Arising from my continuing research into the convoluted and fascinating world of British adjustable spanners, towards my completing an extensive Supplement to my book, I am commenting on a catalogue item in 'Catalogues on Disc No.2', 'Governor / Trojan / EC Atkins (not dated) 124 pages'.
Bob Burgess has kindly allowed us to reprint his 2012 article on Mortising Axes, Twybills and the like. Well worth a read. To read the original article, please click here
In this article I will be discussing four minor plane makers located in Bath, Somerset, about whom very little has previously been known. Strictly speaking only two, John Debank and John Baker, actually made planes; the other two, Stephen Waller and Joseph Swetman, were ironmongers who sold planes bearing their own name, without the name of the man who made them stamped upon the plane.
The photographs here throw a tiny light on an aspect of warfare which is seldom talked about - the support systems for the actual fighting. We are so used to seeing images of men going over the top to their death that it is easy to forget that huge numbers lived and worked behind the lines, building shelter, feeding the troops, laying rail and road ways and transporting materials.
I thought you were using your antique turning heel tool upside down.
I treat all these old articles, and especially illustrations, with extreme caution. Many of them, if not all, were written and drawn by professional writers and illustrators, not professional tradesmen, turners, in this case.
The David Stanley auction catalogue for the sale in September 2014 included lot 123 described as "A rare pair of 18/19c lathe tools with birch stocks and hand forged irons probably for turning bowls." I thought I had a better idea of what they were and that it was nothing to do with making bowls.
Although eighteenth century woodworking tools survive in surprising numbers, they are mainly found to be specialised types whose slumber in their owners' tool chests was rarely disturbed, like panel-fielding planes, moulders, or gouges. Everyday tools such as hand saws, hones and mallets are rarities, simply because they wore out.