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My dad's corner in the shop: his Billy the Kid poster, Southern Comfort sign,
and the catcher's mitt he used when we played baseball when I was a kid. |
One of the first tools I ever made from scratch, including the blade, was a spokeshave for my dad. This was back in 2007 and, when he passed away in 2010, I got it back.
The spokeshave had lived on a shelf in his computer room and was basically never used, so I put it to work. It turned out to be a capable, if slightly rough and ugly, tool. The front of the sole wore out and I put it on a shelf, waiting for a rainy day to fix it up.
Courtesy of the coronavirus, I've had more than a few rainy days lately, so I took some time to inlay some ebony (my tool patch of choice) into the front of the tool. I also waxed it down and sharpened the blade. It will now return to use, and I'll be reminded of my dad every time I see the WVD I crudely stamped into the tool's top (for William Van Dillinger).
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| Still rough, still a little ugly, but priceless to me. |
I also started working on this long-neglected infill smoothing plane. I've had it for years but I've never done much with it, either cleaning or sharpening. I don't even remember where I got it but I decided the time is now to fix it up.
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| "What has brought you to this lowly state?" |
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The original owner / maker, S.G. Pool. This same name also appears
on the front bun and on the heel of sole casting. |
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| After a little cleaning and some shellac. |
Maybe an off topic question, but how do you go about marking your tools (like the 2007 on the handle or your name on the side of a plane in a previous post)? Do you stamp them with letter punches or do you engrave them? I would like to do it to my own tools as well, but I'm not sure how to get neat and repeatable results. William
ReplyDeleteAfter years of polishing, hands in the tool silent company, full of memory, with spirituality
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