Lucky find ...

[TobyB]

Picked up an interesting looking book that caught my eye in a local charity shop window ... "History of Woodworking Tools" by WL Goodman ... a 1978 reprint of the 1964 edition that was priced at £9.50 when it was originally sold - I got it for £2 which seemed like a bargain.

I know there are well informed people here - is this a reliable source, or a cranky bit of poorly-reserched misinformation?

Cheers

Toby

 

[Joel Moskowitz]

Goodman is the bible and the best overview of tool history out there

 

[bugbear]

Picked up an interesting looking book that caught my eye in a local charity shop window ... "History of Woodworking Tools" by WL Goodman ... a 1978 reprint of the 1964 edition that was priced at £9.50 when it was originally sold - I got it for £2 which seemed like a bargain.

I know there are well informed people here - is this a reliable source, or a cranky bit of poorly-reserched misinformation?

Well, it was pioneering, and state-of-the-art in its day, but tool history has been a fairly active field, post 1964, so I think some of its data may be incomplete.

There have been subsqeuent discoveries, both in terms of artefacts and reference information.

BugBear

 

[Peter Evans]

As Paul says, a lot of research in the last 30 or so years. All the major references:

Goodman - History 1964 (last reprint 1978)
Salaman - Dictionary 2nd ed 1999
Goodman et al - British Planemakers 3rd ed 1993

Need to be supplemented with other references and material for an accurate picture. And there are errors, eg Goodman says (p151, 1964 ed) that Disston learnt the saw trade with S & J before going to the USA... oops Disston was only 14 when he arrived in US. Maybe this was a furphy put about by S & J, perhaps in "Story Of The Saw:- Spear & Jackson Ltd 1760 - 1960", 1961 which I do not have access to. Any one have this title?