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This thread is about chisels for site and rough work, and some of the qualities that make them more suitable for those duties than for cabinetmaking bench work. If people want to discuss hand made Japanese chisels, white steel, PMV11 and all the rest of the high-end stuff, would they be kind...

Having the vague feeling that Millers Falls planes might be rather uncommon in the UK, I carried out some (rather 'quick and dirty') research by typing 'vintage Millers Falls' into the Ebay search box. As expected, over 700 finds worldwide, coming down to fewer than 60 when the search was...

Those articles are still available to read on David's website, along with others written later for Furniture and Cabinetmaking, for Good Woodworking and for other magazines; https://www.finefurnituremaker.com/wood ... -articles/

Well - fair point, Chris - and he did say you could use a screwdriver instead...* If you're working on site, you use what you can carry, so I suppose you can't always have the ideal tool for whatever job might crop up, and two or three abuse-resistant chisels can be pretty versatile. The main...

Here's a short tutorial on how to remove skirting boards. Note the use of the chisel from about 1 min 15 sec. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj0mkY9-uIE Can't see some of the modern fancy steel high price chisels putting up with this! It's a very good illustration of horses for courses....

In that case, just ordinary 'thou' mikes will do fine. You won't need to measure to tenths, and in a steam workshop trying to will be hit-and-miss anyway. Useful sizes would be up to about 6" - larger ones are needed from time to time, but not so often as to make buying them essential. An inside...

I though bi-scuits were scuits with twice as many nookie options. Real men drink Yorkshire Gold. Even in Cheshire. But don't tell everyone, especially the Lancastrians.

I think at some time in it's life, it's been stood for a while on some damp corrugated cardboard. Those marks are due to corrosion - nothing I know in casting practice could cause them.

Benson Verniers were a Bradford company, started 1946, and acquired by James Neill in 1972. As Neill's also owned Moore and Wright, I suspect they may have been buying out a competitor; I don't know when Benson Verniers ceased production, though. They made very good quality instruments, a couple...

Damson gin is seriously good, too - if you can find damsons. Use the same quantity of sugar as for sloes. Blackberry gin is good (use less sugar, 'cos the fruit is sweeter than wot sloes is), but blackberry vodka is even better. Not the time of year (it's a spring speciality), but rhubarb gin...

Ooops. I've no evidence to support the Charles Hill absorption by Aaron Hildick, but it does sound very plausible... (By the way, I'm fairly sure the Hildick lineage goes back to 18th century West Midlands, so they're even older than Taylor's.) Edit to add - I was wrong; it was the 17th...

Just to add a further layer to the story, Aaron Hildick absorbed a small company by the name of Henry Taylor (owners of the Acorn Brand trademark), some time in the first half of the 20th century, I think. After WW2, looking to sound a bit more modern maybe, the firm of Aaron Hildick decided to...

As you already have a smoothing plane which gives you acceptable results, how about using that? Offer the two edges together, and mark where they touch. Separate them again, and take a cautious, fine shaving or two off the high spots. Offer the boards again, and ditto repeato. As the gaps become...

A dodge for vintage saw blades that I've used with very satisfactory results is to rub them over with Autosol polish on a small pad of aluminium foil, with any residue wiped off afterwards. I don't know why it works, but it gives a slick, smooth surface that works well when sawing, without...

One reason the Ashley Iles chisels are slow to obtain is because as cabinetmakers' bench chisels they're as good or better than anything else currently available, and at a better price than many; Iles can't keep up with demand, so they go out of stock as fast as new stocks arrive at retailers...

If there were no demand for new premium hand planes, nobody would make them. As it is, there are the three premium makers - LN, LV and Clifton - and a slew of medium priced offerings including Wood River, Stanley Sweetheart and Quangsheng, plus a fair old range of indifferent of cheaper brands...

I'm not sure that cool-running wheels are a real essential on a hand-crank grinder. As you point out, you can reach a fair speed with one without any load, but as soon as you apply a tool to the wheel, speed will diminish more than somewhat. You can burn tools, but you have to be trying very...

This does seem to be a common size on both Stanley and Record planes. I'm not sure that anybody really knows why. It may be that the sizes chosen by Stanley when they first started manufacturing planes pre-dated firm screwthread standards in the US, or maybe they inherited the sizes from Leonard...

An article spotted on my daily rummage around the 'net. Thought it might strike a chord with a few of the forum's contributors. https://capx.co/to-make-britain-richer- ... beautiful/

I'm not sure that flexibility is always a good thing with paring chisels. It undoubtedly helps sometimes, but there are other times when a long, rigid chisel is better. However, it's not that often that a standard bench chisel won't do the job - paring chisels are most definitely specialists...