miscellaneous

A 24" beech shooting plane by Harley of Liverpool. The name is struck on the front of the plane and on the very long 13" iron. Someone has added a crude side handle which I am taking off, see below.

At a David Stanley sale on a dealers table a friend of mine found the axe on the left, it is almost identical to mine on the right but without the initials on the poll. Mine is unnamed, the new find on the left is by Holtzapffel. Both have rosewood handles, mine is a bit slimmer. I have now seen 4 similar to mine by Holtzapffel

I bought this plane at auction along with the 4 little boxwood planes below. It was described as a Gabriel and I think it is, but where the name would have been on the bridge it had been damaged with hammer marks and the name is no longer visible, I am fairly sure it is a Gabriel as it has a number on the bridge, 220, most Gabriel's are numbered here. The bridge shape is correct and so are the through tenons on the bridge, also it has 3 dovetails in front of the mouth and 5 dovetails behind the mouth, typical of Gabriel. The handle would have been added at a later date, I suspect.

I have got a box of miscellaneous infills taken out of old planes I have restored, I found an old wedge and reshaped it to fit the Gabriel. I also got the bridge more to my liking.

These 4 boxwood planes I have just bought back from auction, they are all marked BC with zig zag borders, I must have made them 35 years ago. They are in mint condition.

At a David Stanley sale I came away with this Buck mitre plane, having done a swop with one of my planes. This plane I am sure was made by Spires. The mark Buck on the lever cap isn't in the Goodman book.

Notice the very fine mouth, the dovetails are completely invisible. It took me 2 hours to prepare the plane to my liking, it now works as it should, as you can see below.

Having done a little work on the plane it now looks like this, just got to give the rosewood a linseed finish.

I rescued the little Disston saw and I had 3 people bringing me bits of timber and they didn't charge me, what nice friends we have. 2 planks of yew, not shown, a nice chunk of boxwood dated 1978 and a 4000 yr old piece of box oak which I will make a small mitre plane out of next.

This picture just shows the saw after I have cleaned it up.

A truly wonderful set of 12 London pattern boxwood handled bevel edged paring chisels about 100 years old. Most of them are completely unused, 11 by I. Sorby and the biggest on the left by Marples, obviously bought at the same time. The sizes are 2", 1 1/2", 1 1/4",1 1/8", 1", 7/8", 3/4", 5/8," 1/2", 3/8," 1/4", and 1/8". These are by far the best set I have ever seen. Sold

I now have a beautiful tool cabinet by the famous Garrett Hack who had one of my planes in exchange, he now owns 6 in total. It is solid cherry wood with holly and ebony stringing. He brought it over as hand luggage and we met up at Cressing Temple Barns..

Axe by Isaac Greaves

I have acquired this lovely side axe, bearded by Isaac Greaves. It has a beautiful embossed I. G. mark about 5/8" square with a zig zag border, also a incused round stamp hardly visible also with Isaac Greaves, I cannot remember having ever seeing another one by this maker, I love it to bits.

Cutting Guage

A rosewood cutting guage that I made 20 years ago. This was my own design, notice the wedge is on the same plane as the cutter.

Bearded Axe

A dear friend of mine persuaded me to part with my bearded axe last September so I had to buy another one, I was very lucky to find another one by Ward & Payne.

These are my peening hammers and my punch. I love the big old one on the left. Karl Holtey made me the punch. Thank you Karl.

Oil Stones

This is a massive Charnly Forest oilstone in a Maple and Mahogany box. These stones have been quarried for a known period of 400 years and probably a lot longer. They were highly prized in English cabinet makers work shops, until in the 1890's when the first Washtita's came over to England , they proved to be far superior and from then on interest in the Charnly stone's dwindled.

This shows an Elm box with a 2" thick stone, the true colour of this stone is karki, I have no idea where this stone came from, but I do know it is the most wonderful finishing stone, equal to a Arkansas and it's original box when found, appeared to be easily over 200 years old, and yet the stone was perfectly flat. This stone appears to be indistructable, I have only ever found one other like it. I used to collect stones.