Links to Galoot-like Web sites
by George Langford
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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 very large tables, so this is Page 3.  Go back to Page 1. Page 2; Page 4; Page 5; Page 6.

http://www.starrett.com/
Premier toolmaker for machinists, Starrett has made small tools since about 1880. The product line includes precision measuring tools, tool steel flats and rounds, granite surface blocks, Webber gage blocks, force-measuring tools, saw blades and jobsite tools.

Widell Industries maintains this thread-making and thread-measuring webpage as a resource for users of their core wholesale machinist thread-cutting tap business.

The Electronic Neanderthal, an important Internet resource of information on woodworking, with data on upcoming events, tool organizations, sources of old tools, purveyors of wood & lumber, publications about tools, trades, and wood, links to lore about tools and woodworking, and museums, parks & libraries.

Archival data about Barry Hurchalla, whose former monthly auction business was a mainstay of old tool collecting in Southeastern Pennsylvania; his principal customer was the late Bill Phillips, whose legendary barn became known to me on a site-seeing trip during which I happened upon his place only days after his death.  Website originally maintained by the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association and now preserved at web.archive.org.

Horst Auctioneers website, a current source for Central Pennsylvania old tools, farm implements, other antiques, and real estate. There is a long list of upcoming auctions and even several long lists of auctioned tools and their realized prices. See also their advice on consignments for specialty auctions such as old and antique tools.

Immense collection of links to all manner of antique tool auctions and dealer websites. There are many other lists as well, including lumber and more lumber, wood veneer, exotic woods, and links to data on forestry and wood science. Bear in mind that this website was archived in 2008 when selecting your sources.

An archived, ca. 2004 source of data on old tools, including wooden planes, metallic planes, wooden rules & metallic tapes, various kinds of saws, levels, tool catalogs, and many pages of other miscellaneous items such as drills, chisels, etc. The prices will appear, even for empty image files, by clicking on the selected image space.

"A Brief History of Elliot Storke and the Auburn Metallic Plane Company"

The Galoot's Progress, by Tom Price, archived in 2008, includes a thoughtful orientation essay on the etiquette of discussions of old tools and their uses on The Porch, the affectionate nicknane of the OldTools Discussion List, the evolution of this particular Galoot, living through a trip to the flea market, domestic psychology, coping with oldtools list withdrawal symptoms, what to do until you realize how many saws an old toolbox will hold, stashed underneath the workbench, putting down laminate floors, consequences of wearing inappropriate footwear while using a scary sharp wood chisel, one cat's insatiable taste for sodium phosphate, dealing with the superior visual acuity (a.k.a. better flea market luck) of someone else who happens to be a fellow Galoot, a 2005 trip to the Patina event at Damascus, Maryland (including an excellent photograph of a healthy-looking Bob Nelson taken before his death in 2004), a wonderful essay on a particular patternmaker's saw medallion, excellent saw art, a short but romantic essay on the reason a nice knife temporarily lost its place, another excellent photographic and good-humored essay on the metallurgy & heat treatment of a chisel blade (including a link to Ron Hock's expert advice on this process), and other dry humor.

Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day, archived just in time to capture data from 2001 to 2011, was still a worldwide event in 2015, and is devoted to capturing images through a tiny hole in a dark box containing photographic film or even a lensless digital camera on the last Sunday in April. Instructions are included in the box.

Reviews Written by Pam Niedermayer, written on a variety of products by another Galoot known for her frequent discussions on the OldTools List.

Huge collection of tool-related links.

http://www.museum.state.il.us/databases/geology/mazoncreek/graphical/browse.php   The Mazon Creek Collections Database showing floral and faunal fossils from the Pennsylvanian Period, collected by George Langford (1875-1964) and his son George Langford, Jr. (1901-1996), my grandfather and father, respectively, and donated by them to the Ilinois State Museum.

Catlogue of Trade catalogs.

19th and 20th Century Trade Catalogues.

Archived 2001 woodworking page of Roger Van Maren, including information and photographs of Fixing up an Emmert Patternmaker's Vise, the superb woodworker's bench that he made, a three-page description of the restoration of a small Craftsman metalworking lathe, and an excellent description of making replacement hand-saw handles with minimal use of (just a drill press) power tools. Links to other projects work OK; don't be put off by the blank thumbnails that hold the HTML code.

Consulting resume of the late Walter R. Johnson, P.E., the metallurgist who set my sights on the consulting field as profession, who was Technical Instructor at M.I.T. when I was an undergraduate there.

The Old Tool Store, specializing in tools newly made to traditional patterns by the craftsmen and manufacturers, Ray Iles, Ashley Iles, Kunz, Clifton, Gramercy, and Gransfors Bruks as well as Green Woodworking Tools, Edge Tools, Wood Infill Planes, Metal Planes, Shaves, Saws, Parts & Handles, Books about Green Woodworking, and miscellaneous stuff.

Ken Greenberg's webpage on the making of a Shaker Tote, mentored by John Gunterman.

Links to National Association of Watch & Clock Collector websites, archived in 2015 but vanished by February of 2016.

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