Hard to beat hand made gifts, especially if they are a useful tool. Surly made me a marking knife. Most of the things I make when working with wood as well as metal are made to "soapstone tolerance", but occasionally I need to work to a closer tolerance. There's nothing better than a marking knife if you want an accurate layout on wood. I normally use my Stanley knife but this will be better, not only in function, but because it was made for me personally.
And speaking of Stanley tools, Surly also got me the Stanley tape rule in the photo. It's a limited edition to celebrate Stanley's 175th anniversary. 175 years is a long time to be in business. The company is now listed as Stanley Black & Decker, so there must have been a merger sometime along the way. Not surprising in this day and age. I don't know what all they still make but they're still pumping out tape measures, that I know, and they must have made a million scratch awls over the years. There wasn't a middle school or high school shop class that didn't have at least a few of them for layout work. I don't know what if anything is still made in the U.S. The anniversary tape is made in Thailand. The company was originally in New Britain, Connecticut but the tape box has a Maryland address on it.
In addition to Stanley tools, New Britain also was the home of New Britain tools. I've got a set of New Britain metric sockets that I bought from the NAPA store back in the 60's. According to the Wikipedia article, New Britain made tools that were sold under a lot of different brand names including all the big name department stores like Sears, Wards and J.C. Penney. If I was to go through the tool boxes, I'd probably find a few of them. I'd like to know a bit more about the industrial history of New England. Machine tools, precision tools, hand tools, firearms - that was the place. I know a bit about the area from my reading and travels but I'd like to find a good book or two about the subject.
Here's hoping to a good 2019 - and as always, measure twice, cut once.
2 comments:
I'm glad you like the tools and I hope they serve you well. Ironically, I have a book about the early machine tool builders in New England. I'll let you borrow it. The ironic part is you bought it for me when I became an apprentice.
That'd be great - thanks!
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