A little Tool work

For my birthday last year my wife gave me a set of antique planes (Hollow & Rounds, Nos. 2-18 Even), which I proceeded to clean, polish, sharpen and otherwise restore to working order.

Mathieson Hollows and Rounds – Scotland, mid 19th Century

I then went on to find and purchase several other antique wooden planes to add to the collection: a Screw-arm Plough plane, Moving Fillister, 1/4″ V-Grooving, Skewed Rabbet and a pair of Snipes Bills.

Mathieson Screw-Arm Plough Plane

Summers Varvill EBOR Works Moving Fillister Plane

Assembled Pair of Snipes Bills Planes

Steadman Skewed Rabbet

Mathieson 1/4″ V-Grooving Plane

Mathieson Hollow & Rounds

I just found, and am waiting for, a set of graduated irons for the Plough plane, which was a great find! Cleaning them up and sharpening them ought to be a fun project for the coming weekend.

With that aspect of the project completed I needed a nice place to store them. I ‘inherited’ an old “Lane” record cabinet from my brother-in-law’s parents (Alice and Bob), which was full of old albums. I still have all the records but have repurposed the cabinet into a suitable repository for my planes, some chisels and mallets, as well as other hand tools. The new old tool chest still has quite a bit of room in it for some other pieces as well as future acquisitions! So, it will henceforth be referred to as the A&B Tool Chest.

The A&B Tool Chest

The paint I used is “Old Village Forest Green”, oil-based. Old Village is a small producer in Pennsylvania, making beautiful high-quality paints. A little more expensive, but really worth it. On this chest I put primer, then 2 coats of paint, sanding in between. This is the paint (although a different color) I plan to use on the Harpsichord I’m building.

A couple of years ago I built a wall hung plane cabinet made from some beautiful 3/4″ Mahogany given to me years before. My ‘metal’ plane collection has grown a fair amount over the past years. This is conveniently hung just about 4 feet from the workbench and I prop the cover open with a walnut dowel.

Wall-hung Mahogany Cabinet, hand-cut dovetailed box.

The rest of my hand tools and other paraphernalia is stored on a pair of French Tool Racks that I built from a plan/idea in Popular Woodworking a couple of years ago. Storage on top, and plenty of room to hang saws, rasps, luthier clamps, etc.

Popular Woodworking French Tool Rack