First the bio:
While two of my great-grandfathers have been carpenters, my parents or
grandparents weren't. Still, my father was handy around the house, and
did build my own bed, for example.
I know I had my own tools early (partly demolishing said bed less than
24 hrs after he finished it must have been a reason for his grey hairs
starting early); by the time I was in university, 19 years old, I had a
specialized bicycle trailer to transport wood to the local mill (only
8 miles distant). Braking was a problem, with 2 tree stumps I could
barely lift at one end each in that trailer. Getting going also was a
problem. Explaining to the local police that taking trees destined to
the local wastedump wasn't stealing was something I learned that way.
The rewards were 4 'sorbus' (Whitebeam?) trees, and 3 black locust trees.
I still have that wood waiting for my to get skilled and tooled enough
to do something with it.
Anyway, I met my wife, built her a sofa a la Rietveld, and then we
started living together.
After finishing our studies, getting work, receiving a daughter, I now
find myself in possession of a small shed, about 2x3 meters, where I've
created my workbench, there's a tablesaw, a small lathe, a wet grinder
and some tools.
In the mean time, I created a dressing table for my daughter, laid some
flooring in several houses, created a dining table for my sister and
bought me a lot of books.
Highlights are
Stanley 10" brace
a variable-size auger bit (marked Ställbar Borr Rekord no 22 Aktiebolaget
C.I. Fall, Eskilstuna 25-78 mm) in original box in very good condition.
This is a very appealing tool; the extending bit is kept in place by a
blued metal plate held with 2 screws, and it looks very, very sturdy.
Also, the box still smells - pine resin.
a Stanley #3C with box (not that old, perhaps 10 years or so)
a junk #4 clone
a Stanley #5 + #6
I recently (this is real gloating) bid US$ 18 on a box (large box!) full
of carpenters tools. I've got a lot of wooden planes, round, hollow, block
planes a la ECE, scraper planes, some old chisels, a block of beech destined
to become a plane and so on. All of it of Dutch origin.
On the 'must get' list are a scrub plane, and a jointer. These are hard
to come by in the Netherlands :-(
then the question:
my Stanley #923 14" brace, a cool big thing, has a partly functioning
ratcheting mechanism. One direction works, the other doesn't.
After opening it up, it turns out there's a problem with the small
blocks that are lifted when you want it to ratchet. One of those blocks
has a hairline fracture and it's bent, which means it doesn't lift far
enough to clear the spindle and thus won't allow the spindle to turn
under it.
I've checked my other two braces, but they have a slightly different
mechanism.
they look like this (use a non-proportional font here!):
X XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXX*XX XXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXX*X XXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX
XX XXXXXX
XX XXXX
where the top left fits under the ring, the right part locks into the
spindle, the pin on the left bottom holds the spring in place and the
hole in the middle is where it turns on. English isn't my mother
language, I hope I'm clear enough here.
The * note where the hairline crack is.
My brace is marked STANLEY No923 14 IN and on the chuck PAT. 2485991.
Google reveals that an antique seller describes it as a 1949 brace.
Does anyone by any change have a non-functional brace where the part I
need in my mechanism is still intact? If so, please contact me and I'm
sure we can work something out.
Thanks!
Jurriaan
--
If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible
warning.
Catherine Aird
Debian (Unstable) GNU/Linux 2.6.14-rc1-mm1 2x4804 bogomips 1.14
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