I’m taking a week-long class next week (8Aug11) with Christopher Schwarz, called “By Hammer & Hand: The Dovetailed Schoolbox”. It’s a project based on one from The Joiner and Cabinet Maker, but we also be making a few shop appliances as well–a bench hook, shooting board, and a double-screw vise for dovetailing. I got the tool list last week and am still trying to figure out how the heck I am going to get all my tools up to Manchester. I’m hoping I only need to schlep them up there on Monday and back on Friday, that way I can ride the moto Tue-Thurs.

That’s a lot of tools. Right to left, lower section: Two panel saws, two tenon saws, dovetail saw, fretsaw, card scrapers, dividers (I still need to get another one), various screwdrivers and knives, chisel persuasion device (aka a hammer) and chisels. R-L top row, ~1870s beading plane, jointer plane, Stanley foreplane, smoothing plane, wooden chisel persuasion devise, tiny router plane, low-angle block plane, shoulder plane and small plow plane. The cool thing about this–I can see exactly what tools I most use and need for doing furniture by hand and while it seems like a lot, it really is not. Probably my most used tools are my foreplane, saws, marking knives and gauges, and chisels.

I’ll also have to bring my sharpening rig, which are stacked up in the back there: 3 different oil stones, a combination India stone, a soft arkansas and a black arkansas, plus two different jigs. I use a Veritas jig for chisels and a cheapo eclipse, narrow wheel for plane blades.

I also found a couple of old chisels at a church tag sale. They looked like some sort of rust experiment, but I could tell they had potential. I paid $2 for both of them. I went out, got some rust remover (Navy Jelly) and followed the directions. Most of it sloughed off as I rinsed off the jelly and the rest beat a hasty retreat after getting the steel wool and elbow grease treatment. Like a dork I forgot the before picture, so you’ll have to take my word for the rust. They were not marked and the guy thought maybe the $2 he was asking was too much, if that gives you any idea. Only one of them had any markings, what looks like “ENDERS” or “ENDERST” or possibly even just “NDERS”. The first E and possible end T are part of the box that surrounds the mark. I need to find a good reference guide for tool makers.

After pics, the fronts of both of these chisels had barnacle-level rust on them.

The backs were not as bad.

And a close-up of the only maker’s mark I could find on either one. This is actually more legible with the macro on my camera than I can read in the same light.