Was it the tools or the project?

Tools assembled piecemeal over the years.

In the beginning, there are tools discarded by your grandfather. Some will barely work.Some needed a little fettling. When you successfully nailed 5 pieces of plank, you call that a box....A box that only you (and maybe your mother) will love. And you thought to yourself,"..what kind of house can be without a rusty old hammer?.."The box served as a pull-out drawer under your bed for the next 5 years, was repainted with leftover white paint, served as a stool, a prop, a small table, a saw horse, before retiring as a full-time flower bed. It was ugly, it was crudely made, but mainly... it's made by you. All thanks to the hammer. Beneath the rust, it was stamped "STANLEY" On the wood handle, "Genuine Hickory" Saw that Word on a hockey stick. Must be some kind of tough wood.

Soon, the neighbourhood hardware store forages progressed worldwide, with internet. I have yet to name a tool I cannot find on ebay.

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SHARPENING WITH ARKANSAS STONES

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You're so right. I should be writing about Whittlers instead of Stockman knives. Afterall, this is a wood working blog. But do you whittle the whole day? Perhaps. Can you peel an apple with a whittler? Maybe, but not as well. What if you forgot the butter knife at a picnic, or you somehow need to spey or neuter an animal in an instant?.. (ok, I'm pulling your leg, but I'm referring to the ubiquitous spey blade in your stockman.) A stockman knife (Also called your Gandpa's EDC) will do all of the above with ease, and it will WHITTLE. My shallow pocket and minute brain says that Whittlers are for collectors. Try buying a Stag handled split-backsping whittler. They are not cheap. This is one of the forty stockmen I've purchased online. The other 39 are on their way. And yes, I have issues. The stockman bug maybe. Wait till my wife sees them: I like to imagine myself as a craftsman first, woodworker second. Now you see why I bought this brand. Looks so

A Case for Chisels: Stanley 5000 series

“Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.” -John Ruskin. Substitute the word "books" with "blogs", and perhaps you should stop reading. I did my part and you are warned. No, I can't refund 4 minutes of your life. F or the most part of my woodworking life, I've kept my loose chisels in felt lined drawers. (I mean excess chisels purchased on impulse: Those of cast steel, those of boxwood, those octagonal London snobs, those ergo grips that promises an orgasm with each mortise, the socketed, the tanged, the handle-less tangs, the long paring ones, those curious crank-necks, the basic pig stickers, the vintage ferrule-less-...you know. I know. Some folks have too many hammers or smoothing planes or trammels. I'm a chisel guy. But the ones that are constantly on the move live in a canvas tool roll. I like the look of a chisel roll, except that the edges tend to slice the

The Far-Eastern Wood Butcher: Prime cuts from the far east.

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