A few bargain finds.

[Jelly]

So I've had to knock time in the workshop (and doing all my other hobbies) on the head to make way for revision for my finals, but to give myself a nice break, I popped over to the Anglesey Festival of Transport and Machinery. Knowing how terribly bad I am at dealing with temptation, I took £15 and set myself the goal of finding only "bargain" items...

I eventually came away with a Shoulder Drill (appears to be a Record, but no visible markings) which is in great condition (just a little grime) for £6, a 1½lb Engineers Hammer for £1 and for £3 an extremely well preserved copy of "Woodworking Tools" from the Evans Bros' Woodworker Series (I was unaware of the series before this and whilst the book itself is not of great use to me, I should like to get my hands on some of the other titles in the series).

Unfortunately my phone is on charge currently, so I'll have to upload photo's later.

The hammer head was loose enough to let me jiggle out the shaft with a little effort, so I made a kerf and wedged it with a slip of purpleheart, more like one would an axe handle (steel wedges being traditional in hammers I believe), it's not going to be in frequent use, but for a quid, I definitely have enough uses for a big hammer...

There were some wonderful drawknives and specialist planes at reasonable prices, and a very complete, but perhaps a little overpriced set of slipstones all of which caught my eye, but exceeded my budget unfortunately.

Tools aside... I rather enjoyed all the traction and stationary engines, and the tractor pulling; By far the best half a day of procrastination I've done all year!

 

[TobyC]

Pics man pics!!!

Toby

 

[Jelly]

Pics!

Shoulder Drill
Both sides:
As you can see, all in good order, if a bit grimey (and incredibly greasy/oil covered, I've had to use swarfega on my hands after handling it)... It appears that the original finish is almost intact over most of the drill too and no significant rust that I can spot (possibly due to the lathering of oil it's got on it). I've drilled some test holes in steel bar and whitewood and concluded that it's a wonderful tool and will be much more useful than my electric drill.

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Chuck Detail:
The chuck has a small gap in it when fully closed, it doesn't seem like it will effect me in practice, but it is the only real niggle I've found, the chuck is also compatible with the one on my hand-operated bench drill, so If I really need to chuck a tiny bit I could do a switcharound.

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Markings Detail:
This is all that survives of the markings, it makes me think Record (over the other manufacturers who used the blue and red colourway) but I know very little about the history of drills.

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Engineers Hammer
Overall:
As you can see it's nothing special and has clearly led a hard life, but it's a nice hammer nonetheless.

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Wedge:
Someone had clearly attempted to repair damage to the handle before, but had simply chopped a snapped/mushroomed bit off the shaft and re-fitted it... however it felt pretty secure even before wedging, so I figured this would be a quick and dirty fix that would work... the purpleheart split when I drove the handle home (with the wedge already fitted loosely), but it's definitely not coming out!

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Striking Face:
Whilst the rest of the hammer is a bit rusty, the striking face has been kept pretty clean, or cleaned up for sale; struck me as unusual (especially because it's slightly pitted and still has a slight convexity to it, so it's not like it's been ground and polished dead-flat as a makeshift planishing hammer) insight anyone?.

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[AndyT]

That little scrap of branding is bothering me:

I know I have seen it before, but have not tracked it down yet.

It's not the same as this pristine old Record Drill at http://www.recordhandplanes.com/rare.html

though that is not proof of anything.

The trouble is, it looks like there was a time between the wars when all the manufacturers were ruthlessly copying every detail of each others' designs, even the colours. But I'm sure someone will find it!

 

[Jelly]

I did find something nigh identical to it on ebay: DUNLAP SHOULDER, HAND DRILL.

From what I can tell Dunlap were a brand of Sears, Roebuck & Co, but did manufacture things overseas as per this drill made in germany.

It's a possibility, though it seems more likely to me that one is a copy of the other...