Tag: ebay

Oddball Smoothing Plane

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools7 Comments

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.

I’m Back in The Game

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn WorkshopLeave a comment

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

eBay Listings 7/14/19

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Workshop5 Comments

Life has been busy lately with my wife and I working around our house, but I have found some time in the shop to restore planes. Below is what I have listed tonight.

One of the planes I have for sale is this Sargent No 4 1/2C . Nice and hefty, it will perform well in the shop.

Ohio Tool CO No O5 1/2C Corrugated Plane is well made and and has a thicker blade than comparable Stanley planes. These Ohio Tool planes are some of the most under appreciated tools in the hand tool world.

I also listed the GTL plane I blogged about last month. It’s a nice plane but I really don’t need it.

The workhorses in most shops are the classic Stanley Bailey planes. I have a few available in my eBay store at reasonable prices.

Since you guys are following my blog, I’m offering a special 15% discount until the end of July only available to my blog followers. You can access the discount by clicking on the link. It’s a simple thank you for following me all these years.

New Tools Listed on eBay 6/18

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique ToolsLeave a comment

I listed a few tools on Ebay tonight. You can see them here.

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I normally don’t blog when I list tools but, I’ve been selling on eBay for years. I’m small potatoes compared to the big tool sellers like Jim Bode or Patrick Leach but, I only do this in my spare time.

I buy tools that are often passed up by tool collectors because they’re not in the best shape. However, to me, part of the fun is to see if I can get them to work again. I make sure all the parts function properly and fix broken totes so they feel good in your hand. I’ll even sharpen the blades when I have time. If I buy a plane that can’t be brought back from the dead, I’ll sell it in parts so someone else can bring their tool back to life.

I normally have more than 100 tools for sale in my store but, I haven’t had time to restock it in the past few weeks. But that’s a good thing. It means that my prices are fair and they sell. I don’t want to own an antique tool museum.

Painted Apothecary Drawer

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn FurnitureLeave a comment

I built this apothecary drawer for a cabinet my wife bought a few months ago. You can read the post here. My wife needed to paint the drawer and make it look old to match all the other ones.

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The first thing she did was take a solution of white distilled vinegar with steel wool and wiped it on the drawer so it would take on an aged look.

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She then painted the front with white milk paint. She built up the coats to give the front some depth since the original drawers had multiple layers of paint on them. After the paint dried, she applied some green paint to front and quickly wiped it away as there was also some green highlights showing through the white paint on the original drawers.

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The drawer was a little too white, so she gently applied dark wax and rubbed it in. Getting a perfect match with the colors from old drawers is really hard, but she did a really good job making the new drawer blend with the others..

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Here’s the drawer with the rest of the them back in the cabinet. She got lucky with the hardware as she found matching pulls from a seller on eBay. She had to replace nine of the handles because when she bought the cabinet, it came with handles of two different designs.

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Bentley came to see which drawer was the new one, but couldn’t figure it out. Can you?

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Beware of PayPal

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Workshop2 Comments

I was getting lunch today and handed the cashier my PayPal debit card to pay. She handed it back to me saying it was declined. I thought it was odd since I knew I had some money in it when I sold a bunch of tools last month. When I got home today, I went online to see what the problem was. Some asshole in Brazil got a hold of my account information and started charging a bunch of charges to AUTO POSTO and Rodeo Bar in Brazil under my account.

I immediately called PayPal to dispute the charges. There are a total of ten charges in the past two days and the bastard took $587.00 from me. PayPal told me that they filed a dispute on my behalf and I should get my money back within a couple of days. They also cancelled my card and will send me out a new one tomorrow.

I can’t figure out how the hell someone got my account info. I’m very careful not handing out any of my information to anyone under any circumstances and my PayPal password is not a simple one. I keep thinking about odd things that happened to me in the past few weeks and how someone could have gotten info from me. The only thing I can think of is a few weeks ago, a guy in Brazil with zero feedback placed a bid on one my auctions, then emailed me asking to cancel the transaction. I went into eBay and cancelled it a few days later but can’t figure out how he would have been able to get my account info from that. It may be just a coincidence but I’m done shipping international in eBay. So if you sell on eBay and have someone with zero feedbacks ask you to do something for them, don’t.

I think it’s bullshit that PayPal didn’t freeze my account when the first transaction came through from brazil let alone ten. Any other credit card company would have blocked my account immediately. Once I get my $587.00 back in PayPal account, I’m withdrawing it immediately and sticking it in my bank.

The Perfect Drawer Bottom Plane

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools5 Comments

I recently won an auction for a Record No 043 plow plane on Ebay from a seller in England. I have always wanted one of these but the prices for these things is a bit high in the States. Not too many of them were sold on this side of the pond so the collectors who have them want about $100 for theirs. The sad part is that Record is no longer in business so buying a new one is virtually impossible.

What makes this plane so nice is its size and simplicity of use. Its small stature and ease to set up makes it an ideal tool to cut the grooves in bottoms of a drawers. In the past, I cut these grooves on the table saw which meant I had to take off the riving knife on my table saw, set the blade to cut a kerf about a 1/4″ high, then move the fence over to widen the groove to the size of a piece of 1/4″ plywood that I was using. This set up was time-consuming and making the groove the perfect width on the table saw was not always fool proof accurate.

Setting up the plane is a synch. I simply used a 3/16″ brass bar to set the blade from the fence and the height of the depth stop. It came with a 3/16″ and 1/4″ cutter but I’ll probably just use the 3/16″ exclusively as 1/4″ plywood is actually 3/16″ thick.

I own a Stanley No 45 and could use it as a drawer bottom plane but the 45 is a little too big and awkward to use when planing such a delicate groove. At 5 1/2″ long, the Record No 043 is half the size of the 11″ long No 45 and grips easily holding the back of the plane in the palm of my hand. With a little practice one could learn to use the plane with only one hand as long as you can keep the fence against the stock tightly.

As you can see, it creates a perfect fit for 1/4″ plywood which is what I primarily use when building drawers. As far as speed, it’s just as quick to plane these grooves as it is with a table saw. A few passes with the plane and the groove is cut.

http://www.leevalley.com/US/Wood/page.aspx?p=69788&cat=1,41182

Even though the Record 043 is no longer made, Lee Valley released a small plow plane a few years ago. The Veritas Small Plow Plane is a nice plow as I was able to use one at The Woodworking in America show last year. At 9″ long, that plane is smaller than a Stanley No 45 but still a little bigger than the Record No 043. You can buy the plane with a set of five blades for $275.00 so the guys who want $100 for the Record No 043 on Ebay may not be such a bad deal after all.

Thanks USPS

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools2 Comments

So I sold this Stanley No 8 plane on Ebay two weeks ago for about $82.00. I get an email from the buyer last week claiming that he received it broke. It’s not too often that tools I ship end up broken during shipping but when it happens it makes me want to go down to the post office and go postal on someone.

Over the years, I’ve shipped hundreds of planes all over the world to places like Canada, Italy, Australia, England and France. Every time I take care in making sure the plane is well packed and well protected. But when I finished packing this boy to California, a little voice in my head told me I better add insurance to the bill.

A couple of years ago it was the buyers responsibility to pay for insurance when they paid for the item. Now Ebay turned that responsibility onto the seller. So if you sell something expensive through Ebay without insurance and it breaks during shipping, you’re responsible even though the buyer didn’t pay for insurance. I don’t ship everything I sell with insurance because it adds expense to the shipping and handling charge and buyers often get turned off to an auction if they feel the shipping charge is too high.  But thankfully I had enough foresight to pay the insurance for this plane.

When the buyer emailed me it broke, I told him to file a claim through Ebay so they would know the plane broke during shipping. I used Ebay’s third-party shipping insurance called ShipCover and not the USPS. Once the claim was filed, I went through Ebay’s dispute center where they acted as a mediator between the buyer and seller.

As soon as the buyer filed his claim, Ebay immediately froze the money he sent me through PayPal until the dispute was resolved. That can be a hairy situation if you already spent the money your buyers sent you. If there isn’t enough money in your account to cover the disputed item, Ebay will often take the money from your bank account. Talk about a sticky situation if you start bouncing a bunch of checks because Ebay froze your money.

Luckily I had enough money in PayPal and after he filed his claim, I filed mine to ShipCover through Ebay. A few days go by and I received the plane back from the seller. My frozen money went back to him and I was rewarded the $82 from ShipCover. The dispute was settled and life goes on.

“The Art of Joinery” by Joseph Moxon and Chris Schwarz

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Workshop5 Comments

A few years ago I attended the first Woodworking in America conference in Berea, KY. While there, I picked up the book “The Art of Joinery”. The book was originally written by Joseph Moxon about 300 years ago. Chris Schwarz rewrote parts of the book in plain English and added a bunch of photos with captions under them.

It’s a good book that is a quick enjoyable read but unfortunately it’s no longer in print. So one day I was browsing eBay and saw that somebody was asking $400 for the book. I thought to myself “yeah right”. Then I searched amazon.com and saw people were asking $500 for their copy. I knew those prices were ridiculous but was intrigued what the book was actually worth. So, I threw the book on eBay last week with a starting bid of $39.99 and watched where it would go. It ended up selling for $59.12 plus shipping.

I can’t remember what I paid for the book but I think it was only around $8.00 -$12.00. Chris Schwartz signed the book with his name on the first page which may have helped its final selling price. Pretty good return on my investment if you ask me. In fact, it makes me want to buy a couple dozen copies of “The Anarchist Tool Chest” and drive across the Ohio River to Chris’s house to have him sign the books.