A Few New-To-Me Tools

A friend was asked to help a lady sell off her deceased husband's tools.  Apparently the man was into woodworking and so much more and had the tools to show for it.  He had been a machine woodworker, but he used and collected hand tools as well.

My friend asked if I might want some of the tools, so I went with him one day.  Holy mackerel!  There was so much stuff.  Over 100 chisels, over 100 planes, many saws and hundreds of bits and bobs of every sort.  It has taken him weeks to gather and sort all the stuff.  This is a bigger job that he imagined.

A sampling of the chisels (and some other nice things)

Planes organized - and he found more planes after this!

In the picture of the chisels above, if you look closely you can see a Lie-Nielsen shooting plane and at least one other L-N plane.  Most of his things weren't old and collectible, but very useable.

I've grabbed a few things, and besides one item, I've paid a fair price for them - there were no bargain basement prices here.  The proceeds will go to the widow, so I feel good about that.

Here's the first group of things I got.  I'll show a few pics here, and hopefully later I'll post about cleaning/fixing them up and write in much more detail about each item.

Grinder, 5 planes, and an auger bit box

Unfortunately the auger bit box did not have a set of bits in it.  The box had been altered for some other purpose so only the bottom tier had the fitted semicircular grooves that keep bits safe.

Russell Jennings auger bit box

I'm guessing the handle was added at some point - I've not seen a handle on these before.  And one screw for the handle went through to the inside of the lid.  If there were bits inside, I'd be worried that holding it by the handle would result in disaster if a tier clasp came undone.

Next up was a 3/4" rabbet plane, looking in very good condition.  It's a Sandusky and appears to have the number "716" stamped on the toe.

Sandusky Tool Co. rabbet plane

Then there was a pair of hollow and round planes by R. W. Hendrickson at 65 1/2 Bowery (presumably a New York City address).  Both had the number "10" stamped on the heel.

H&R pair

R. W. Hendrickson 3/4" hollow and round

The round plane iron is right on 3/4" wide, but the hollow iron is a little more than 1/32" oversized.

The shorter of the two bench planes is a 16" jack by the New York Tool Co.  It's got a "12" stamped on the toe.  The body is in very good shape.  The Auburn Tool Co. iron and cap-iron look good, but I'm sure I'll have to do some work to get them working right.

16" long jack plane from New York Tool Co.

The last plane is this 22" fore plane from an unknown maker.  I could not find any identifying marks on the toe.  There are several owner marks "AC" stamped on the plane, and "A BYRON COOPER" behind the tote.  On the heel is stamped "2 1/2", and that's the iron's width.  There is another A BYRON COOPER stamped on the heel, so I'm guessing that's the owner's full name for the "AC" mark.

22" fore plane

The heel stamps

I can barely make out a "SORBY" mark on the iron.  Can't wait to get this one into working order.  The plane is from a dense wood - it seems quite heavy for its size.

Last on the list for this post is a hand crank grinder by The Carborundum Co. of Niagara Falls.  Not sure what to make of the different numbers on the decal: NIAGARA NO. 2, and MODEL NO. 70.  Is it a #2 or a #70?  Regardless, this grinder works so smoothly that I couldn't resist.  I paid a lot for this one - hopefully the quality will have been worth it.

The grinder needs a bit of clean-up, but already works great

The logo

That's is for now.  I have a few more tools that I picked up, but I'll post about them separately.