll keep them.

As far as my wife and her bids on furniture, she got skunked as everything she was remotely interested in went too high. I too got skunked on the planes that were at the auction. Most of them went for more than I was willing to pay but that is how the game is played.

Early Taylor Bar Clamps

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools19 Comments

Every 4th of July I travel to Adams County, OH to attend an antique tool auction held by the Amish. It’s been something I’ve been doing for the past fifteen years and it has become a tradition for me as something I always looked forward to all year. Every year I would come home with a ton of tools I picked up at a bargain hoping to make a little cash selling them on eBay. It started to decline the past couple of years and I was afraid it might end as the tools weren’t much to choose from and the quality of them were lacking. Well with the economy in the tank and $4 gas hitting the streets, the auction didn’t happen this year.

Bummed out, my wife asked if I wanted to go to an antique mall on the other side of Cincinnati and look around. We go there from time to time as she looks for things to sell in her booth. I rarely if ever find tools so I wasn’t too optimistic finding anything.

After we arrived, I spotted these clamps on the floor of a booth. They intrigued me because while I’ve seen old clamps before, I’ve never seen a clamping action like these. They worked off a cam action from the handle. As you pull the handle up, the shell shaped curve pushes the pad out. I debated getting them because old bar clamps are not very collectible and I really didn’t need them. Plus they were $22.00 a piece. But my wife said if I wanted them I should get them because the next time we were here, they’d be gone. So I used my wife’s 10% vendor discount and picked them up.

These are clamps after I dipped them in citric acid/water mix and cleaned the rust off with steel wool. The clamping range is about 20″. I thought it was a little odd that they weren’t designed to hold 24″ between center but I guess the inventor had his reasons.

Here’s the detail of the handle. You can see how the pad gets pushed out as the handle is raised. It’s simplicity is what makes the design so beautiful.

You can clearly see “The Taylor” on the face. I googled “taylor clamp co” and came up with www.jamesltaylor.com a manufacturer of mass production clamping and gluing machines. After I cleaned the rust off the bar I could faintly see the “The Taylor Manufacturing Co, Poughkeepsie, NY” so these clamps are obviously there’s. However, I was left with a big question.

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On the jaw there was a patent date of Jan 2, 1900. On the Taylor website they claim that the company was founded in 1911. How were these clamps patented in 1900 while James Taylor didn’t start his company until 1911? obviously John Taylor must have been a sole proprietorship for a few years tinkering around with designs before developing the typical design used today. Are these clamps some sort of prototypes or first edition models?

You can faintly see the logo “The Taylor” in an oval logo very similar to the Taylor logo used today. John must have simplified his logo when he incorporated in 1911. I looked all over their website the to see if they mention these style of clamps with no luck. I even tried searching the US Patent office on the internet for more information but came up empty.

James L. Taylor Manufacturing Co. Inc logo used today.

While the origins of these clamps remains a mystery, the real question is how do they perform? The answer is amazingly well. While they may not provide as much torque as typical bar clamps, they are extremely quick and easy to use. Where they excel is in gluing up cabinetry where you need speed on your side. Simply put the clamp around the stock and pull the handle up. I clamped a piece of wood to my workbench and tried moving it with no luck. They hold rock solid.

Another advantage with these clamps is they would appeal with people with arthritis. Often the screw handle on regular clamps can be tough to tighten with people who suffer from arthritis. With these clamp, they can easily tighten them up. There may be a real market for these clamps being manufactured and sold today as woodworkers are getting older every year. Hmmm….

Restoring a Hand Saw

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools7 Comments

A few weeks ago, while at the Tri-State Antique Show in Lawrenceburg, IN, I came across this old Disston saw. It was in decent shape barring a little rust but the blade was straight. The dealer was only asking $8.00 for it so I decided to buy it and see if I could bring it back to life.

Overall, the saw was in pretty good condition, it just had a few issues with the handle. The top of the tip was chewed up and a part of the side was busted on the other side. I grabbed a piece of beech scrap wood and cut out a couple of blanks to fix the handle. The beech came from an old jointer plane I bought decades ago. It was missing the blade so I ripped it straight down the body into 3/4″ planks and have been using it to repair other tools for years.

I could have cut off the entire tip of the saw and glued in a new piece of wood but I decided just to shave the worn area away with a chisel. This way, the other side of the handle would be left undisturbed.

After I carefully cut out a blank that matched the angle of the shaven off area, I glued it in place with some woodworkers glue.

After the blank was glued and had dried, I used files and rasps to bring it to final shape. I wanted to make sure the wood matched the original shape which was easy because the other side was still there.

Next I flipped over the handle and started working on the part that was missing from the front of the handle.

I cut another piece off my scrap beech and glued it to the handle then shaped and sanded the wood.

The handle came out well but the contrast between the old beech handle and the replaced beech was pronounced. I decided to darken the entire handle down so it would all match. The first thing I did was tone down the wood with walnut aniline dye. I rubbed a couple of coats on it with a sponge and let it dry. I then applied a light coat of dewaxed shellac so I could wipe on a couple of coats of General Finishes Walnut gel stain.

While the handle dried, I focused on the blade. This was the easy part. I simply soaked the blade in a citric acid/water solution for a couple of hours and wiped it clean.

After I wiped it off I used some fine grit sanding sponges and cleaned up blade a little bit more. I also cleaned up the saw nuts with some 000 steel wool.

The saw turned out really well. I just now need to sharpen the blade. I’m no expert on saw sharpening so there’s no sense showing you how I’ll sharpen the saw because I’ll just be following someone elses instructions. There are a bunch of videos on YouTube on saw sharpening so pick your favorite and have at it however, for the money, Ron Herman’s “Sharpen Your Saws” by Popular Woodworking is worth every penny. Ron is considered to be one of the foremost experts on hand saws in the country and his DVD showed me everything I needed to know how to make a saw sing. http://www.shopwoodworking.com/sharpen-your-handsaws-w5169

Anyone need a saw?

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools2 Comments

What do you call it when you have twelve hand saws, a circular saw blade, a clock movement, and an old pallet? Answer; a $350.00 clock.

I saw this work of art  while I was at The Springfield Antique Show Extravaganza in Springfield, OH today. Before you laugh, a young lady walked into the booth while I was taking the picture and told the vendor, “I love it, it’s such a cool idea.” The vendor selling it had two of them available for $350.00 each. I’m not sure if she has ever sold them in the past, but she claimed she gets a lot of compliments on them.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with using old saws that just sit around collecting dust. It just makes my stomach churn when I see nice tools used as decoration when they could be used as what they were intented to do. I checked the saws she used and most of them weren’t of any real value although she did use some old Disstons. Most of the Disstons had handles that were chipped or the saw nuts were missing.

I guess the joke’s on me. Maybe buying old saws, cleaning them up and selling them on eBay for $20.00 – $30.00 is a waste of time. I should just make these kind of clocks instead, but don’t count on it.

Restoring a molding plane

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools12 Comments

I’m constantly buying old molding planes at local auctions. I can usually pick them up for a song since they really don’t attract much interest from tool collectors. They come in various forms and sizes but the most common in the marketplace are hollows & rounds and beading planes. This plane is a cove and bead. A sweet little plane that is useful for adding little detail moldings on cabinets.

This plane is overall in good shape, just a little dirty and neglected. But a little elbow grease and a citric acid bath, it will tune up in no time.

The blade has some surface rust but no serious pitting. I dipped it in a citric acid solution which contained a tablespoon of citric acid with five cups of warm water. My trough is nothing more than a scrap piece of plastic gutter with an end cap glued to each end. It works well and hasn’t leaked in the past three years.

After the blade sat in the solution for a few hours, I scrubbed it clean with a piece of steel wool and washed it off in the sink. I then sharpened the back by lapping it on some water stones.

As far as the body, I didn’t do too much. I simply wiped it with 00 and 000 steel wool then applied a couple of coats of mineral-oil/orange-oil/beeswax solution to the body and wedge. I didn’t rub steel wool on it too much as I didn’t want the plane to look new. Since it’s over a hundred years old, it should look like it’s that old but in working order.

The biggest obstacle that you’ll face tuning up a molding plane is matching the blade to the soul’s profile. After decades of the wood expanding and contracting, losing moisture and drying up, it’s not unusual for the soul to change. This plane’s blade doesn’t match up perfectly to the soul. ideally the blade should protrude equally along the soul. Since it doesn’t I have two options. One is to reshape the blade to match the plane’s soul. Or two, reshape the soul a little bit to match the blade. The first option is the best since you don’t want to weaken the soul by removing wood away but in this case, so little wood needs to be removed, that option two would be much quicker.

I needed to remove a little bit of wood by the end of the bead so I took a bastard file and shaved it down. I periodically checked the blade in the plane to make sure I had a constant protrusion along the soul. Once it did, I was done.

Next I needed to see how the plane performed. I grabbed a piece of straight grain poplar and started planing. The plane shaved off perfect shavings with no clogs.

This is how the molding would look when installed. You can see how the shadows bring out the curves of the molding. A nice little detail that adds a touch of class to cabinetry.

The plane looks nice too. It still has a nice warm dark color and plenty of patina to show off its age. I could have bought a router bit to do the same thing, but where’s the fun in that?