Two Foot, Four Fold

[Andy Kev.]

I never realised that people collected tools until shortly after taking up woodworking. I sniffed and thought that I would never go down that particular rabbit hole.

Then one day I bought a two foot four fold ruler made by Rabone, then a three footer and finally a one footer (because it's such a marvellous little thing). I've now got five Rabones and yesterday evening I discovered this:

https://archive.org/details/JohnRaboneA ... 78/page/n7

Oh dear! What does one do? The phrase, "The road to perdition" springs to mind.

 

[sunnybob]

Have you practised unfolding the four fold so that every time it moves away from you? :shock:

 

[John Brown]

My Dad showed me that about 100 years ago.

 

[sunnybob]

I've only known it for 60 years :roll:

 

[sunnybob]

On further examination of the memory banks, better make that 65 years (hammer) :shock: :shock:

 

[AndyT]

I never realised that people collected tools until shortly after taking up woodworking. I sniffed and thought that I would never go down that particular rabbit hole.

Then one day I bought a two foot four fold ruler made by Rabone, then a three footer and finally a one footer (because it's such a marvellous little thing). I've now got five Rabones and yesterday evening I discovered this:

https://archive.org/details/JohnRaboneA ... 78/page/n7

Oh dear! What does one do? The phrase, "The road to perdition" springs to mind.

Oh, yes, people certainly do collect tools, and some of us like to use them as well!

Rules are a great category to explore. Common, useful patterns are easy to find and cheap. They take up so little space that there is always scope to add another, slightly different. Maybe it will be in better condition, or it might have superior joints or extra scales.

Looking at catalogues will show you what a huge range of specialist rules used to be available, often including a way of calculating something useful in a simple way. It could be the amount of beer in a barrel, the weight of a piece of iron, the yield of timber in a tree, or the value of an ox.

On a side note, the scanned catalogue you linked to is the tip of a sizeable iceberg - one click along gets you here, the International Tool Catalogue Library.

https://archive.org/details/internation ... loglibrary

Public spirited collector Mark Stansbury is still finding items to scan and add - at present it holds scans of 4,233 historically informative catalogues.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

You'll need at least a couple of representative examples of rules by James Chesterman of Sheffield and I.D.Smallwood of Birmingham, too....

 

[nabs]

thanks to Andy for the timely reminder that the tool catalogue library is constantly updated, although it has caused me to spend the last 10 minutes reading a catalogue about "how to select and use wrenches"!

https://archive.org/details/williamshow ... sewrenches

notable for containing several eye catching turns of phrase, e.g

"a screw thread is, after all, a remorseless spiral wedge"
and

"with a terrific explosion and flash of flame the mechanics life is snuffed out"

Who knew spanners could be so interesting

 

[AndyT]

Great stuff indeed. And does any current manufacturer offer such a wide range? Hand tools have had so many years of thoughtful development for specialist users.

 

[Andy Kev.]

If I didn't know better I could be tempted to think that AndyT and CheshireChappie are very bad men indeed: trying to push a poor innocent into addiction. :mrgreen:

I do covet one of those ivory rulers though, although they seem to seldom come up on the used tool Websites.

 

[AndyT]

Just giving you some options, Andy!


But if you want an old ivory rule, buy it soon. The UK has passed the Ivory Bill 2018 which will make it illegal to trade in ivory or anything made of ivory. There are some minor exemptions but something like an interesting old rule would definitely be caught by the new law. You will be able to own one but not buy or sell one.

There's a lot more information here

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... -bill-2018

That page says that the government intends the ban to start 'late 2019'. That's not happened yet - apparently there was a big distraction in parliament last year which took up quite a lot of time in the house - but they want to bring in the ban soon.

Boxwood is unaffected!

 

[John Brown]

The government should legislate against those bloody caterpillars!

 

[workshopted]

Just giving you some options, Andy!


But if you want an old ivory rule, buy it soon. The UK has passed the Ivory Bill 2018 which will make it illegal to trade in ivory or anything made of ivory. There are some minor exemptions but something like an interesting old rule would definitely be caught by the new law. You will be able to own one but not buy or sell one.

There's a lot more information here

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... -bill-2018

That page says that the government intends the ban to start 'late 2019'. That's not happened yet - apparently there was a big distraction in parliament last year which took up quite a lot of time in the house - but they want to bring in the ban soon.

Boxwood is unaffected!

It would seem that sellers are trying to get around this by advertising them as 'probably/possibly made of bone'...

 

[AndyT]

Yes, agreed, but for some things it really is hard to tell. I hope whoever will be enforcing the rules, when they come in, will be properly trained.

 

[CHJ]

The last Folder I acquired is a 9 fold 2 mtr. version.

Like the Brand, made to last regular use, shame about the corporate colourway.
Not the most easily read in low light conditions.