Ahhh … tools! Can you ever have too many? I have been very fortunate to have inherited tools from my Dad, and to have been given tools by one of my patients, who was the Foreman in the joinery team at a local large boatbuilding firm, Camper and Nicholson. With birthday, Christmas and retirement presents, I should have been fully equipped, but it’s strange how strong the draw is to extend ones armamentarium!
I have mainly sourced additional tools from eBay, and the vintage tool stall at Winchester Market (on the first Sunday of the month). I bought a couple of items in an on-line auction a few months ago – it would be great to attend one of the David Stanley auctions some time. I have also bought from Tooltique – an on-line vintage tool dealer, who refurbishes and sharpens their tools really well, and prices them very fairly. On eBay, it’s fun to find and bid for good examples of vintage planes etc, especially now that I know the market fairly well, but it’s getting harder to justify buying additional planes now!
One of our group picks up treasures from car boot sales for next to nothing, but a recent visit to our local car boot sale was very disappointing.
Fellow students have recommended Leeside Tools as a place to get good second hand tools, but with my Saturday mornings usually taken up with DOLS (Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards) medical assessments, I have not got around to paying them a visit – until yesterday, that is. I was prompted after one of our gang of four bought a superb Stanley No. 7 plane there for a remarkably good price.
The shop is made up of four or five extensions and rooms, so it is only as one ventures deeper into these areas that the enormity of their stock becomes clear. Wow, what an Aladdin’s cave!
As well as a wide range of new and vintage tools, the owner, David, has created a small museum, full to bursting with his collection of planes, plumb bobs, brace and bits, and more.
Anyway, I didn’t find it difficult to find a few items I ‘needed,’ including some ‘pig-sticker’ mortise chisels, an I Sorby No.6 gouge, a Stanley No.80 cabinet scraper, and a 2″ chisel.
While there, a chap came in. “I need some tools from this list,” he said, brandishing a piece of paper I immediately recognised as the tool list for IBTC Portsmouth. And so it was, that I was able to give some – hopefully helpful – advice to one of the students due to start the joinery course in two weeks time. “Take a look at Tooltique.co.uk for your saws,” I told him, hoping David wouldn’t mind – well I had advised on his purchase of a Stanley No.4, boxed, for just £28, a reasonable starter block plane, a £6 vintage coping saw, and some chisels, including a nice I Sorby 1/2″. In fact, I rather enjoyed helping him spend HIS money!
Dear Stuart, regarding the number of tools it is appropriate to own.
I can pass on the equivalent experience from cycling, in my and Craig Fulton’s view, is that the number of bikes that a cyclist should own is set under the Rules of Cycling (All 95 of them)
Rule 12 // The correct number of bikes to own is n+1.While the minimum number of bikes one should own is three, the correct number is n+1, where n is the number of bikes currently owned. This equation may also be re-written as s-1, where s is the number of bikes owned that would result in separation from your partner.
Dear Alex,
Great to hear from you.
Do tandems count? I can only wonder what Ann and Mandy-Jane think!
Stuart
Ann thinks that N=1, I am currently at N=2
However she does know about Rule 4 and Rule 11
Rule 4 // It’s all about the bike. It is, absolutely, without question, unequivocally, about the bike. Anyone who says otherwise is obviously a twatwaffle.
Rule 11 // Family does not come first. The bike does.Sean Kelly (famous Irish Cyclist), being interviewed after the ’84 Amstel Gold Race, spots his wife leaning against his Citroën AX. He interrupts the interview to tell her to get off the paintwork, to which she shrugs, “In your life the car comes first, then the bike, then me.” Instinctively, he snaps back, “You got the order wrong. The bike comes first.”