How should we approach tool restoration and care? (articles)

[JQuacker]

Hey y'all - over the past few weeks, I've written a trio of articles on how we should approach the art of restoration and care. Thought I'd share them with you fine folks.


The Price of Immortality

...A knowledge that the things that are here now, “were”, and only are here now because those before us took care and understood the need to carry such things into the future....

Suyanisqatsi: Life in Balance

...Carry the idea of balance over to antique tools and the restoration process and into the decision to use instead of display. There is rarely a right and wrong with a life in balance. The truth of the matter lies somewhere in the middle....

Tsukumogami: The Soul of the Tool

...Past owners leave their marks on a tool. Sometimes this is manifest in a literal stamp of their name. Other times it is sadly seen in abuse and misuse, a lack of care. As with those who abuse their own lives, gunk and sadness can infect a tool and cause rot and decay....

[TGW]

First and foremost I want to thank you for bringing up the philosophical side of tools.

However I have for a long time been thinking of another side of it.
Living here in Österbotten in a village with roots in late mediieval times in a parish with roots in prehistory I have come up with theese two principles:

Every significant investment must be used for several generations to validate it's cost. Otherwise society will not be able to carry the cost of proper investments and hence it well be drained of wealth
-The marsh that my greatgrandparents drained and creared of stumps and stones and turned into fields must produce food and cattle fodder for several generations in order to validate the time and effort spent clearing them. If hundreds of generations before us all over the country hadn't used up their best years and worn out their bodies prematurely clearing stones and digging dithes we would have nothing to eat. Whatever way the economists turn it nobody can survive without food.
-A good house must house one generation before it is paid off and then several more generations if there is to be any increase in wealth. If houses are ready for demolition as soon as the loan is paid then we are back to poverty on square one having to build another house at a higher cost as materials becomes scarcer at the rate that used up materials go to landfills.
-No craftsman can possibly have a carreer long enough to carry the cost of purchasing every tool new. Hence one has to pass tools from generation to generation to generation or revert back to a primitive era with fewer and inferrior tools and with a corresponding unability to make stuff. Without enough good tools every generation will make less stuff and over time society will revert back to the stone age.

Wealth is measured in accumulated usable wealth not in turnover.
You can have any amount of turnover and everything may look good on paper according to the flawad economical principles of today but if there is no accumulation you will be just as poor and helpless as you were at the outset. A society gets rich only by accumulating and using wealth in a way that doesn't diminish it.

Hence it is a duty for all of us to use what we got in the best possible way while caring for it in order to pass it on with the least possible damage to future generations.
This applies to everything from fields to houses to tools and even to mother earth herself.

[JQuacker]

That's a lot of unpack. I'm going to have to read it a few times and digest it.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on these things!

[Downwindtracker2]

Of course good tools are expensive, you are buying a tool your grandson can use. Don't get poisoned by walmart juice.

[daddo]

Met a man who loved, cherished and collected stamps. He had thousands. I wouldn't know what to do with them had he given them all to me, and quite frankly, I'd get rid of them in storage or sell them all off at whatever price.

To a different person, tools may become "All that stuff in the garage". Remember that when thinking Grandsons will inherently cherish your tools as you did.

[JimReed@Tallahassee]

Well I like to rescue old tools. It makes me feel good to put them back into service. I do come across abused tools but most of them are abused through ignorance (poor sharpening skills) or neglect (rust). Older tools seem to be easier to rehab--I think they were made with restoration in mind. Post WWII tools, however, can be a challenge.

[JQuacker]

Well I like to rescue old tools. It makes me feel good to put them back into service. I do come across abused tools but most of them are abused through ignorance (poor sharpening skills) or neglect (rust). Older tools seem to be easier to rehab--I think they were made with restoration in mind. Post WWII tools, however, can be a challenge.

And you do a very fine job of it, sir! Always like seeing your posts for sale just because of the care that went into the restore.

[jasfrank]

Interesting thread JQuaker. I'm not sure that restoration adds much to long term value at all. Consider the fact that everyone is consumed by the "gloat" or the "deal". If they actually paid what they perceived as real value they wouldn't own it. Sort of like how most of the quality tools come into existence. Through schools or big business purchases, or with other peoples money, no small enterprise or individuals could even consider them. Back in the 70's quality unisaws were around $2000 new and about  half on the used market. They bring less today even if in perfect condition, so is that a store of value? Get a clunker, fix it up like new and see if you can turn a dime.... Same applies to hand tools I'd say.

[Downwindtracker2]

Looking through my books I found it, Stanley Hand Tools Catalog #713 January 1971 .I thought over the years I had lost it. This was for the Canadian market." Stanley has manufactured in Canada for over 50 years .Plants in Hamilton ,New Hamburg Ont., Roxton Pond Que."

I started my apprenticeship in July 1971.That fall I sent away for some books from Stanley, Router Manual, remember then Stanley made the good routers, Working Wood, a pocket book , Modern Furniture, English style Danish Modern, and this catalog. As an apprentice I wanted to know what tools were available. At the time I was making $2.90 an hour. Room and board at home and car payments on my new Simca 1204, these were not flush times
.
Some prices: a 100plus #923 brace $22.59 , A boxed set of 100plus Russel Jenning type bits $55.45. At the time I bought a MillerFall brace and Irwin style bits one at a rime as needed. Which I still have.

I've been given heck for a lack of ability to post photos, so posting this is way beyond my skill set.

[Admiral]

Very telling.  Inflation adjusted from 1971 puts the RJ bits at +$300 today.  That's saying something, and new from TFWW, a set of only 9, not 13, cost about $300.  Sets regularly go for under $100 in the S&S.

https://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/stor...for_Braces