A couple of weekends ago, my wife and I drove up to Millersburg, OH to check out the fall colors and the antique malls up there. We visited Millersburg a couple of years back only to find out after we left, that there is an antique tool store in town. I saw Colonial Homestead on Instagram when we got home and couldn’t believe I missed it so, this time I knew I had to put it on our list of stops.
The building is about ten minutes outside of town and is a really big. Inside there are thousand of tools laying on tables and bookshelves. I immediately took a step back just to absorb everything I was looking at. There’s a table in front with a bunch of Stanley planes that are restored and ready for use.
Every tool you could imagine in this joint with some rare and unusual pieces. The prices on the tools are equivalent to eBay pricing, so don’t expect to get a steal. At least it’s not for me as I’m a picker so there was no meat-on-the-bone with the pricing on the tools. He was asking $2100 for the Stanley No 1 which was way above my budget. It looks like it’s sitting on the original box but I don’t remember noticing the box when I was looking at it.
He did have a real nice selection of molding planes with prices that were in my budget however, he only takes cash and I didn’t have any on me so, it was pretty much a few minutes of browsing.
He also had a nice closet full of woodworking books. There were a lot of out of print books along with Lost Art Press favorites. I looked for the 2nd edition of the Stanley Tool Collecting book by John Walter but, there was none to be found.
After twenty minutes of browsing, I said goodbye and went on my way as my wife was waiting in the truck. The weekend wasn’t a total lost as I was able to find tools in my budget in antique malls in Berlin, and Walnut Creek, OH. The prelateral Stanley No 37 Jenny’s Plane was my favorite pick of the trip.
Last month, I went back to the Springfield Extravaganza Antique Show in Springfield, OH. It’s the bi-yearly pilgrimage I’ve taken for the past 20 years. I love it, even though I haven’t found that many tools in the past few years. It was slim pickings again last month so, I was happy to buy a few wooden clamps for $15.00 a piece.
When I started restoring them, they were completely seized as the handles were unable to turn. I thought to myself “did I just piss away $30.00?” Luckily, after spraying the threads with PB Blaster for about 30 minutes, I was able to break free the rust on the threaded rods.
I then went to my tried and true antique oil, of mineral oil, orange oil, and melted beeswax. The solution not only helped the parts move freely, but it made the parts move like they’re brand new. If I had half of a brain, I’d sell this solution as it works so damn well, but I already have enough on my plate these days.
After the parts were free, I used a Japanese metal file and carved away the rust that was in the threads. You can see in the photos how corroded the threads were on the clamps. I feel lucky to have them usable again.
The final step was to coat the whole clamp with my tool solution. With a everything clean, I have two very usable clamps for a fraction of buying new wooden clamps and it was a done in one afternoon while watching football on TV. You gotta love antique shows!
Yesterday, I went to an antique show and picked up the Stanley No 68 Rabbet Spokeshave in it’s original box. I’ve heard about the tool, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in person. The price the guy was asking was too good to pass up so I took it home.
When I got home, I noticed a fence inside the box. At first, I thought it didn’t belong with the spokeshave but after looking at it for a few minutes, I saw that it clips on the back. The fence looks crude as if it was made by the original user, so I looked in John Walter’s Stanley book, but saw no mention of a fence that came with the tool.
When looking online for more information for this spokeshave, I saw that the vast majority of them have no fence. Then I came across this photo on WorthPoint where it shows a similar fence as mine, except this fence has a screw to tighten it while mine has a bolt. So, I’m not sure if this was a user tip that people saw in magazines that they made themselves or not.
Here’s the spokeshave in action. It works quite well with the fence. I posted this video on instagram and people said that the spokeshave was used by boat builders and carriage makers which would make sense. Definitely an interesting tool.
Last week, my wife and I spent the days traveling up and down US127 for the World’s Longest Yard Sale. It’s something we’ve down for the past seven or eight years and we have an absolute blast doing it. We get up at 4:30am and drive 150 miles to start our day in a different part of the country to see what we can find. After 1200 miles in my truck and five days of picking, this is what I came home with.
As much fun it isto pick, it’s frustrating that I can’t find as many Stanley Bailey planes that I used to. Even nice planes that are out of my budget were few and far between.
I was able to find a couple of good deals on miter boxes. One is my favorite Stanley No 150. It’s great little miter box for cutting wood that too small to cut with a powered miter saw. The other is a Miller’s Falls No 70 miter box along with a Disston saw. Both will take some time to restore but I’ll eventually get it done.
I also picked up a blacksmith post vise. The price was too good to pass up. The jaws are a touch small at 3 1/2″ wide but it’s a perfect size for a woodworker who needs to do a little metal working from time to time.
The other things I picked up were some large jaw Bessey clamps for $8.00 each. (I couldn’t whip out my wallet fast enough). Then, I found some old Fine Woodworking magazines and old testbook for a few bucks. One thing that’s great about woodworking is that the old books and magazines are still relevant because wood is wood and steal is steal. Been that way for thousands of years and it’ll be that way for a thousand more.
Overall, I’m happy with my purchases, I’m just getting a litttle nervous about not finding any decent tools on the yard sale anymore. I know damn well I haven’t bought them all.
I bought this plane on eBay this week. Probably the first plane I bought on the bay in two years. The seller said it was marked 904 and was similar to a Stanley No 2 plane. When I opened the box, I immediately saw that it was actually the size of a No 4 plane. It’s my fault for not paying closer attention to the pictures and not doing my research. I looked over the plane and saw no makers mark of any kind. To me, it looked like it was made by the Sargent Tool Co.
When I took the plane apart, I saw that the frog on the plane was identical to early Stanley Bedrock plane. I knew it wasn’t a Bedrock because it would say “Bedrock” on the bed. The only other plane company that made planes that I knew of that had a Bedrock style of frog was Vaughan & Bushnell but all their planes had flat side walls similar to Bedrock planes.
The lateral adjustment had a twist on the top. It reminded me of a Sargent plane but I don’t think Sargent ever made planes with a Bedrock style of frog.
The back of the frog was similar to all other Bailey style planes on the market back in the day. The one thing I noticed was that the threaded rod for the brass knurled nut was really long like that of an Ohio Tool Co plane. Was this an Ohio Tool Co plane?
The only identification mark on the plane was 904 on the chip breaker. Since I thought it was a Sargent or Ohio Tool Co plane, I researched “904” for each company and came up empty. Sargent’s No 4 size planes were labeled 409 not 904.
The blade had no marking on it. The only unique feature it had has a polygram shaped hole at the bottom. So, I went back to Vaughan & Bushnell and searched “904”. Sure enough, I found an early example on the internet of a Vaughan & Bushnell No 904 with round sides. Mystery solved. Why Vaughan & Bushnell didn’t mark their planes is anybody’s guess but mine would be that they sold their planes to hardware companies who would then label the plane under their own brand name. Similar to that of companies who use to make tools and sold it to Sears to be sold under the Craftsman brand. Maybe this plane was packaged in a box with the hardware store’s brand on it.
I sharpened the blade and put it to use. After a quick honing, the plane performed well. It’ll make a nice user however, I’m still kind of pissed it was sold as a number to 2 size plane. I overpaid for it but that’s my fault.
It’s been slim pickings buying antique tools the past few months. So much so, I had to close my eBay store and just list things when I had a few tools to sell.
Scrounging around my shelves in my workshop, I found an old miter saw I bought at one time but completely forgot about. It was in pretty rough shape when I bought it but the price was right. Being out of inventory, I figured it would be a good time to clean it up
If you know me, you know I like dipping old rusty tools imto a ctric acid bath for a few hours. The process works great on old cast iron plane beds but when I try it on saw blades, it turns the steel really dark.
I heard about guys who scrunch up a piece of aluminum foil and use mag wheel polish to buff out the rust using nothing but elbow grease. I have tried this method on previous saws and have enjoyed the outcome so much that I no longer dip my saw blades in citric acid.
I started with a piece of aluminum foil but the blade was so tarnished and rusty, that I decided to use a scotch brite pad instead. It took a lot of elbow grease, but I was happy with the outcome after a few days of scrubbing.
You can see the etching was saved using the mag + aluminum polish. Sometimes when you use sandpaper to remove rust on saw blades, you lose the etching as well. You can also see the oxidation on the blade from all the rust.
When I bought the saw, I thought it was a Disston but it turned out to be a Simonds saw for a Millers Falls Langdon Mitre Box. Turned out to be a nice find.
The handle was already in nice shape. All I had to do was remove the old cracked lacquer finish with paint removal gel and buff it with steel wool. Then I applied a few coats of shellac to it.
The saw cleaned up nicely and is ready to be put back to use. Just needs a quick sharpening.
After dealing with the corona virus and getting hit with a tornado in the spring, my eBay store took a major hit as I ran out of inventory to sell. Since all the antique shows and tool auctions were cancelled it was simply tough to find tools. So, I decided to shut my store down until things got better and life settled down a bit.
Thankfully after a few months, antique shows started to open again and I was able to have some free time after Anita and I put our house back together after the tornado. I was able to acquire almost fifty tools in the past few weeks and began listing them on eBay.
I listed about twenty tools on eBay and threw some of the pictures on my Instagram page letting people know they were available for sale.
Amazingly of the five planes I posted on Instagram, all of them sold within 24 hours. I’m not sure if everyone who bought the planes originally saw my post but it sure seems like that. I was thinking that I should start promoting my tools on social media
So I decided to try it again, but this time with a couple of Craftsman No 3C BB’s I also had listed for sale. I again threw a few pictures on Instagram promoting the listings pointing followers to where they can buy them. But after a few days, no one bought them. Drats! Looks like Instagram isn’t a sure way to promote and sell tools.
Had these planes would have been Stanley No 3 planes, they would have sold right away, but few people realize that Millers Falls made Craftsman planes for Sears for a few years. Even though the Craftman planes don’t share all the same features as Millers Falls planes, they still make nice users.
I still have a few tools for sale and hopefully they’ll sell quick. I need some money for The World’s Longest Yard Sale this week. Lol
Last summer I had the opportunity to buy a Stanley No 1 plane at The Springfield Antique Extravaganza. The price the lady wanted was too good to pass up, so I went to the ATM a few times to get enough money out to buy the plane. I’ve wanted to own one of these planes for nearly thirty years so I was stoked to bring it home.
Everytime I see one of these little guys, they’re usually behind a glass case at an auctioneer’s table so holding one in my hand was a real treat. Stanley No 1 planes are often on the top of the bucket list for a lot of tool collectors. Unfortunately, their prices spiked over the past few decades so finding one at an affordable price is hard to do. I read stories from old time tool collectors that they could buy these planes at the flea market for $10-20 during the 1960’s and ’70’s. Today they command as much as $1000 or more. The odd thing is, is that Stanley never made these planes to be collectible. In fact, they were the most inexpensive bench plane they offered in their catalog. At $2.95, they were 32% cheaper than a Stanley No 3 plane which are still readily available at antique shows around the country. Never being able to use one, I often wondered what the purpose of these little guys were and how they were used.
When I got home I lightly cleaned the plane and sharpened the blade. When I flipped the plane over, I noticed that there were diagonal scratch marks on the bed. This told me that the original owner used the plane at an askew. I know when I use a plane at an askew, it’s either to prevent tear out on difficult grain or to clean up some blemishes on the wood. So I thought to myself that maybe these planes are used just to clean up little areas on the wood’s surface.
Last weekend I had a chance to test my theory. While making a display cabinet for my wife, I was planing some eastern white pine with my Stanley No 4 plane when I was getting tear out around the large knots in the wood.
The tear out wasn’t terrible as the blade on my Stanley No 4 is sharp and the bed has been fettled flat, but the tear out was still there. I decided that I would try to get rid of the tear out by using my No 1 plane.
Sure enough, after a few strokes, I noticed that the plane was cleaning up the tear out quite nicely. So I thought to myself, this must be one of the purposes of the plane. But then I started thinking about why a small plane like this would do a better job at shaving the wood than a well tuned No 4 plane. The only thing I can really think of is the small footprint on the No 1 helps the user focus on a smaller area on the wood’s surface. Also the mouth on the No 1 is tighter with less of a gap than my No 4 that is set for general planing. Both my No 4 and No 1 are sharpened the same way with water stones up to 12000 grit so it’s not that one of the plane’s blade was sharper than the other.
With how well the plane cleaned up my tear out I’m thinking that these planes were used for cleaning up the work surface and other small tasks. Whether it would be tear out, scratch marks, small gouge marks or even taking labels off of boxes. Remember these were cheap planes that were made for daily use but never took off in the marketplace. Because there’s not very many of them available, supply-and-demand shot their prices to the moon.
I know that one of the most famous tool cabinets in the world, H. O. Studley’s tool cabinet has a Stanley No 1 plane in it. His plane is in the middle left of the left hand door. Studley was a piano maker so he probably used his plane when making and fitting piano keys. I also know that instrument makers use small planes in their work so that’s another group of people that could benefit from a Stanley No 1 plane.
All I know is that it’s a nice little plane to own. It’s not the most versatile plane you can have in your arsenal, but it’s nice to have it when you need it. So do I recommend using a Stanley No 1 plane? HELL NO! They’re too valuable! Buy a Lie-Nielsen No 1 for a couple hundred bucks and let a tool collector stick this thing on his shelf.
UPDATE 1-29-23 When I wrote this article, Lie-Nielsen and Woodriver No 1 planes were readily available. Since then, the Lie-Nielsen fetches around $500-800. Woodriver No 1 is still not available.
After working with wood for the past 30 years, I have my first speaking engagement this month. I was contacted by a member of the Cincinnati Working Club a few weeks ago who asked if I would be interested in speaking in front of the group. At first, I was shocked and confused. I didn’t understand why he would want me to be a guest speaker, but after reading further into the email, he saw that I restore planes and have a nice tool cabinet full of antique tools. Apparently, he wants me to talk about my journey into antique tool collecting and describe the process of how I clean my tools.
I’m going to start off talking about my tool cabinet and how it came to be. I started building it in 1999 but didn’t finish it until 2001 as it sat in my parent’s basement unfinished. It’s undergone a few transformations over the years as I added and deleted tools from the doors and back. It actually looks nicer in pictures than it does in person as the oak veneer plywood tore off in places where I removed the tool holders.
From there, I’ll describe the process of restoring this Diamond Edge Jointer. I took a bunch of pictures of the process and will upload them to a thumb drive so I can plug it into their laptop. The group meets in a church basement so I’m not sure if there is a workbench down there for people to work on. The idea of actually doing the restoration while I’m there doesn’t make much sense so pictures it will be.
Bill told me that each meeting has between 65-75 people attendees so this presentation is going to be as big as a session at the Woodworking in America events.
If you’re a member of the Cincinnati Woodworking Club, stop by on Saturday Sept, 14th at Northminster Presbyterian Church 703 Compton Road in Cincinnati, Ohio around 9:00 and watch me be nervous as hell. Just please don’t bring tomatoes to throw at me.
Six months ago I ran across this miter box lying on the floor in an antique store. Intrigued by it, I took a look at the price but decided not to buy it. I went back a few weeks ago and the seller lowered the price by 50% so I took it home with me.
I’ve been using a Stanley No 150 miter box for years. In fact, it’s the only hand powered miter box I ever use now since I sold my larger Stanley No 60 1/2 miter box as it was just sitting around collecting dust. What I love about the 150 is its small footprint and ability to cut small moldings safely as opposed of using my Delta powered miter saw.
You can see the difference between the Jacobs and Stanley No 150 Miter Box. The Jacobs looks like Stanley’s bigger brother. The Jacobs actually predates the Stanley by several decades as it was patented in 1889 while Stanley didn’t produce the 150 until 1923. More likely, Stanley simply bought the design from Jacobs or waited for the patent to run out and redesigned it into a smaller version.
I always use a Disston back saw when I use my Stanley No 150 but, apparently this miter box was meant to be used with a panel saw which is why the throat is so deep. Even the patent documents show it being used with a panel saw.
The cut from the miter box is pretty accurate considering it’s age. Both 45 degree positive stops produced a decent cut however, I would still finalize the cut by using a shooting board or miter trimmer as I always use my miter trimmer to clean up the miter when I use my Stanley No 150. This is a neat box to own and I’m glad I found it.
MVFlaim Furnituremaker 