the home shop before SS?

[WmZiggy]

You bet Ed. The majority of masters making 18th C. furniture were farmers that during the winter months turned to their shops. If they made excess furniture they sold it. Of course there were the bigger professional makers in cities, such as Duncan Phyfe and others, that became the factories of the industrial revolution in America, but most furniture was made in small shops on farms. The arts and crafts movement in America at the turn of the last century was a rebellion against the dehumanization of the industrial movement. The Shakers laid the seeds for the Arts and Crafts movement, a movement that went back to the small shop on one's property of the 1920s.

[robinson46176]

I have a picture here "somewhere" that shows the floor plan of one of the shops of one of the more famous colonial furniture makers in NY. It was a small "room" stuck on the back of a small house. It had a tiny additional rough shed for storage of some wood. The whole thing would have sat in my basement with room to spare and that includes the house... This shop was said to normally employ 6 to 10 woodworkers.
Think about it a minute... If I (or many of us) removed every modern power tool from our shop what would we have left? I would have some shelves and a couple of benches.
As I type this I am looking at a largish corner cabinet that my great-grandfather bought (used) for my great-grandmother when they got married. It was fully handmade including all plane work by an itinerant woodworker of good skills. IIRC his name was Clearance Alter and his name is fairly well known in this area for his work. He was one of many such tradesmen who would move in with a family and live with them while building what ever furniture they needed. The room and board was part of the price for the items. His work was good but simple and he normally carried his tools on his back or sometimes in a trunk (shop expansion) .


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[charlese]

My grandfather built his home following a Sears and Roebuck plan. The store sold plans for one and two story homes in the pre WWII years. I remember my Gramps had a table saw powered by an electric motor and a long leather belt. It had a large saw blade. Don't recall the size, but it was bigger than 10 to 12 inches.

[reible]

Here is what I know. We lived in a rural setting in a small town in a northern climate. While we had electrical service I was about 6 before we got indoor plumbing. That was only a few years after the house was moved on to a basement and rooms added on. Prior to that the house was too small to have a "shop". After we had a basement we started to collect tools, nothing new mind you as that was never even considered. We had tools from the late 1920's to late 1940's.

My one grandfather was a farmer but loved woodworking. He had set up a sawmill using some old car/truck motor on the farm. They had no electrical service so he could cut the wood up but after that it was all hand tools. When it became time for my mom to need a place of her own she went to the city to work to get enough money of supplies for a house. He supplied the land and he and she built the house. That house moved with her to a town about 35 miles away, then it was a bunk house for railway workers. When her first husband died she moved the house back to our town and lived on some rented land until she was able to get some of her own. The house was moved again to that location and then moved on the basement that I spoke of. It is still standing today, with additions and my brother lives there. They must have got it right, built in 1927 moved more then 70 mile and survived 4 moves. A lot of the family still have things he had made not because they his products but because they were made so well they held up to use so well.

Some of the tools included a 10" Craftsman table saw big old motor hanging out the back, a combo tool with tilting table saw and a jointer. The motor had shafts out both sides and you selected which you wanted to use by taking the belts off one or the other... the pulley size was different so was the belt size.... Don't recall who made it but it was a multi-purpose tool. The jig saw was an atlas. Most of the other stuff I don't recall names on. The shaper was craftsman but only ran one direction. Lathe might have been atlas or craftsman???

My oldest brother had a shop which was different as with his "handycap" all the tools were on floor level or slightly above. He had no table saw but also had some home made tools such as powered hacksaw of his own design. Home made tools were a big thing and you could get parts kits and instruction. Plenty of people I know were into that as well. All of his tools were second hand as well, that was how life was.

Most of the people I knew had some sort of shop, even if was a only a few simple tools. Some shops were pretty amazing, one person had a hand built band saw that had to have wheels that were 6 feet in diameter.... this thing was huge. Belt driven none the less. This guy built his own shop building using a cement block mold, 4 at time, it was a long process but he kept at it until he was done, two story high for the bandsaw. Then he did the house the same way attached to the shop. Don't know how he managed but there it still stands in my home town.

If you happen across some magazines from the general time frame they often have a lot of ads to look at, some from brands that have long gone and some from ones that carry on the name. I was just looking at a copy of Popular Home Craft - and Home Repairs December 1950 (cost 35 cents). Shopsmith has full page ad, cost with motor $199.50, without the motor $169.50. At this point it was a 10ER but that is not mentioned. Oh yea if you wanted the caster that was another $11.95. (At this point Magna Engineering Corp.)

In another full page ad there is Delta Power Tool Division as part of Rockwell out of Milwaukee WI. There saw-jointer combination, 6" jointer and 10" saw was $259.00. They were 25 years old then.

If you ever come across these older magazines pick up a few, if nothing else the ads are great.

Ed

[ipbarnard]

Here is my fathers tool box from 1949.

Just for reference.

Foster From Flint

[WmZiggy]

Boy it looks a lot like a Stanley 902 which was made from 1923 to 1942. I suppose there could have been some still in store inventories by 1949. Although the 902 is listed as hardwood with a lacquered finish. Your dad's looks like it is steel. Stanley made very few steel cases, most of which were discontinued in 1939 and I don't have pictures on those. Can you find any markings?

Also, Ed I see you live in Aurora, Ill. Aurora is where all of my people are from on both sides. My great-grandparents and great-uncles on the Ziegler side owned Ziegler Brothers Hardware in downtown Aurora from the 1890's until it was sold in the 60's. It was five or six stories of everything, I am told. The family owned most of the land that is now Phillip's park and golf course. My grandparents lived at 560 S. Smith Blvd until they passed away in the 1970s. My grandfather had his shop in the basement of that home, which he and my grandmother built. Off of Smith Blvd. runs Ziegler Ave. which runs up to where the family farm used to stand. Most of the land around Aurora High School ( I can't recall whether it's East or West HS) was family farmland subdivided and sold in the 1920's and 30's for homes. Except for a cousin there is no family still in Aurora. We were back this time last year to inter my mother in the family plot in Aurora. She was 94. My parents left Aurora in the 1950s after the war. The family, which is scattered all over the Midwest today, gathered at the Ziegler Avenue sign for a picture and farewell.

[ipbarnard]

Boy it looks a lot like a Stanley 902 which was made from 1923 to 1942. I suppose there could have been some still in store inventories by 1949. Although the 902 is listed as hardwood with a lacquered finish. Your dad's looks like it is steel. Stanley made very few steel cases, most of which were discontinued in 1939 and I don't have pictures on those. Can you find any markings?

Some of the tools are marked True Value.

Supposedly it was purchased from a hardware store in South Haven Mi the first or second year they were married that would make it 48 or 49.

The case is steel. It has a plaque on the front with my fathers signature embossed on it. That was done when my mother ordered it. She said it just came with it not a special order.

That was the full compliment of tools my father had till the 70s when he got a socket set and a circular saw. He grew up on a farm and never thought he needed any more tools.

Foster From Flint

[brad_nalor]

Pre WW2 standard equipped wood work shop was actually typical of what one might see today. Electric powered stand alone power tools can be seen in Sears Craftsman and Montgomery Ward catalogs well before. In those days, they were pricey and would guess a luxury. I have a small lot of this stuff including a vintage air compressor. Almost all have quality cast iron components and neat hints of automotive styling of the day.

1936 Ward Pwr-Kraft catalog


Don't want to drift too far from the OP but its interesting to note SS wasn't the first 'multi-tool' wood working machine. But I would consider it the most successful thanks to the initial order just before Christmas 1948 from Wards. I've seen info and pics of similar types before and of course post WW2. There were some produced in England as well.

Also, the 1953 book Power Tool Woodworking for Everyone by R.J. de Christophoro may depict the Magna ShopSmith multi-tool but much of it is just his version from the earlier 1950 book How to Operate Your Power Tools by Milton Gunerman and the editors of Home Craftsman magazine.

[robinson46176]

I have a picture here "somewhere" that shows the floor plan of one of the shops of one of the more famous colonial furniture makers in NY. It was a small "room" stuck on the back of a small house. It had a tiny additional rough shed for storage of some wood. The whole thing would have sat in my basement with room to spare and that includes the house... This shop was said to normally employ 6 to 10 woodworkers.
Think about it a minute... If I (or many of us) removed every modern power tool from our shop what would we have left? I would have some shelves and a couple of benches.
As I type this I am looking at a largish corner cabinet that my great-grandfather bought (used) for my great-grandmother when they got married. It was fully handmade including all plane work by an itinerant woodworker of good skills. IIRC his name was Clearance Alter and his name is fairly well known in this area for his work. He was one of many such tradesmen who would move in with a family and live with them while building what ever furniture they needed. The room and board was part of the price for the items. His work was good but simple and he normally carried his tools on his back or sometimes in a trunk (shop expansion) .

I ran across this old thread and thought I would post a couple of pictures of the corner cabinet I had mentioned in the quoted post. The cabinet was painted white (several coats) for most of my life and sat in a small room just off of my grandmother's kitchen. She had it much of her life. I never knew any of my great grandparents at all. That shows a changing time, we have 20 great grandchildren. The oldest graduates high school next spring.
One of my father's older sisters got the cabinet when my grandmother died and she had a local guy strip and refinish it. She had no children so it passed to my father and then to me. I don't know its age except that it was made well before 1878. Like many many utility furniture items built back then in the central Midwest it was mostly tulip poplar. It was common for those pieces to be painted, I don't know if this one was originally or not. These days it holds a small part of Diana's snowman collection sitting quietly in the corner of the living room until it gets opened for the Christmas season.

Corner cabinet 1.jpg (52.8 KiB) Viewed 6529 times

Corner cabinet 2.jpg (95.32 KiB) Viewed 6529 times

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[BuckeyeDennis]

I have a picture here "somewhere" that shows the floor plan of one of the shops of one of the more famous colonial furniture makers in NY. It was a small "room" stuck on the back of a small house. It had a tiny additional rough shed for storage of some wood. The whole thing would have sat in my basement with room to spare and that includes the house... This shop was said to normally employ 6 to 10 woodworkers.
Think about it a minute... If I (or many of us) removed every modern power tool from our shop what would we have left? I would have some shelves and a couple of benches.
As I type this I am looking at a largish corner cabinet that my great-grandfather bought (used) for my great-grandmother when they got married. It was fully handmade including all plane work by an itinerant woodworker of good skills. IIRC his name was Clearance Alter and his name is fairly well known in this area for his work. He was one of many such tradesmen who would move in with a family and live with them while building what ever furniture they needed. The room and board was part of the price for the items. His work was good but simple and he normally carried his tools on his back or sometimes in a trunk (shop expansion) .

I ran across this old thread and thought I would post a couple of pictures of the corner cabinet I had mentioned in the quoted post. The cabinet was painted white (several coats) for most of my life and sat in a small room just off of my grandmother's kitchen. She had it much of her life. I never knew any of my great grandparents at all. That shows a changing time, we have 20 great grandchildren. The oldest graduates high school next spring.
One of my father's older sisters got the cabinet when my grandmother died and she had a local guy strip and refinish it. She had no children so it passed to my father and then to me. I don't know its age except that it was made well before 1878. Like many many utility furniture items built back then in the central Midwest it was mostly tulip poplar. It was common for those pieces to be painted, I don't know if this one was originally or not. These days it holds a small part of Diana's snowman collection sitting quietly in the corner of the living room until it gets opened for the Christmas season.
$matches[2]
Corner cabinet 2.jpg

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That’s a great-looking cabinet, Farmer. I woild have never guessed that it is poplar.

It’s very interesting that the door panels are “raised” toward the interior of the cabinet. But if the only material choice is solid wood, I suppose that a panel must be raised on one side or the other, simply to get an edge thin enought to fit into the frame. Which probably explains how the style originated in the first place.

Do you think that the craftsman wanted the simpler look on the “showside”? Or was it always intended as a display cabinet, with the doors open and the raised panels showing, as in when displaying Diana’s snowmen?