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Here in the U.S., there's a product called Shoe Goo, a variant of a product called Goop - basically, a high grade rubber cement. In my experience, Goop is a great product for certain applications. It's flexible, fills gaps, and bonds well to lots of surfaces; and shelf life is very long. I've...

The answer depends partly, in my experience, on what covers your walls. If it's plasterboard (or, as we Americans say, sheetrock or drywall), they can work nicely. If you've got an older house with lath coated with plaster, well, not so much (and, if it's metal lath, probably not at all). I...

And this year, our election here in the breakaway colony may include some burning effigies, too! You guys don't get to keep all those bonfires to yourselves.

I prefer the earlier version, which has information on period procedures that you just can't find (or at least I haven't) in other texts. I'm enough of an Anglophile, even here on the far coast of the United States, that the early 20th century Britspeak in which the original book is written is...

the paint color makes very little difference to planing quality.

On some No. 3 (Bailey pattern) sizes, there's not a lot of finger room between the tote and the adjuster. Try leaving your hand open, placing it so the tote nestles in the web between thumb and forefinger, then wrapping your thumb and fingers along the plane iron (both sides, of course: thumb...

Looks like a Millers Falls 04 drill, so your choice of color for the gear wheel is more or less correct (may/may not be historically correct, but it's a MF color/colour): https://oldtoolheaven.com/millers-falls/hand_drills/drill1.htm and...

The Stanley No. 62 low-angle jack plane - the inspiration for the Lie-Nielsen plane and the spiritual inspiration for the Lee Valley version - suffers from a tendency to chip out at the back of the mouth, because the body is grey cast iron, and easily chipped. I don't know much about...

Aren't router plane blades supposed to be lowest at the cutting edge, with some clearance behind?

Most folks call that Record plane a router plane. Nice cleanup.

I was told once, and it makes sense, that squares with wood stocks (the handle bit, for those new to the terminology) and brass binding were reliable only on the side with the brass. Thus, the inside edges in this case. Wood moves. I've still got some wood/brass try squares, but only because...

While I believe in maintaining family heirlooms, there are limits. It's sad that your "Marbles"/Marples square got to be in such dreadful shape, but stuff happens. Give it a good burial.

In the U.S., some of us say that those saws were made by the prolific sawmakers Warren and Ted Superior. The medallion is often found on "second line" saws, or saws made for someone (say, a hardware store), by respected sawmakers. Frequently, the difference is in the finish details, not in the...

Dirt buildup against a structure on a slope is inevitable. I'd consider leaving a trench wide enough to stand in, with a retaining wall built on the opposite side of the trench from the shed, with drain tile behind the retaining wall, the drain tile then brought to daylight (exiting) somewhere...

Now, me, lazy sod that I am, I'd have left the paint alone; but you did a terrific restoration. Is the flat on the rod for the fence a standard feature of these planes? Good idea, if so.

Ah. Caught, once again, by the fact that British English resembles American English and yet...isn't. I looked them up. Interesting bags - kind of a neat shape. The American versions of these bags tend to be boxier.

There was a myth in the U.S. that gangsters of the 1930s used to carry machine guns in violin cases (silly: the Thompson submachine gun, the "standard" gangster machine gun, at least in the movies, was way, way too big to fit in a violin case); but I've never heard of carrying tools in a bass...

Will it still work if you install it upside down?

"Clarke International" - may have been made to a budget. I've had grinders made in Taiwan (before China became the dominant cheap-tools manufacturer) that could have walked to the next town, or to the end of their power cord at least, all on their own. Another possibility to consider is the...

In my experience, the rules for machinist's combination squares are pretty consistent in width and thickness for a given length (and 12" and 24" - and probably 18", too - rules are often the same as each other in thickness and width). I've interchanged Starrett, Brown and Sharpe, Union, and...