Recent Tool Finds

Recent Tool Finds

Clearing out the old family farm produces a surprise Galootish tool event

My 98 yr old uncle passed away in May '04, triggering plans for sale of both his home and the family farm he and his late brother had worked for most of their lives. Our cousins invited my brother Dave and I down to see if there was anything we would like to keep from the farm before it was put up for auction; we went the first weekend in August. Joanne and I drove up and met Dave there, along with several cousins and our one surviving aunt, and we went through the house and ten outbuildings over two days.

Joanne and I half expected to be bringing home a few items of furniture, maybe a few items of silverware, and I thought maybe the tools from my one uncle's chair repair (side-) business might still be there. We didn't come home with much furniture, but Dave and I did find a little motherload of tool items our cousins were happy to see go to a good home. The pictures below show what I had set aside at the end of day 1 of working our way through the basement workshop, the laundry / well house and one of the barns. More was unearthed the second day, too much to bring home in one trip. I've since returned for the second load and researched what I brought home, and I've amended this list for those interested.

(Note! You can click on any of these photos to expand their size - however, the grey 'close window' button no longer seeems to work appropriately on my browser, as it throws me out of the window - so just X the popup window to close it; no, I don't know why, and can't fix it)

Partial group picture of the first day 's finds

What I managed to get into the car for the ride home, in addition to four cane chairs, one stuffed chair, a set of china, several sets of silverware, a mirror, and a pair of end tables:

12 saws --

one Harvey W Peace - Vulcan Saw Works, Brooklyn NY 26" 7pt rip, with the Peace patent brass strip along the bottom of the handle marked 'Pat. Jul 3 1883', missing most of the lower horn [etch is too faint to identify the model number, but it probably is a P-26; thanks go to Josh Clark for his assistance with this one]
one S. Peace 16" 11pt cross-cut backsaw, "German Steel", no medallion [made between 1814-1825; saw screws are probably not original; special thanks to Don McConnell for his research on this one!]
two Disston 7's, late 1800s-early 1900's medallions, one with a broken blade / fair condition handle, one 24" 9pt cross-cut; examination of medallions on the Disstonian institute site suggest one of the medallions may be an example from the period 1876-1880.
one Disston No. 12 - 26" 9pt cross-cut, faint etch, very nicely wheat-carved-but-broken apple handle in a turn of the century style, medallion missing [tried, but can't narrow it down any more than that]
one Atkins 26" 5½ pt rip saw
one late Disston D-23, pre-Porter, 12pt xcut (steel sings)
one late Disston D-23, post-Porter, 8pt rip (steel does not sing)
three pruning saws, one appears to be an older Disston
one Millers Falls all metal silver & red painted keyhole saw, with fine blade marked 425, coarse blade marked 525

Other stuff (in no logical order, in case you were wondering):

One Disston & Sons D-3 saw vise, very heavy duty,12+" jaws, working condition [weighs at least twice as much as any other saw vise I own (the count is now six, who needs six?); lacks the saw filing guide frame that came with this model, but one thumbscrew remains attached;
EC Stearns #3 saw vise, 10½" jaws, working condition, marked with "Wentworth's pat Apr 8, 1879"
one 5½" long turned rosewood handle & nickel 20 ga. shotgun loader's measure, with capacity of the cup adjusted by positioning a peg in a notch, marked for both drams of powder and 02 shot (very pretty little item)
one nifty 4" pocket level, polished finish, single bubble (working), hexagonal cross-section case with two smooth bullet end caps; appears to either be fully nickeled or german silver, marked "The L.S. Starrett Co. / Athol, Mass / No. 135" [Starrett show two smaller versions of this in their current online catalog as models 135A or B, now offered only in a satin nickel finish]
Stanley 257N level, 28", with all three working vials
Tapered framing square with angle tables, semi-script numerical markings, labeled "The Eagle Square Co." over a ' 2' ; 24" x 17"
12" x 7" noname framing square
9" blade noname drawknife, factory made
Stanley #631 drift pin, 9"
rock hammer, well used
upholsterer's hammer, in the style of the Stanley #602, CS Osborne & Company, Harrison NJ, 5½" curved head, 90% of decal on handle, very clean and nicely balanced in use
Collins axe, 25" long (top of head to end of handle), with original leather cover
dogmeat official BSoA hatchet
6" triangular machinists scraper
Stanley Sweetheart era #64 spokeshave, 70% japanning & sharp, and happens to match the #63 Sweetheart era rounded bottom shave I acquired two weeks before the trip
Chairmaker's concave wooden spokeshave(?); iron bedded in what appears to be boxwood, 1+" diameter turned handles, probably craftsman made; iron appears to be a substitute in ordinary carbon steel, as it will not hold an edge for long
unmarked Millers Falls single pinion eggbeater drill, red lacquered hardwood handles, red painted drive gear, steel pivoted cover over drill bit storage compartment in handle, 5 straight flute bits
1 steel benchdog from a heavily abused cabinetmaker's bench
1 - 12" quick opening / quick closing face vise -- Columbian Vise & Mfg Co. -- from the same cabinetmakers bench
1 - 3½" jaw x 3" opening Wilton bench vise
Hook Scraper #25, Hook Scraper Company, Queens Village NY (patented), and several other paint scrapers
Stanley #25 bevel gauge, clear Sweetheart mark on blade, rosewood & brass handle
Stanley #720 3/4" bevel edged chisel, nearly 12" in length, traces of red lacquer left on handle
Durbin Durco St. Louis cast aluminum saw file holder
Brink & Cotton alloy C-clamps, 2 - 1", 1 - 3"
Cincinnati Tool Co. C-clamps, 3 - 3" steel
30"L x 13"w x 7" deep hinged lid wooden tool box
28" wooden leg vise, well used but with a good steel screw
beech mallet, 3¼" faces x 6" head, 10" turned ash socketed handle
pine mallet, 3¼" faces x 4½" head, 10" turned socketed handle
pine mallet, 2" faces x 5½" head, morticed & wedged handle
Millers Falls No. 731 12" sweep brace, rosewood handle & knob; surface rust on the chuck shell and little nickel plating left, but wood is very good [corresponds to either a 1st or 2nd type of this model - 1907-1912 - per Randy Roeder's website]
Several Nicholson files & rasps, various forms
handful of round and triangular sawfiles, including one 6" 'American Swiss' that has only one cutting side, with a very oblique triangular cross-section; not sure what type of saw that is for, but might work well on Japanese style teeth
Delta Specialty Company model 700, 24" capacity, scroll saw, circa 1935-40. This took some derusting, and the original motor went up in a blue flash after less than a minute of operation; Bob Vaughn of OWWM Forum provided some valuable help on getting this one back in running order, and it now works quite well.
Minwax finishing wax, 1 lb cans each of clear & dark (grey tint for antiquing)
new-in-box (25+ yr old) assortments of cotter pins, flat head slotted screws, castellated nuts
maple and walnut oil stains, in quart size snap lid glass canning jars (good rubber seals!), powdered mahogany water stain, 1 lb box of rottenstone, 2 dozen pads each of #2 and 0000 steel wool, plus more misc. finishing supplies
1 set 2 x 2 solid hardwood block & tackle, with 25 ft of 3/4" sisal rope
8 old books on antiques, including two on chair identification and repair
and a little more not worth mentioning here ...

The 12" Columbian Vise & Mfg Co. quick release / quick close face vise brother Dave will proudly use

Update: refinished 1930's Delta Specialty Co. Model 700 scrollsaw -- thanks OWWM group!

Brother Dave went home with a little stash of his own. We did a little trading, and among other things he wound up taking home a six foot two-man saw, the Columbian face vise pictured above left, and the nice set of 36" EC Stearns adjustable cabinetmaker's bar clamps visible in the top left picture. Since he has a cabinet bead blaster, he can and did do a better job of cleaning those clamps up than I can do, and I've got three sets of large bar clamps already. He says they cleaned up very nicely and do indeed work very well, as he used them soon after the trip.

Grandfather Moore ran this farm, located just outside Catskill NY, throughout his adult life before handing it over to our uncles. Wasn't his first choice of life's work, but he ran it because his father insisted that he take over the family dairy & egg business rather than become a cabinetmaker. So he bought the farm around 1900 (down the road from his father's farm), and took over the business. Given this history, we didn't expect to find tools and machinery befitting a budding cabinetmaker in the early years of the 20th century.

There were three items I didn't take out of the barns on the first visit for lack of room in the minivan to transport them, if I was going to take them. I went back again August 28 with with my older son, with the intent of determining which items were worth hauling home. We came back with only one.

The 15" pedal grinder was a huge disappointment --- when we dragged it out into the sunlight, the side that had been in shadows away from the door in the work shed became much more visible. There was a fine crack running from one edge through the axis to the other edge of the stone. More surprising, the crack ran right through a cast iron stabilizing plate, and cracked that too. A serious crack, for sure. I had already decided to find a place for this by rearranging a portion of the basement near my workshop, but that plan was now vaporized.

Close inspection of the saw table back in the corner of the shop with a powerful flashlight (this trip) showed that it almost certainly had been a home-built experiment at making a pedal powered circular saw. I believe it failed miserably, as there was no provision for a flywheel. The thing was hand built on top of a frame adapted from a large treadle sewing machine, and even (optimistically) had a saw guard underneath. I doubt it could cut wood much thicker than veneer. We left that where it was.

The third machine (picture below left) was bit of a mystery, but no more. The business end was pretty interesting to the mechanical engineer side of my brain. The double set of iron hand wheels allow the user to either just spin the arbor, or advance it. The arbor has a socket that appears sized for square tang bits. At first, I thought it might be an arbor press, but after seeing the socket and its physical arrangement, I thought that this might be a morticing machine. Pretty simple, yet nifty the way it is put together.

The near end had an add-on sharpening station, with a leather-belt-driven grinding wheel, seriously out of true. My son and I removed that, leaving the larger machine on a frame that almost certainly was built on site. The much better flashlight permitted looking around in that dark workshop (the electric supply had failed long ago), I spied two drawers under the workbench that I hadn't seen before. Opening those revealed tanged bits and two chain drills which more or less fit the arbor socket on this machine. That clarified things! Examination of the chips on top of the machine showed both metal and wood chips, so I began thinking it was used much like a post drill in a horizontal orientation, but it had less gizmosity than the post drills I've examined. Subsequent discussion with a couple members of the OldTools Porch confirmed that it is an early version of a post drill, and there is at least one other in working condition out there among Porch residents. How old it is, I don't know, but post drills have been around for a century at least. My son, and then I, were mightily impressed by discovering that a single spin of the large wheel caused it to continue to spin for a full 10+ seconds on its own. After at least 25 yrs of no usage, that's evidence of either mighty good lubrication, or very good bearings, or both. The machine came home with us and now sits in storage in my son's vehicle barn for lack of space in my workshop. I'll either figure out a place for it here in my shop, or if Marc doesn't want it, it'll go up for sale.

I had also culled out some hardwood lumber from the piles of old rough sawn lumber (8-16' lengths) in the barns during the first trip. In the dim light, these boards were largely indeterminant species, but some swipes with a spokeshave had suggested they were good hardwoods worth taking home. They just wouldn't fit in the car on the first trip, even if I had had a saw that could cut them to fit. Planning for the second trip had included bringing a couple of sharp cross-cut saws, and I was able to cut a pair of 12+ ft white oak boards into lengths to fit the cargo area of the minivan. Got about 25 bf out of those. Two 16 ft boards I had pulled on the first trip demonstrated that they suffered from shake while being dragged outside the barn, and in better light were revealed to not be the species I thought they were anyway. 8/4 close grained fir -- not something I needed or had much room for.

So, the return trip didn't yield quite what I planned to bring home, but having a better flash light did result in bringing home some more tools:

Surprisingly, there were no planes worth noting or taking. Of three found, two were true modern junk, and the third was a plastic handled 1960's / 70's Craftsman jack I originally thought might be made by Millers Falls. Did find an unused / unfinished tote for a wooden bench plane, but nothing to mate it to. Brought home the tote and the Craftsman jack just because I could. Further examination of the Craftsman showed a white metal adjusting nut and no 'lozenge shaped depressions' in the frog, and trial use proved it was a piece o' crap. Ahhh, sold it at Joanne's garage sale during the TS Frances downpour for $3. Good deal for me!

So, only a few real finds, many useful and interesting tools, some disappointments, and some mysteries. But, so what? What we did find was a pleasant surprise coming from a long idle dairy and egg farm. Most will continue to be used in the family.

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If you have an interest in old tools, drop by the Porch and pull up a rocker