| Links
& Abstracts To see the old links as written way back when, click on this link. The following URL's were gleaned on December 7, 2003, by scanning my entire Bookmark file and then, in January 2016, scouring the WayBack Machine for links to the lost sites. Those are the ones where the destinations don't match the text you see here. If the abstracts seem incomplete, that's because I decided to publish them sooner rather than later. These sites are too interesting to be simply rendered like common soap. KomPozer can't handle tables this big, so there are several additional pages: Go back to Page 1. Page 2; Page 3; Page 4; Page 5; Page 6; Page 7. |
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Sandy Moss, recently retired marine
biologist, has been studying and redistributing old tools
for many years with grace and good humor. His historical brace collection is a
superior resource, as is the informative diary of his many visits to
the Brimfield,
Massachusetts antique market, held several times each year. Also, check out Sandy's list of links. Sandy makes an art of
describing how and what to eat of a New England lobster. |
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Ralph Brendler maintained a number of studies of tools, including marking & mortise gages (especially Stanley gages, and patented gages) and also specialized in making shaker boxes, as well as making some other interesting things with old tools. The Wayback Machine last captured Ralph's brendlers.net webpage in 2007, when he was a steward for DATAMP. |
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This
link is arranged the other way around, as Christopher Swingley is alive
& well and living in Alaska. Chris maintains the Oldtools Mailing List
Archive, a fascinating and
wide-ranging blog
of book reviews, weather and personal health monitoring and getting
around the business of everyday life and Information Technology in
Alaska, as well as interesting tool-making
projects, photographs
of wild Alaska, a treatise on
Netiquette, and even a table of all
the HTML escape codes for useful symbols. |
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Chuck Zitur died of esophageal
cancer in 2005, a great loss to his family and also to the Galoot world. When LJK and I drove her car from
Pasadena, California to southeastern Pennsylvania in the smoky Summer
of
2000, we made a 1,500-mile detour through Billings, Montana to meet
Chuck and his family, which turned out to be a once-in-a-lifetime
experience. It came out that
Chuck & I had similar old tools behaviors: Chuck had just cleaned
big piles of antique tools out from underneath and on top of most of
his dining room table in anticipation of the visit ... and I had done
the exact same thing in anticipation of LJK's coming to live with me. The WayBack Machine has captured all but a
few images in Chuck's fine webpage. See especially: Meister
and Schlingensiepen 1928 Tool Catalog, Geared
Drills, Patents,
and the very humorous & ironic Duplex
Drill, which completely explains the origin of the technical term,
"eggbeater drill." |
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Originally created as A
Millers Falls Home Page,
Randy Roeder has pooled all his royalties from the many instances of
eBayers' copying of his catalog-page reproductions to start OldToolHeaven.com. It's not just a collection of catalog
images, but it's also a history of the evolution of the Millers Falls
tools and their designs. Interestingly, Millers Falls never patented
the roller support for the main gear on their No.2 drill, and also
never showed a picture of that device in any catalog. |
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Tom Price exhibits unfailing good humor & insight in The Galoot's Progress, especially his flea market primer (to which I can add: Don't ever put a tool down if you are thinking of purchasing it, or Todd will grab it), A Better Eggbeater, an excellent way of Restoring Auger Bit Lead Screws, A Brief History of Elliot Storke and the Auburn Metallic Plane Company, Steve & Tom's Excellent Adventure, a chuck-full toolchest of his own making & filling, an historical list o'links, including the original annoncement of the creation of the OldTools list, an accurate description of tool heaven (I've been there; Tom wasn't hallucinating; alas, Elmer gave it up, but the building is still there), a link to Romeyn B. Hough's Treatise on American Woods (not the forests, but what the trees are made of), and much more. |
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Still in
its birthplace, the Diretory of
American Tool and Machinery Patents continues its role as
the preeminent resource for finding patent data in the pre-1976 era,
before the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office started indexing patents
by their content, rather than just by the patent number and an arcane
classification scheme. Volunteers are always
need to donate patent information and time for filling in the blanks. |
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Another
great resource,
the Collectors of Rare And Familiar Tools Society (of New Jersey - but
don't expect to find another one ...) holds several important
events, especially its Spring
Tool Auction, monthly
tailgating/tool-talk meetings, and an Annual Picnic
each September, publishes the Tool Shed
with scholarly articles on many avocations, articles on New
Jersey toolmakers, and an excellent list of External
Links. |
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This discussion list was
the product of Jeff Joslin, the Official
Historian of the Old Woodworking Machines, and was devoted to the
histories of a great many companies that made woodworking machines,
such as American Saw Mill Machinery Co., American Woodworking
Machinery Co., Astro Wood Planer Co., Inc., Atlas Press Co., W. F.
& John Barnes Co., Belsaw Machinery Co., Berlin Machine Works,
Berry & Orton Co., and so on. Jeff can still be reached
through DATAMP
where you will find Jeff's Old Woodworking
Machines site reborn as a nonprofit. |
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Mike Taylor closed this shop in
2006, but when it was in business, Mike made reproduction plane handles
and refinished woodworking planes. He also had a short list of links
to other plane specialists. |
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Wood
Central has, among
other topics, forums on Turning
and Hand
Tools. In the latter category there is a list of links on the
subject of Antique
Tools. |
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Maintained
in American
Artifacts by Richard Van Vleck,
the website covers a wide range of farm-related items, medical
quackery,
etc. and also has a nice page of scholarly
articles.
Richard also has nicely documented a Barnes
No.5 velocipede-powered metalworking lathe that he sold some years
ago. |
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Pictures of an asphaltum-based black
lacquer that should be great for refinishing Stanley planes, breast
drills, etc. called Old Pontypool Asphaltum. |
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| http://pages.prodigy.net/bwitcher/bostontrader.html Joe LaBrie maintained this short website
to sell old tools, but he died
in 2012; the site is still
useful to see what stuff cost in 2001. |
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Maintained
by Larry and
Carole Meeker, specializes in mechanical antiques. They also keep an archive of past
sales, useful for seeing what your own stuff might be worth to a
willing buyer. See also their lists of currently available items, such as drills
and other edge
tools, patented
wood and metallic planes, even Stanley
planes, and a wide variety of miscellaneous
old tools. |
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Auger Bit
Files - alas, no more from this source, even in
2009, by which time the site owner's suppliers had mostly evaporated,
leaving Grobet, but no auger bit files. VintageSaws.com is now devoted
entirely to carpenters' saws. |
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Auger Bit Files, amid a wide variety of
woodworking tools.
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Wow ... antique
watchmakers machines, before they all started to look
the same.
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| ... Ahem ... another Old Tool Heaven, created in its time by Gary Johns and devoted to old tools of the Galoot sort. Plus some old links to Galoot websites and to Reference Sites. | ||
| http://www.anvilfire.com/ Everything about blacksmithing ... still. |
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Tony Seo's excellent webpage,
mostly devoted to hand tools that one doesn't see every day. See especially Tony's
pages on Old
Trades, another page on Workbenches and
Treadle Lathes, a number of Links, and Pennsylvania
Furniture. |
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Now hosted on its own website, Roger K. Smith Antique
Tool Catalogs, and still
magnificently reproduced.
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As above, now
in its own domain as seen in the next row
of this table.
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Jon Zimmers antique tools
of all varieties for sale.
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The
Superior Works, home of Patrick's Blood
& Gore. Also home to a monthly list of tools for
sale, offered on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, as hesitation means
lost opportunity. Even new
tools, including Mr. Leach's own Bedrock #601 plane, and Et Cetera,
not to be missed. |
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David
Zeitman's lists of woodworking
planes, tool
catalogs, rules,
machinist tools,
and a few links
to sources of tools. One of those links
pointed to Delphion.com,
a patent search site that was gobbled up in early 2001 and turned into
a money-maker. |
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a.k.a.
Falcon Wood, a source for a wide variety of antique hand tools for use
by various trades, including just you & me.There is a large selection of Stanley tools. |
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A great
place to visit, albeit subject to damage by flooding from unusual
weather events that are becoming more unusual ... but then, it once
was a water-powered mill and it's in a historically
significant building. There are many awesome
old machine tools (I've been there !). |
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Do you want
cut nails
for just about any purpose ? Here's who still makes them with
machines that have been working for 100+ years. Also there are all your questions answered
here. |
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Grandpa's
Tool Chest, last updated in 2003 and defunct by 2009. Used to have a sales
booth at the Cambridge
Antique Market.
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Maker of machinists (and a variety of other) tool
chests. Beware of sticker shock; Gerstner is the gold standard of
quality, however. |
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Ron Hock's
authoritative notes on the sharpening of handsaws, recently
gussied up. Interesting list
of links to many tool sources. Ron's current webpage
still has the short version of the sharpening notes but now Ron offers
a book-length
treatise. |
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Jay Sutherland's chart
facilitates identifying what type of Stanley plane you have.
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| http://www.terraclavis.com/bws/ Bob Key's Woodworking Shop, with excellent
Corel drawings of his shop
layout, a series of nicely
made workbenches, a very helpful
section on questions
often asked by beginners, another
section on how
to get started in woodworking, and some quite practical tool
storage cabinets.
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Publisher
of books on
antique tools & trades. Also distributes the
text-searchable EAIA publications, Directory
of American Toolmakers (on a CDROM) and the Chronicle of the
Early American Industries Association (on a DVD
covering Volumes 1 through 60). |
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Website of the Museum of Woodworking Tools, curated by Robert Mathison. Amazing twenty-seven
page list of links and the important Permanent
Collection of material on tools & tradesmen. There's even a store with some hand
tools, but mostly stuff for power tools. |
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Dealer in catalogs of all
kinds; last active ca. 2003. Many tool
catalogs listed.
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Webmaster's interesting
personal
commentary on his blacksmiths' post drills.
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| http://www.geocities.com/PicketFence/1395/bench.html Interesting plans for a medium-sized workbench, notes on the building of a bench, and other stuff from 1998 by Tony Seo. |
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| http://www.mwtca.org/ Mid-West Tool Collectors Association - The site map reveals a very
useful set of sample
articles, marked "deprecated" but the link leads to the right
place, where Ron
Pearson's Database of American Patented Drills is stashed at the
very bottom of the page. There are also two pages listing a great
many tool dealers,
another page with a
tutorial on the places and how-to's of patent searching,the calendar of the association's upcoming events,and a listing of Special Publications,
each being a yearly reprint, usually of a rare tool catalog.
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| http://www.rockler.com/ Database of new planes from the Stanley Works and other vendors. |
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The pages below were protected from robots and are lost "forever": http://www.toolspot.com/ |
