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Sunday, July 14, 2013

Panel Gauge

I recently acquired a couple of old tools from eBay.

New stash.
So I went a bit nutso (thanks for the term, Ralph). Sue me.

I'll get to more of these treasures in future posts, but one particular gem from this batch is one of the panel gauges. I couldn't see the pattern on the auction listing, I just thought it was a nice size.

It turns out, it has some style.




I am not sure of the species of the arm, but the head seems to be beech, and it has a boxwood wedge. There is also a boxwood insert on the cutting edge. Unfortunately, when the original cutter wore down, some yahoo drove a nail through the arm which caused a small split.

I think it looks very cool! It seems also to be comfortable in the hand, too. Plus, it will be easy to make. I think I'll make one at some point when my list of things that need to be built dwindles down some.

In case any of you would like to give it a whack first, here is a scan. The arm on this one is a bit over an inch wide, and is rounded on both the top and bottom, requiring the oval mortise seen in the scan.

Send a photo if you make one, and let me know what you think.

6 comments:

  1. You're welcome. what's in the rest of the stash?

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    1. Hey Ralph! I got six backsaws, all in different states of decomposition. Two of them actually look like they have straight sawplates. My plan was to learn how to rehab old saws. Some of these will take more TLC than others. Most eBay sellers don't seem to know what "needs just a little clean up" really means. Oh well, I wasn't really expecting much.

      Also shown is the two panel gauges, a nice Whitworth hammer, a 1/4" mortice chisel that looks way better in photographs than in real life, and an old Sorby toothing plane blade. Somehow this blade has mushrooming not only on the end where you would expect it, but on the sides of the blade. A prize to anyone who can tell me what someone would be doing banging on the side of a toothing blade enough to musrhoom it. However, a little bit of work with a file and I bet it will work like a charm. The teeth are much finer than on my toothed LV BU blade.

      Also shown (because it arrived on the same day) is a real gem. A beautiful Stanley #19 knuckle joint block plane.

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  2. Thanks for the scan. I think I will give this a go.

    Caleb

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    Replies
    1. Good luck, Caleb! Let us know how it turns out.

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