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John Whelan unlocks the fascinating secrets of an almost lost art: wooden planemaking. For those curious about the ingenious ways of the craft, this book lays out clear, step-by-step instructions that will enable any woodworker to make a plane. Each chapter (covering 20 different types of planes and spokeshaves) is fully illustrated by the author''s line drawings. In addition, there are chapters on the history and alternative methods of planemaking, making plane irons, and the tuning and using of wooden planes. Every chapter that details the construction of a particular plane starts with a photograph of the plane that has been made by the author. As you would expect from Mr. Whelan, this book is the finest and most complete work on the making of wooden planes in print. The reader will enjoy it even if he never puts blade to wood. Should he make a plane or two, he will find Making Traditional Wooden Planes most satisfying

A valuable directory that illustrates and lists over 1000 fully-indexed patents, covering all American machinist s tools patented through 1905 and the more important ones patented between 1906 and 1916. Each patent is represented by at least one illustration, and each is indexed in three separate ways: alphabetically by patentee name, chronologically by date and patent number, and by type of tool. Required for anyone interested in American machinist s tools.

Invaluable for anyone who owns or uses a Stanley 45 or 55 combination plane. This special compilation covers the development of all major types of Stanley combination planes: the Miller, the Traut, as well as the Stanley 45 and 55. Not only are the planes and their evolution described and fully illustrated, but their patent information is included and, in the case of the 45 and 55, so are copies of the original instruction booklets. 80 pages. Fully illustrated.

A comprehensive reference that has been called "a work of clarity and imagination so influential it virtually defines its subject," this book describes, illustrates, and classifies all types of wooden planes from the common to the rare and unusual -- tracing their development and explaining their use. Included are both American and English planes, and also French, Dutch, German, Japanese and Chinese. Over 500 pages long, with more than 1,000 illustrations, it also includes: Chapters that describe and illustrate over 90 simple and 300 complex molding profiles; a description and explanation of the planes used by specific trades: the Cooper, Sashmaker, Coachmaker, Wheelwright, Planemaker, Organ Builder, Staircase Builder, Basketmaker, Rulemaker, Chairmaker, and Patternmaker; an Appendix that outlines a system for naming and classifying molding profiles, and another for identifying and classifying any plane based on its physical shape.

Established in 1834, Wm. T. Wood & Co. manufactured the finest quality ice toolsof every description in their Arlington, MA factory; they had office and warehousespace on North Market Street in Boston, MA. This facsimile of their 1888 catalogincludes illustrations, descriptions, and prices of the various goods they manufactured.One unique selling feature they used was "we use the best cast steel; Norwayiron in all parts requiring strong and solid work, and double-refined iron in all otherparts." This catalog was loaned for reproduction by the Museum of American IceHarvests and Woodworking Crafts, Mequon, WI.

Milk cans, milk churns, or milk pails have been used for centuries which is why they are some of the most photographed of all farmyard objects. Here, for the first time, the diversity in size, shape and design of milk cans is presented in a comprehensive and full-color publication. The iconic shape of the typical milk can has inspired toymakers, artists, playwrights, novelty manufactures, and sports minded people. Milk cans often become family treasures handed down through the generations; insights about these and other social aspects of the milk can are included. In some countries milk tankers have replaced milk cans while bright shiny plastic milk cans appear to be replacing steel cans in others. This entire book is dedicated to the celebration of milk cans and their history, use, and design.

This is an exuberant storytelling book - a collection of entertaining and thought-provoking tales shared by Jim Carpenter, gleaned from his experiences working with wood. A lifelong interest in woodworking, carpentry, and its history eventually led Jim to share his background and wisdom of working in his shop. You are sure to chuckle at the wry wit stories in this informative book. One story he often shares is titled Really? One evening while my neighbor was out on a bike ride, he stopped by to check out what I was working on in my shop. After a bit he asked me why I was using a hand saw when I had a perfectly good table saw sitting right there. It didn''t make any sense to him. I asked him why he was riding a bicycle when he had a perfectly good car sitting right there in his garage. He told me that his evening bike rides were a way he could relax and it made him feel better. No comment.

With its initial publication in 1983, A Guide to the Makers of American Wooden Planes profoundly transformed the emphasis and direction of tool collecting. After several years of meticulous research, Thomas L. Elliott has completely redesigned, revised, and expanded this fifth edition to include entries and information accumulated since the fourth edition. The heart of this guide is the alphabetical directory of plane makers and dealers. This fifth edition now includes: 4590 biographical entries; 6160 imprint illustrations; 3030 wedge outlines; and over 3000 individual ratings for judging relative scarcity and value. Also included are sections providing insights helpful in buying and selling planes, an illustrated glossary of plane terms and styles, and an extensive bibliography for further research. This book is useful to both the beginner and the advanced collector, to historians and genealogists, and to all other with an interest in the subject.

The Illinois Iron & Bolt Company was established as an iron foundry and blacksmithshop in 1864 by Angelo Carpenter in the town he platted, Carpentersville, Illinois.This reprint of the Illinois Iron & Bolt Company 1889 catalog includes cast and steelwagon skeins, hydraulic presses, blacksmith tools, vises, anvils, jack screws, sad irons,clothes reels and lawn ornaments. High quality illustrations, detailed descriptions,and price lists make this a highly desirable historical catalog.

''The object of this work,'' says its author, ''is to investigate certain problems connected with the history of vehicular transport from a Swedish point of view'' but, though he is thus an avowed specialist, he never loses sight of the two facts, that Swedish transport is part of the world''s transport, and that vehicles are historically important because they are an essential part of the culture of their users. He is to be congratulated on treating studies of vehicles as the ethnological studies that they certainly are. Besides dealing very fully with what may be called the ''normal''; stages of slide-car, sledges, wheeled-sledge, car, and wagons, he produces evidence of a pre-sledge era of single runners dating back to Neolithic times. The vast wealth of evidence accumulated in this book forms in itself a permanent and valuable contribution to the literature of the subject. The plates provide nearly a hundred good photographs and reproductions. There is no doubt that this book will be of great value to anyone seriously interested in the history of transport.

The John S. Fray & Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut built an early reputation and brace building success upon the initial patent of Nelson Spofford who s first patent was for a type of split chuck, often termed a clamshell chuck. John Fray apparently began manufacturing Spofford braces in partnership with a gentleman named Horace Pigg. Early braces are marked, Fray & Pigg Manrs / Bridgeport, Conn and Spofford s Pat / Nov 1, 1859. Stanley continued to produce braces using this design until at least 1942. Subsequent braces are marked only John S. Fray & Co / Bridgeport, Conn. USA. This fully illustrated catalog includes braces, hand drills, breast drills, extension bit holders, hollow handle tool sets, pin vises, chucks, and more!

Bridgeport Hardware Manufacturing Corporation was founded in 1895 by Willis F. Hobbs in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The tools were frequently marked with the company''s initials BHM, sometimes in a stylized BHM-Logo. They also used a number of unregistered brands for its products, including Matchless, Hy-bar, Sure Grip , Radio-Lectric. In the early 1960''s Bridgeport Hardware was acquired by Crescent Niagara. This fully illustrated catalog includes awls, box chisels, box openers, box scrapers, can openers, hammers, hatchets, ice picks, nail pullers, pliers, putty knives, saws, screwdrivers, tire tools, trowels, and more!

This book is about one of the most attractive and tactile forms of slide rules, the pocket-watch slide rule. Although pocket-watch slide rules were not the most accurate nor easiest to use, these delightful devices were featured in makers catalogues from all parts of the world for the last century of the slide rule s life. Pocket-watch slide rules are an exquisite example of the slide rule makers art and are perhaps the most collectible type of slide rules. The Book Includes: -Descriptions of over 150 pocket-watch slide rules and variants -Full-color illustrations, detailed descriptions, and dating information -Approximately 80 makers and retailers from the UK, Europe, and the USA -Descriptions of special scales used -Coverage of seminal patents -A glossary of terms -A comprehensive bibliography

One of the most important parts of a serious tool collector s collection is the written material used to research and learn about the artifacts they accumulate. In 2003, for the Annual Meeting of the Early American Industries Association, 14 articles by Paul Kebabian on a variety of tools, toolmakers and early trades were published as this collection. Kebabian, a librarian by vocation, has had many of his writings on tools and toolmakers appear in newsletters and journals such as ACTIVE, Scrapbooks, and The Chronicle.

Continuing the pattern set by American Lathe Builders and American Planer, Shaper and Slotter Builders, this is the first book to identify American builders of milling machines and the products they invented circa 1818 to the development of the "modern" milling machine circa 1920. Early versions of other American machine tools were largely copied from European, especially British, machines. The milling machine, however, was an American development. Built first for the firearms and sewing machine industries, it proved to be much more productive than other methods, and soon held a major place in all high-production American machine shops. The book lists more than 300 makers and contains over 1,400 illustrations taken from original catalogs and contemporary periodicals. These trace the development of the milling machine from a crude, light weight machine to very large millers capable of machining parts the size of boxcars and weighing many tons. Attachments such as dividing heads, vises, etc., are also covered.

Here is the companion volume to Ken Cope''s previous works on machine tools, carriage making machinery and cooperage machinery. Factories filled with the machinery described in the previous works, from the smallest drill presses to giant planers, could not have existed without a reliable and sufficient power source. The steam engine was that source, from the start of the industrial revolution to the general availability of electric power distributed from large, central generating stations in the early 20th century. Smaller size engines, made for farms and small industries such as cheese factories, greatly reduced the manpower required and therefore the cost of the final product to the consumer. The nearly 1000 illustrations show the development of the steam engine from 1800 to 1900 in a great variety of sizes, styles, and designs. Many designs shown proved impractical and were soon discarded; other designs such as the Corliss engine were made by scores of firms for scores of years. Along with the illustrations is a brief history of the individual maker, chronicling the various engines that each made.

A price guide is only as helpful as its prices are current. With this in mind, we offer a new fourth edition of Herbert Kean''s A Price Guide to Antique Tools, its prices taken from the latest live and internet auctions as well as from private sales. As before, there are over 12,000 prices (individual and chart combinations) that represent extraordinary tools, as well as those found in flea markets. There is an explanation for each tool group that allows the reader to judge the condition of a tool, the most critical of all factors when determining price. The chapter on American wooden planes covers over 400 makers, each graded with a single value number, a system that is at the same time simple and comprehensive. To help even more, almost every tool is illustrated with a photograph or line drawing. The section on internet prices explains the mechanisms of electronic auctions and gives tips for successful bidding. If you have ever wished that you could consult with an expert before investing in a tool, this is the book for you. It puts at your fingertips the knowledge and expertise of noted tool collector and dealer Herb Kean, both in determining current prices and in evaluating condition. Altogether, an invaluable book.

Here is the second volume in Dana Batory’s series of guides to the major woodworking machinery manufacturers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Covered in this volume are Parks Machine Co., the Boice-Crane Co., Baxter D. Whitney & Son, and Crescent Machine Co. All these manufacturers built a full line of woodworking machines, but most became especially known for a particular group, e.g., Boice-Crane produced medium size and capacity machines that were ideal for home shops, school shops and small business woodworkers; Whitney was famous for its thickness planers and spindle shapers, as well as for a large collection of cooperage machines; and Crescent won renown for its bandsaws and table saws, and for its Universal Wood-Worker, a combination machine. As in his first volume, the author provides a history of each manufacturer, as well as a description of the evolution of its product lines over the years. Accompanying the histories are many illustrations taken from the catalogs of the period. This is a mine of information about old woodworking machines and the companies that made them.

Here again is one of Ken Cope''s major reference works on the history of technological innovation. Anyone interested in wagons and carriages, particularly in wheelwrighting, and in the history of technology will enjoy and benefit from this book. Mr. Cope continues his series with an alphabetic listing of the inventors and builders of American carriage and wagon makers’ machinery and tools and, as before, accompanies his descriptions with many illustrations from old catalogs and trade journals. There is, as well, a comprehensive Glossary of terms. Anyone interested in wagons and carriages, particularly in wheelwrighting, and in the history of technology will enjoy and benefit from this book.

Tales From the Blue Ox is a collection of the best tools, techniques, recipes and general common sense gleaned from the history of Victorian-era ingenuity. Interspersed with these gems of nearly forgotten wisdom is the story of one of Northern California''s least-known treasures, the Blue Ox Millworks Historic Park. The Blue Ox is a combination living-history museum, sawmill, and custom woodworking shop, specializing in the distinctive gingerbread decoration of Victorian-era homes. It is also a workplace for area artisans and craftspeople whose work ranges from blacksmithing and metal casting to boat building, pottery and vintage printing. This book marks the first attempt to tell the story of the Blue Ox in its entirety, while sharing the skills that have been kept alive there. Starting with a tale of the Victorian craftsmanship that inspired it all, subsequent chapters elaborate on specific crafts ands skills practiced at the Blue Ox. Also included are dozens of formulas for homemade paints, varnishes, glues, and other concoctions useful to artisans and craftsmen alike. Lavishly illustrated with nearly 300 pen-and-ink drawings by the author, Tales From the Blue Ox is a source of both information and inspiration for anyone interested in the traditional arts and/or the golden age of craftsmanship: the Victorian Era.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

The age of steam engines brought with it the ever-present possibilities of horrendous explosions. It was no surprise, then, that around the middle of the 19th century, the steam gauge made its appearance and soon was found wherever a steam engine was used. Steam gauges were used everywhere, in great numbers and varieties. Some were strictly utilitarian in appearance; others were beautiful decorated. They were manufactured to perform multitudes of tasks, and one of the most interesting facets of steam gauge collecting is determining just what task your gauge was designed to do. Author Barry David provides an enormous amount of information in this book that helps the collector learn about his gauge: when it was made, what job it was designed to do, how it did this job, who made it, and for what company it was made. There are chapters on The Gauge Makers, Discovery (learning the basic facts about a particular gauge), Cleaning and Restoring Steam Gauges, Railroad Gauges, Fire Engine Gauges, Portable and Traction Engine Gauges, Marine (Nautical ) Gauges, Press Gauges, Gauge Appliances and Recorders, and Gauge Patents. There is also a section with color pictures as well as a Bibliography and Index. If you are a collector, or a student of technological history, you will find this book to be an invaluable addition to your library.

Through the second half of the 19th century and into the 20th, barrel makers followed the same path taken by many other woodworkers . . . they moved from hand tools to the large, efficient new machines that were the products of the Industrial Revolution. They built factories to house the machines and turned out thousands of barrels, kegs, and similar containers a day. Kenneth Cope’s book, in the pattern of his previous books on the American machine tool industry, provides more than 530 illustrations of these cooperage tools, taken from original catalogs and contemporary periodicals. Along with the illustrations is a brief history of the individual maker, chronicling the various machines that each made. Included, as well, are reproductions of four catalogs: E. & B. Holmes 1891 catalog and ca. 1910 or 1915 Q catalog, L. & I.J. White 1912 catalog, and the D.R. Barton 1905 catalog. An illustrated glossary of terms used and an appendix giving a brief look at the English and French cooperage industries in the corresponding period are also provided.

The first edition of Horse Drawn Sleighs proved so helpful to those who wished to build sleighs, or those who were just interested in them and wished to study them in detail, that Susan Green has compiled a Second Edition. The second edition, like the first, is a book of specially selected articles from three of the outstanding carriage journals of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In this edition, however, there are many more illustrations, and more working drawings for builders. There is a glossary of terms for sleighs and sleigh parts, and a new section with essays on early sleighs and sleighing. The book covers almost every imaginable type of sleigh: Albany (or swell-body), Portland cutters, speeding cutters, multi-passenger, box-body, traps and sporting sleighs, Canadian, rumble-seat, cabriolets, vis-a-vis, closed-body, and more. Not only are these various sleighs fully illustrated with detailed line drawings, but full descriptions are given covering dimensions, materials used, trim, and painting details. There are also sections that provide valuable information on sleigh construction, ironing, body design, painting, and trimming. Altogether, an invaluable resource.

Tool collectors will appreciate this well organized, comprehensive catalog of American wrenches and their makers. Following a list of wrench patent dates with the names of their makers is the catalog of wrenches, organized alphabetically by maker. Each entry includes a short history of the company and their wrenches with illustrations of each wrench, in b&w. An appendix contains an interview with Loring Coes.

Storytelling is an ancient art. At their best, stories provide a very personal and engaging way to pass information, experience, insight and imagination from one group to another, from one generation to another. Tool Tales is full of such stories. Its author, Herb Kean, is a noted tool collector, dealer, restorer and author (as well as renowned raconteur). Here, he has culled from magazines, journals, newspapers and encyclopedias 50 of his best stories and "tips" columns, written over the course of his long career. These stories range from whimsical tales of trips taken in search of old tools to more technical pieces detailing the "how-toΓÇÖs" of solving many a knotty tool-related problem. Full of valuable information to help the reader in buying, selling and restoring antique tools, they are also full of wit and good, old-fashioned fun.

Here is the first book to identify American builders of planers, shapers and slotters, who operated throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Written in the style of the author’s previous groundbreaking books on the American machine tool industry, this volume provides the reader with invaluable information on over 300 makers. Some are very well known, but many have previously gone virtually unrecognized by researchers. More than 1000 illustrations, taken from original catalogs and contemporary periodicals, show how these machines developed: starting out in the early 1800s as crude, hand-built copies of English machines and becoming, over the course of a century, monster machines weighing nearly one million pounds, unmatched elsewhere in the world. Numerous machine accessories, such as chucks, dividing heads, milling attachments and keyseating attachments, among others, are identified and illustrated. In addition, the book includes a glossary of terms used in describing the various types of planers, shapers and slotters, and provides illustrations that help identify the individual parts of the machines.

Once more, Astragal Press has rescued an old and rare book from obscurity, allowing for the broad circulation of information previously limited to the select few who could afford access. This book, first published in 1881, was written about the use of the first standard slide rule made in the United States: a Mannheim-type slide rule made by Stephens Co., a mjor rule manufacturer. Included in Riddell’s book, aimed primarily at carpenters and joiners, is a wealth of fascinating instruction on the use of the slide rule in everything from making the calculations necessary for constructing circular porches and spiral stairways, to calculating wages owed or the cost of hauling lumber. Included, as well, are lovely plates illustrating various geometric and trigonometric calculations used in construction. As a source book, it should be of great interest and value to tool collectors, slide rule enthusiasts, and woodworkers.