What came in the mail today?

[Von]

Picked up "What wood is that?" by H. L. Edlin at our library's used bookstore today. It caught my eye because it has a bunch of actual veneer samples in the book.

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

On 8/28/2025 at 12:25 PM, Von said:

Picked up "What wood is that?" by H. L. Edlin at our library's used bookstore today. It caught my eye because it has a bunch of actual veneer samples in the book.

That's cool, @Von !!

[Von]

More adventures in tool acquisition disorder land.

In all seriousness, realizing how easily this rabbit hole is entered and how easily stuff can be found when you know where to look, I have started to form some principles to manage this habit. Part of my motivation is I enjoy the restoration work - a rusty tool just calls to me to be cleaned up. I hope to understand when I'm buying a project rather than a tool. I'm trying to discipline myself to only keep what I will actually use and donating or selling the rest after I clean it up.

Enough of the philosophy and on with the show.

This is an interesting doohickey. Some sort of rope-based band clamp.

It works, if light-duty. I think it's going in the car for times I need to wrangle something.

And a project. A fair amount of surface rust, a good amount of blade chipping on the medium-sized chisels, and a box top that is toast, but otherwise usable. Handles in good shape. Someone really did a lot of damage to the edges of some of the blades with little wear on the handles and then the whole box was seemingly sat on by a large animal. Certainly a lot of sizes I don't have and suspect I don't need. If anyone has tips for getting the ferrules off the butt end of the handles and it's easy, I may try that. I don't think it's worth the risk of trying to remove the blades from the handles.

The true albatross. A "too cheap to pass up" trap. Not sure I have a use or a place for it, so it may get passed on, but I've got all the surface rust cleaned off. Drawers and felt in good shape. No key. The handle on the front was hanging on by one thread on one screw, and has been firmly re-attached. I just noticed the dent in the top above the lock from the photo, so I'll try to tap that out.

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

The chisels look like a great find. Do you have a grinder? 

Fwiw, in terms of sizes, i use 1/4, 3/8, 1/2 and 1-1/2" for just about everything. I don't use the sizes in between all that much. I don't know if that's just me or others are the same way though. 

[Von]

On 9/3/2025 at 2:27 PM, Ron Swanson Jr. said:

The chisels look like a great find. Do you have a grinder? 

Yes, and four of them will need it. After giving them a quick cleaning, I'm convinced they have never been used.  I think four of them got dropped on their edges at some point, otherwise all the wear seems to be from water and time. The only non-cosmetic rust was some pitting on the back of the largest chisel, fortunately nowhere it matters.

On 9/3/2025 at 2:27 PM, Ron Swanson Jr. said:

Fwiw, in terms of sizes, i use 1/4, 3/8, 1/2 and 1-1/2" for just about everything. I don't use the sizes in between all that much. I don't know if that's just me or others are the same way though. 

Out of habit, if I just "need a chisel" I grab my 1/2" working chisel which gets about 80% of my use. Then it's mostly my 1/4" and 3/4" and then we're into occasionally land.

I already have a second set I bought to "keep sharp" but turns out it's easy enough to keep my working chisels sharp

[Beechwood Chip]

Where did you find the chisels?  Craig's List, yard sale?

[Von]

On 9/3/2025 at 4:25 PM, Beechwood Chip said:

Where did you find the chisels?  Craig's List, yard sale?

Craigslist. Same person I got the Jawstand from. It's a widow working her way through her husband's shop. 

[gee-dub]

I am sooo tempted to make a Freudian-Slip joke . . . . 

Those should clean up well.  A little Evap-o-Rust and some strokes on your stones.

[legenddc]

Might be time to get a ultrasonic cleaner if you have rusty tool acquisition disorder. 

[Mark J]

19 hours ago, Von said:

If anyone has tips for getting the ferrules off the butt end of the handles and it's easy, I may try that.

Why remove the ferrules?

[gee-dub]

On 9/4/2025 at 5:49 AM, Mark J said:

Why remove the ferrules?

Agreed.  These are designed to accept a mallet.  You don't have to use one but the ferrule strengthens the end of the handle for mallet blows.  This can extend the life of the chisel and I just wipe shellac over the handle and ferrule without prejudice . Some tools are designed to be shoved across things, beat on things, or to be beat on.  It is their destiny .

[Von]

On 9/4/2025 at 8:49 AM, Mark J said:

Why remove the ferrules?

Thanks - that's the conclusion I came to as well. I thought I would want to remove them to get the rust off (and then put them back on), but found no need to actually do so when I got to it.

Cleaned up the edges on the four chisels that needed it on the grinder this morning. This was good grinder practice for me as it's the first time I got this much practice in one go. Initially I was putting a chamfer on the edges. I figured out I was letting the chisels drift up from the tool rest as I slide them side-to-side. The technique that ended up working for me was, holding the chisel in my left hand, running my index finger along the bottom of the tool rest to maintain depth while pressing my thumb down on the chisel to keep it flat to the rest. My right hand was then free to provide the back-and-forth guidance (it really did very little). I think I could easily have swapped hands but this felt the most natural.

 

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

 

Not in the mail, but i made a trip to Woodcraft today. They didn't have what i was after but i did pick up this little guy, a 4oz Japanese finishing mallet that will do nicely for plane blade adjustments for a few of my planes that dont have lateral adjustment. Should be an improvement over my usual method of using the ferrule on a chisel to tap the blade.

Woodcraft is 15% off this weekend, though I'm sure the usual exclusions apply. 

[Jonathan McCully]

Got a pallet with my Dust Gorilla Pro in the mail today. Been looking forward to getting this set up for awhile. Still waiting on the ducting shipment but looks like I’ve got some work to do before it gets here. So excited to be done with dragging my 1HP DC unit around the shop.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[drzaius]

13 minutes ago, Jonathan McCully said:

Got a pallet with my Dust Gorilla Pro in the mail today. Been looking forward to getting this set up for awhile. Still waiting on the ducting shipment but looks like I’ve got some work to do before it gets here. So excited to be done with dragging my 1HP DC unit around the shop.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

As a former 'hose dragger', I can assure that you'll love the new system. Good choice.

[gee-dub]

On 9/8/2025 at 3:18 PM, Jonathan McCully said:

So excited to be done with dragging my 1HP DC unit around the shop.

Making that step made my shop time so much more enjoyable.

[Mark J]

Wow that's a lot of un-boxing!

[fcschoenthal]

On 9/8/2025 at 5:18 PM, Jonathan McCully said:

Got a pallet with my Dust Gorilla Pro in the mail today.

So which configuration did you get? Wall mounted or free standing, 35 or 55 gal, 1 or 3 phase? Inquiring minds want to know.

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

My first issue. I've been curious about this publication for several years, and decided to treat myself. 

Their "About Us" page on the website sold me. 

[Ron Swanson Jr.]

On 9/17/2025 at 7:26 PM, Ron Swanson Jr. said:

My first issue. I've been curious about this publication for several years, and decided to treat myself. 

Their "About Us" page on the website sold me. 

I feel like i should do a plug for this. 

I was not at all expecting what i got, and it's been the most pleasant of surprises. 

This magazine is more like a book. It's almost 150 pages, and no ads at all. 

The articles are meaty and dense, and cover a broad range of topics:

The Tylldale Chair (an ancient Norwegian carved chair)

The art of traditional Japanese sake barrel cooperage, 

Stereotomy across cultures

And many others. 

 

It's definitely holding my attention more than "Build a Workbench in a Weekend" articles. 

 

If you have a chance, check it out. 

 

[Von]

On 10/4/2025 at 11:35 AM, Ron Swanson Jr. said:

I feel like i should do a plug for this. 

I have a different Mortise & Tenon issue (the Tenth Anniversary Issue), also my first, and echo all your compliments. It's a very pleasant read.

[Sergio Escudero]

Today I received a saw I ordered a little over a week ago. I wanted to buy a back saw to cut dovetails for the top of my split Roubo, so I looked on Ducotools. I saw an unbranded one with a beautiful handle, so I placed the order.

However, the saw I received doesn’t match the photos on their website. The one shown there is the unbranded saw I described, but the one I got is a Marples & Sons. The item code is the same, both on the website and in the confirmation email I received after ordering, but the photo in the email is the one of the saw I actually got. It seems they have two different products under the same code or there’s some mix-up with the images.

I’ve already sent the shop an email to clarify it. Still, the saw looks good and seems to be of decent quality; it just needs a bit of straightening and sharpening. We’ll see what they say. Worst case, I’ll just replace the handle to get something closer to what I originally had in mind. 

[Mark J]

Well that's concerning, even if he Marples turns out to be a good saw.

[Von]

I've been going through my late stepfather's tools and was delighted to find this tap wrench. Long ago he shared with me that he made this wrench as part of his high school-level education in Germany. I thought it had been lost but I found it buried among some drill bits and hex keys. Understanding machining a little better now I'm even more impressed by the precision of his work.

[Mark J]

That's cool.