Wheel type marking gauges - nothing new?

[AndyT]

Over in another thread, discussion veered onto the relative merits of marking gauges with wheels versus those with pins. Custard asked if anyone (maybe me) knew the age of one he had seen on eBay. Rather than divert the other discussion, I thought I'd start a fresh thread on the discussion.

Note that it would be impossible to data a single gauge - the standard designs stayed in production for a very long time. So let's try and see when wheeled gauges were introduced.

One easy way to start answering a question like this is to go to datamp.org. It's a marvellous, collaboratively compiled database of tool patents, mostly American.
Querying it by type of tool, one can see all entries for layout tools - (2,414) / marking gauges / (350) / wheeled marking gauges (17).

The earliest is from 1865 and has a wheeled cutter in an ordinary wooden body. The patent claim was for the way the cutters were fixed, not for the use of a sharpened wheel. So I would assume that sharpened wheel cutters were already in widespread use and not in themselves protected by another patent.

An 1871 gauge patent showed the wheel cutter again, on the very end of the wooden stem, so it could work in confined spaces.

The earliest drawing in the datamp list of a gauge with a metal stem and a wheel is this one - Barrett's patent - http://datamp.org/patents/advance.php?id=85&set=7 - which was a double gauge, and was widely made and sold, by Goodell-Pratt and others. Again, the patent claim is not about the wheels, but the way that two heads are fitted into one stock.

One of the earliest catalogues that I have a scan of is from Henry Osborn of Newcastle and Southampton, from about 1898, and it includes this American gauge:

Note that it was an expensive import - an ordinary wooden two-pin mortice gauge was only 1s 8d (or 3s 3d for the top of the range ebony option. ) The most basic, single pin gauge was only 3d.

The Tyzack catalogue of 1908 shows what I think is the same gauge, alongside a three bar version, but no single stem option. It also lists superficially similar metal gauges by Stanley, but these all use a very small pin.

So, overall, and guessing quite a lot, I would think that the use of metal-stemmed gauges with a wheel instead of a pin started in the latter part of the nineteenth century, as a relatively expensive option, imported from the USA, aimed at the woodworker who wanted something a bit more special than the common tool. Not much has really changed, has it?!

PS: Looking again at the one on ebay, I reckon it's user made. It would only need school metalwork level skills and equipment, and also the thumbscrew looks as if it has been adapted by soldering a wing onto a standard slotted screw - normal for home made but not what you would expect on a commercial tool.

 

[iNewbie]

Very interesting read that, Andy. I'd not seen that Barrett before.

 

[lurker]

Given that "back then" until well into the 1960 there were large numbers of people earning a living from working with wood.

These "gadgets" really never got going did they?
Mainly because there was a cheaper, more effficent alternative that every one was skilled in using.

These, like much else are fine for people who collect "pretty things".
There is nothing wrong with that by the way, I am one.

 

[AndyT]

Given that "back then" until well into the 1960 there were large numbers of people earning a living from working with wood.

These "gadgets" really never got going did they?
Mainly because there was a cheaper, more effficent alternative that every one was skilled in using.

These, like much else are fine for people who collect "pretty things".
There is nothing wrong with that by the way, I am one.

Wise words indeed. =D>

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Given that "back then" until well into the 1960 there were large numbers of people earning a living from working with wood.

These "gadgets" really never got going did they?
Mainly because there was a cheaper, more effficent alternative that every one was skilled in using.

These, like much else are fine for people who collect "pretty things".
There is nothing wrong with that by the way, I am one.

No, I don't think that was the case. The wheel gauges are very good. However they are difficult for the average WW to built (unless they own metalworking equipment). It was just so much easier to build your own in wood.

Regards from Perth

Derek (who has built gauges in both wood and metal)

 

[lurker]

Derek,

You are looking at this from the point of view of "a man of leisure" which is exactly who these "pretty things" have been targeted at for hundreds of years.

The common man was not going to spend 4/6 where he could do the same with something costing 3d unless there was a massive gain in efficency (which there isn't).

 

[ED65]

Thanks for this Andy. I knew wheel gauges were not as modern as I'd previously thought but had no clue they were that old.

I only discovered they weren't of recent introduction one or two days ago, having spotted one in the background clutter of a (B&W) photo in an old magazine.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Derek,

You are looking at this from the point of view of "a man of leisure" which is exactly who these "pretty things" have been targeted at for hundreds of years.

The common man was not going to spend 4/6 where he could do the same with something costing 3d unless there was a massive gain in efficency (which there isn't).

Lurker, as a "man of leisure" (I wish this was so!) I have had the opportunity to make and, therefore, use both types. The wheel gauges are superior in my opinion.

More traditional pin/cutting gauges ...

Japanese kinshiro types ...

A mortice cutting gauge ...

And a wheel gauge ..

So, if better, why were they not used more in ye olde days? Probably because they were more expensive to purchase then and more difficult to make oneself. That has nothing to do with being a fashion tool and desired by "a man of leisure". Did such creatures even exist then to purchase such tools?

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[D_W]

I like to use a wheel gauge myself, not all the time, but often. I am a white collar target of such things.

If I worked professionally, I would get by with fewer gauges for ease and speed, and I can't see anything that I do now that actually prescribes a wheel gauge or else....

I agree with the comment about cost. We live in a world now with a lot of disposable income. My relatives who made a living using tools and equipment went up the ladder in cost only if it was really necessary. They would've made their own gauges, too, were they cabinetmakers.

 

[lurker]

You ask if such creatures existed.
I am fortunate enough to live close to where David Stanley holds his auctions, I would estimate a good 80% of the stuff at the international auctions was originally targeted at the gentleman carpenter. That's stuff up to 200 years old.

 

[AndyT]

Old catalogues and periodicals are full of evidence that woodwork, in contrast to many other crafts, has a long history of being enjoyed as a hobby by gentlemen who did not need to earn their living at it. Turning was probably the first area to get popular - and very elaborate lathes, sets of tools and illustrated books appeared from the seventeenth century onwards, priced way out of a tradesman's reach.
General woodworking, including making handy things for the home, really got going in the nineteenth century as the general standard of literacy and disposable income rose.

The tool merchants of Victorian London knew as much as any contmporary vendor about how to generate demand for new, elaborate tools which offered an easier way to perform a tricky task and were adept at offering key tools with many different options to cover every possible price point.

 

[lurker]

I am 62 my dad did not have any leisure time until I was well over 10 years old,so not that long ago.
He worked as a bench carpenter ( boulton & pauls) 5 days a week and sat morning, he cycled 6 miles to work and then homes again
His other waking hours were a sideline as the village carpenter.

Most working men were in the same situation.

No time to make pretty things.

 

[D_W]

You ask if such creatures existed.
I am fortunate enough to live close to where David Stanley holds his auctions, I would estimate a good 80% of the stuff at the international auctions was originally targeted at the gentleman carpenter. That's stuff up to 200 years old.

George Wilson has mentioned very old gentlemen's tool sets in the 18th and 19th century, also. I'm sure the fact that they would be limited in number would make them popular at auctions now.

 

[bugbear]

Mainly because there was a cheaper, more effficent alternative that every one was skilled in using.

Don't forget that cheaper OR more efficient would be a sufficient reason.

More efficient is open to debate and opinion (see thread), but cheaper is a matter of simple numbers.

Given this, it is surprising how many Ultimatum mortise gauges were sold, back in the day.

BugBear