"Different" Christmas gift from my wood shop
Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2019 11:18 am
Many of us make Christmas gifts in our wood shops but my choice for our grown son was a little different. Anybody who reads very many of my postings knows that I am a serious tool nut and that I keep "rescuing" duplicate tools at bargain prices from garage sales and auctions etc. Our son Scott and I worked together daily for many years from the time he was quite young and we still often do. Also for years We have commonly bought him tools of one kind or the other for birthdays and Christmas. He also bought a lot of tools for himself over the years. As about everybody here knows already, you can accumulate a lot of tools and still not have everything you "need" for some jobs.
Most of what Scott has bought for himself has been mechanics and metal working tools. In more recent years I have been buying him more woodworking tools in an effort to push him more that direction because he is pretty good at it and I think it can be a great release from a high pressure job.
For his birthday this year we bought him an assortment of clamps. For Christmas I was looking for something a little different. One day in the shop I picked up a smooth plane from my plane shelf and noted that it was the one that had been my father's and my paternal grandfather's before that. It is a Bailey No. 3. I decided that I would refurbish it and give it to Scott making him the fourth generation owner of it. Hopefully someday he will pass it down to his son. Then I went back to the shelf and picked out a nice Bailey No. 5 and a more recent but good block plane. I started working on all of them totally disassembling them cleaning, polishing, truing the bases, sharpening and then I gave them a light spray coat of shellac. I kind of like shellac for such things since you can easily remove it with alcohol if needed.
Not wanting to do it halfway I then picked out a good draw-knife to refurbish and then an old but nice bit brace. That was followed by my spotting a batch of hatchets on a shelf and picking out one of those.
All of that reminded me of a wooden tool box my father had built for himself about 1940 when he was just starting to do some building construction before my grandfather's heart started failing and my father had to take over the farm. It took me a while to get it dug out of the attic... He had stained and varnished it but it was looking a little tired so I cleaned it thoroughly and also gave it a light spray coat shellac inside and out.
Everything came out quite well and Scott seemed properly impressed.
.
Most of what Scott has bought for himself has been mechanics and metal working tools. In more recent years I have been buying him more woodworking tools in an effort to push him more that direction because he is pretty good at it and I think it can be a great release from a high pressure job.
For his birthday this year we bought him an assortment of clamps. For Christmas I was looking for something a little different. One day in the shop I picked up a smooth plane from my plane shelf and noted that it was the one that had been my father's and my paternal grandfather's before that. It is a Bailey No. 3. I decided that I would refurbish it and give it to Scott making him the fourth generation owner of it. Hopefully someday he will pass it down to his son. Then I went back to the shelf and picked out a nice Bailey No. 5 and a more recent but good block plane. I started working on all of them totally disassembling them cleaning, polishing, truing the bases, sharpening and then I gave them a light spray coat of shellac. I kind of like shellac for such things since you can easily remove it with alcohol if needed.
Not wanting to do it halfway I then picked out a good draw-knife to refurbish and then an old but nice bit brace. That was followed by my spotting a batch of hatchets on a shelf and picking out one of those.
All of that reminded me of a wooden tool box my father had built for himself about 1940 when he was just starting to do some building construction before my grandfather's heart started failing and my father had to take over the farm. It took me a while to get it dug out of the attic... He had stained and varnished it but it was looking a little tired so I cleaned it thoroughly and also gave it a light spray coat shellac inside and out.
Everything came out quite well and Scott seemed properly impressed.
.
