Tool Collection in the Six Board Chest
2014.01.07
I purchased this collection locally through craigslist a few years ago. The guy who sold the lot to me had inherited the tools from his parents, who in turn had received them from neighbor friends. So he didn’t seem to know anything about the original carpenter or other family history. They have strayed a long way to end up in my hands. And as I noted previously, there must have been other tools like saws and chisels, and probably a carpenter’s toolchest that perhaps went to other descendants.
The last task for the chest itself was to nail in a couple dividers to help organize the collection. Then I started pulling the planes out of cardboard boxes. Many of the irons had surface rust, so I took each plane apart and scrubbed the irons with a wire brush, sandpaper, or steel wool before placing them in the chest.
Although many of the planes are basic hollows and rounds or typical molding profiles (albeit of a scale more suited to house trim than furniture), naturally there are some specialty planes for the carpentry trade, such as a 1–1/4″ double-iron nosing plane (used to round over the edge of stair treads), and a pair of 1″ match planes (tongue and groove).
Besides the molding planes (some of which are technically joinery planes), the collection includes a leg vise with metal screw, a jack plane, some marking gauges, and a sharpening stone.
There is also a yellowed piece of cardstock which is a printed no trespassing sign for the property of “J. A. Robinson”. On the back, someone wrote in pencil:
Used by John A. Robinson
House and Barn builder
from Union Center New York.
Built from Civil War to the early 1900rds.
John Robinson is a pretty common name; even John A. Robinson brought up numerous results online. After some searching, I found a John A. Robinson (1845–1926) buried in Nanticoke Valley Cemetary in the hamlet of Union Center, New York. He served in the Civil War as a private in Company E, 109th Regiment of the New York Infantry. Without any information about occupation I cannot be certain, but it’s a reasonable match for name, age, and location.
Chest Lock