Wanted: Tardis

[grendel]

my woodwork teacher taught me a lot - the first lesson was that if you mess around with a chisel and attack the workbench with it- you get a week of lunchtime detentions re-sharpening all the chisels (which taught me how to sharpen chisels properly) It also taught me that the woodwork room was open every lunch time (the teacher would have his lunch while supervising) and I dont think I missed more than a couple of lunch time woodwork sessions from then onwards. my only dissapointment was that at o level you could not take woodwork, metalwork and technical drawing (you could do any 2 but the timetable wouldnt allow all 3) so woodwork and technical drawing it was.

[Timbo]

My school was...

The 'craft' curriculum you followed was based upon gender, whether you studied history and whether your Dad was a mate of the woodwork or metalwork teacher. Girls were not allowed to do woodwork or metalwork. Boys after their first year were not allowed to do 'cooking' or typing. Below set three for math and you were excluded from computer studies and technical drawing. Girls could do the technical drawing but not one of the crafts associated with it. If you studied history you were excluded from woodwork and metalwork, even though there was no timetable clash involved. If you studied history and were also doing English Literature as well as English Language then you had to study modern history.

So as I studied history, was in set five for math, my Dad thought the woodwork teacher a bit of a berk, I was forced to do 'mixed craft'. This was like woodwork and metalwork except plastic was involved, well it would have been. You see where as the mixed crafts class learned to name the parts of a chisel and draw a picture of one, the woodwork kids got to use one to cut joints. If a mixed crafts kid asked to make something from wood, the materials issued would be so warped and twisted as to be unusable. If you supplied your own materials, they were taken off you.

In one class assignment, we were asked to make model boats. Where as the other kids were making pointy stick shaped things, I had a keel and was bending planks around it. I was called an idiot 'that's not how boats are made'.

So my secondary education. I was not allowed to do typing, cooking, computer studies, woodwork, ancient history or technical drawing and to make a boat you put a point on a stick.

Looking back on my school days as an archaeologist, passionate about boats and woodwork and who moved into making computer generated models of ancient architecture and artefacts and enjoys cooking, and has written a number of books and countless reports...init though!

[TheQ]

That wood work teacher certainly got around,....

Always carry a chisel by holding the blade with you fingers at the tip(not over the tip), so if you fall the blade ends up flat on the ground under you hand, not in someone..

I too, have a Japanese pull saw, well several of them , two large ones like those irwins and some small modelling ones. I wouldn't be without them.

At the first secondary school there were no girls so there were no facilities to do any " girls subjects"

At the secondary School there were no facilities for Girls or Boys subjects, IE no metal work /woodwork / cooking or Typing Equipment.

At the third Secondary School because I had transferred from The English Education system to the Scottish Education system, my subjects didn't tie up. so Ended up doing History and Geography (not normally allowed) by sitting in the back of a different level History class and working on my own..

[grendel]

I have japanese pull saws- hard point ones- its amazing what Lidl sells, yet they work well enough, I would not even know where to start with sharpening them. in fact it was only recently I realised my mistake of sharpening a tenon saw as a cross cut saw, thinking about it for a tenon there is more rip sawing involved than cross cutting.

[Polly]

Properly relevant education wunnit?

[ranworthbreeze]

Our woodwork teacher Mr Dickerson was great, he taught us how to hold, sharpen tools. again always put your plane on its side when put on the bench. 

In the tool store was a full range of Stanley planes and a total of 8 number 1 planes, noting the price  they fetch these days I wonder what ever happened to them?

Here are some of my planes

 

Regards

Alan

[Timbo]

58 minutes ago, ranworthbreeze said:

Our woodwork teacher Mr Dickerson was great, he taught us how to hold, sharpen tools. again always put your plane on its side when put on the bench. 

In the tool store was a full range of Stanley planes and a total of 8 number 1 planes, noting the price  they fetch these days I wonder what ever happened to them?

Here are some of my planes

 

Regards

Alan

Now those are things of beauty Alan! 

[MauriceMynah]

Yes, it's a lot, but not a record. :)

[Timbo]

Another day spent in the shed and at last, I can see some headway being made...or I've been robbed!

One of the benefits of some serious 'shed time' is it's been taking my mind off the pain in my jaw. The wounds from the op the other week are starting to heal at last, but it still hurts when I think about it...OW!

The shed is starting to feel like proper workshop now. I think that's down to four things. Having a proper vice, being able to move machinery out of the way on their wheeled benches so that I have room to work and having my tools to hand where I can easily find them and most importantly having the right tools for the job. I can't stress how good the last one feels. In the past, my better half, bless her, viewed having the right tools as unnecessary. If she bought you a bag of nails as far as she was concerned you had what you needed to do the job. A hammer? What do you want one of those for? Head butt them in!

I think I stunned her a bit with the cantilevered box I made for her last Christmas. Up until then I believe she thought I did not have the ability or the perseverance to make something like that.

If I'm honest, I didn't think I had the ability or the confidence to finish the project, but I'm pleased I did.

I started off the day by making three more shelves. The first to hold all of my screwdrivers, posi-drives, Phillips head and Robertson's. Just a lot of different sized holes drilled and countersunk into a plank. Next, a straight shelf to hold things like bench cookies and finally a shelf to hold all of those things I use and lose the most. Square's, bradawl, marking equipment etc.

Bench Cookies? Biscuit shaped coaster things about an inch and a bit thick, with non-slip material on both sides. 

I use these things all over the house to hold down choppings boards, bits of woodwork I may be routing etc.

My final shelf, for the day, I routed a couple of grooves down it to hold pencils. I go through more pencils than I do timber. You see, I drop the pencil. Dylan steals the pencil I dropped and buries it. Toby digs up the pencil Dylan has buried...and eats it!

I now spend several hours sorting through various boxes, hunting out my tools and grouping them together into type, job type and function.

I can almost see the top of my bench!

I really need to bring my table saw back from Ben Gunn's so I can start ripping some timber to make drawers for underneath the rolling benches so that I can store things like drill bits and mortising bits underneath the corresponding machines. So I clear the floor space where the table saw will be positioned and start stacking and rearranging machinery I don't use very often under the bench. On the left go the linisher and scroll saw (these will be used for making Christmas presents later on this year). To the right goes things I use more often like my cordless drills, router, box joint and dovetail jigs. Above the drill press and mortiser is a shelf that will eventually contain router bits, but at the moment is a mixture of fasteners and router bits.

The last job I start making the racks for my clamps...and other helping hands!

At the minute I have sash clamps and long F clamps as well as spaces for saw horses.

[Polly]

And you can never have too much Gorilla Glue! 

[BrundallNavy]

That's far too tidy you will never find anything.

[grendel]

for pencils, the best trick is just drilling a load of stopped holes in a block and inserting the pencils in the holes - same for drill bits, a couple of lines of holes of varying sizes, the drill bit sits in the hole 1 drill bigger than the bit

[ranworthbreeze]

9 hours ago, MauriceMynah said:

Yes, it's a lot, but not a record. :)

Hi John,

No these are all Record

Regards

Alan

[grendel]

8 hours ago, Timbo said:

Tim, I see you have a handy sash cramp shelf.

I must ask did some one lend a hand making all this?

[FairTmiddlin]

Surely looking at your screwdriver shelf with my Elf and Safety hat on, they should go above the chisels unless you are going to sheath the tips of the chisels.

[BrundallNavy]

Definitely nothing to do with me, I bag first dibs on getting Tim to do my garage. 

[Timbo]

13 hours ago, FairTmiddlin said:

Surely looking at your screwdriver shelf with my Elf and Safety hat on, they should go above the chisels unless you are going to sheath the tips of the chisels.

Eventually, they will be swapped over...I noticed the problem as soon as I tried putting the screwdrivers in place, but just getting things up off the floor and out of the way 'Up, bung and stuff' as my Dad used to call it.

12 hours ago, brundallNavy said:

Definitely nothing to do with me, I bag first dibs on getting Tim to do my garage. 

You do know all the stuff I can't find room for like the spare dovetail jig and the table router is all destined for your garage?

As it's done nothing but sile down all day I've been stuck indoors, so no shed time...I mean workshop, it's now a workshop! Instead, I've been doing a spot of research on two of my wooden planes.

They are both quite small 'in the gob', the throat is considerably smaller compared with other wooden planes of this size I've seen. They are both approximately 17" long x 3" wide, which I think makes them bench planes.

The plane on the left has the makers mark of D Kimberley. D Kimberley and Son operated out of Birmingham between 1854 and 1906. They were taken over in 1908.

The second plane bears the makers mark of W G Greenslade Bristol. Greenslade tools were made in Bristol between 1828 to 1937. So quite a broad dating range for this plane. Fortunately, there is a 'shop' mark of R H Warlow Bristol which can help narrow things down somewhat. I found an entry for RH Warlow in a book published in 1893 entitled Progress Commerce 1893: The Ports of the Bristol Channel; Wales and the West. Here's the excerpt for Mr Warlow's business.

I searched the trade gazettes from Bristol through the 1900's finding Mr Warlow's business is still in operation through 1902

and 1906 however, there was no mention of his business in 1914.

Looking at the blade on this plane and it bears the mark of Atkins and Son. Atkins traded between 1863 and 1900 when they became a limited company. The company traded until 1963. 

So the second plane has an age range between 1823 and 1900. I think I'd better clean it up, sharpen the blade and put it back to some use!

 

 

[MauriceMynah]

Oh, so NOT Wallace Greenslade then? I suppose he must have been more recent.

[Timbo]

"It's all in the mind you know!" 

[grendel]

6 hours ago, MauriceMynah said:

Oh, so NOT Wallace Greenslade then? I suppose he must have been more recent.

first thing I thought of too when I saw the name, I guess one has to be of a certain age for that name to conjure up memories.

[unclemike]

winds light to variable

[FairTmiddlin]

To be of a certain age one name has to mean something 

HORACE BATCHELOR

First one with his address wins. A three week old mouldy crumpet

 

[Timbo]

Can I have it buttered? Please send it to Department One Keynsham, that's K-E-Y-N-S-H-A-M, Bristol! 

[High6]

Comes with free H. Samuel Everite watch.

Doug

[unclemike]

and a bottle of 1001 carpet cleaner , sponsored by cyril lord carpets