In almost every woodworking class I teach in Covington, Ky., there’s at least one student who has driven through Ohio to get there who has stopped at Colonial Homestead in Millersburg. Every one of them tells me it’s among the most awe-inspiring stores for vintage tools they’ve ever seen (along with Hulls Cove Tool Barn […]

Here it is at only the second post of this blog and I’ve gone off the subject of Stanley Model Shop tools in my collection to discuss a Sargent prototype plane that joined the collection recently.  This plane (Figure 1) suggests that Sargent was considering a successor to its Shaw’s Patent line of planes.  As […]

The Stanley No. 97 Cabinet Maker’s Edge Plane In late 1869 or early 1870, shortly after Leonard Bailey started working at the Stanley Rule & Level Company, he produced the “chisel plane” shown in Figure 1 below.[i] This heavy bodied plane is 9 15/16” long and 2 3/8” wide and the body is a cast […]

Leonard Bailey appears to have begun experimenting with  and manufacturing vertical post planes sometime in 1860. These planes are called “vertical post” planes because of the two vertically positioned threaded rods located behind the rocking frog. The rocking frog is held in place by a pin that is inserted through the sidewalls of the plane […]

This is the first of what is intended to be an occasional series describing some of the Stanley Model Shop tools in my collection and sometimes giving opinions and historical tidbits relating to them.  Many of the Model Shop tools are prototypes and, thus, are either one-offs or very limited production models.  Although information about […]

Part I of this post introduced you to Justus Traut’s patent No. 316,079 granted on April 21, 1885.  This patent very clearly illustrated and described what became the Stanley #72 Chamfer Plane (See Figure 1). The patent also included a drawing of the “spokeshave” style chamfer plane discussed in Part I (http://eaiainfo.org/2018/01/06/trauts-model-shop-chamfer-planes-part-1/).  For consistency, the […]

Brown’s 51st International Antique Tool Auction was held on October 28th, 2017, at the Radisson Hotel in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.  There was active bidding in the room as well as from absentee bidders.  The prices realized that are listed in this post include a 13% buyer’s premium. Prices shown below enclosed in square brackets are […]

From its inception the Stanley Rule & Level Company was very attentive to its customers needs and desires.  Their salesmen were instructed to listen carefully to comments and suggestions from their customers about the tools they manufactured and bring that information back to the foremen in the shop.  Because of the nature of the “inside […]

This post is a bit longer than those I’ve written in the past, but I hope you’ll enjoy the story that’s in here about another interesting plane from the Stanley Model Shop. 1873 to 1879 were tough years for the Stanley Rule & Level Company as well as the rest of the U.S. economy.  The […]

It’s late in the year 1875, and Justus Traut and the men in his shop at Stanley Rule & Level Company are still diligently working on a cutter adjustment mechanism for the Stanley #110 block plane. Traut and Henry Richards, one of the “mechanics” working in Traut’s  shop, produced the block plane prototype shown in […]