Toolemera Blog

Hand Tool Makers (.com)

Site review : handtoolmakers.com.

Disclosure Statement - Hand Tool Makers is one of my sites. Which is to say, whatever I say in this review is completely biased, self-serving and should be taken with no more than one grain of salt. Or in my case, no salt at all. High blood pressure, ya' know.

What began as Luddites R Us has morphed into Hand Tool Makers, a website devoted to the makers or hand tools. If you are still with me on this, please read on.

In brief, Hand Tool Makers is an online directory of people who make hand tools for a living, for some commercial gain, for their own use, for gifts or who have made them in the long-ago past for us collectors to pay big bucks for and place on our display shelves. Hand Tool Makers is not limited to woodworking tools, although it may seem to be at this point in time. Any craft or trade can be represented. I'll be adding a Book Arts section shortly, which may not surprise anyone who reads this blog.

The site is divided into three sections:

Commercial
For people or companies who make hand tools for a living or for some financial gain.

User Made
For people who make hand tools for their own use, for show or as gifts.

Historical
A compendium of hand tool categories and types through the ages. Examples, hopefully, will be: Hand Planes, Chisels, Saws, Marking Gauges, etc. This won't be a listing of companies. Rather, it will be an ongoing gallery of tools by type. For example, under Hand Planes you would find: Hollow & Round; Rabbets in all their glory; Plow, etc. The intent is to provide a review of the multitude of shapes and forms hand tools have come in over the ages. Images will be contributed primarily by the folks out there. When I am ready to work on a section, I'll request image contributions from various email lists and forums.

Listings are by request or referral. Someone or something may find their selves or it-selves listed without ever having requested said listing. Images may appear in the listings that have clearly been 'borrowed' from the property owner's website. Same for data such as email contacts and addresses. All such material will be posted under the geas of Fair Use. If anyone doesn't want to be listed, takes offense for some reason or would like images or other data to be removed, I will happily do so without remorse.

For now, I'm adding material as people recommend sites or request a listing. I have no doubt that I will thank someone for their recommendation or request and then forget to complete the listing. Don't be afraid to bug me. I'm working first on the Commercial section, to be followed by the User Made section.

Till next, Gary

Hide Glue - The Book You Gotta Have

Hide Glue: Historical & Practical Applications. By Stephen A. Shepherd. Well, Chris Schwarz may have beat me to the review, but I'll take sloppy seconds any day on a book such as this one.

Stephen Shepherd is author of the Full Chisel Blog, a blog that should be a must-read on the list of any woodworker, fan of early trades, artist, historian, furniture restorer or conservator, humorist, &c, &c. Why? Because Stephen is all of these.

Hidden behind those antiquarian spectacles of his is a serious student of the history of tools, trades and all things historical. If you really want to embarrass Stephen, search out his CV under Bio at The Old Website.

Now that I have exposed his studious past, let's talk, albeit briefly, about his new book on Hide Glue. I won't go into the details that Chris covered as I know that by now, you have read his post. In fact, if you hadn't read his post when it first was posted, your post reading skills are woefully inadequate. What with RSS feeds, email updates, bookmarks, Twitter and all that stuff, you really have to get with it!

Hide Glue is, and I will say it, the one book you should buy this year. Wait, never mind that. Please by my books too. Let's try this again. Hide Glue, by Stephen Shepherd is THE book on Hide Glue. Part introduction, part user instructions, part history and part What Makes Hide Glue Tick, this is the most accessible and comprehensive book or article that I have read on the subject.

Add to these praises a set of illustrations that are not to be missed. Let me say that I am not a fan of Graham Blackburn. I am a fan of Eric Sloane. Why? Because Sloane's sketches are live and Blackburn's are inanimate. Stephen's sketches are in the first category. You feel as if you are there, looking at the scene or item. I am sure I have caused Stephen further embarrassment, but that is the hard life of the author.

You can, and should, buy your copy of Hide Glue: Historical & Practical Applications at Tools For Working Wood, Joel Moskowitz' hangout. In addition, you really should add hide glue to your arsenal of adhesives.

Till next, Gary

What books would you like to see back in print?

This may very well be one of my shortest blog posts in history. What out-of-print crafts and trades books would you like to see in print again? I have my list, many of which are new to the community (my secret... if I told you, it wouldn't be a secret, as my nephew so wisely put it). Everyone has their favorites. What are yours?

Till next, Gary

When real looks like a mistake

 A few people have contacted me about the recent release of Mechanick Exercises in a digital format. The experience of reading it as it was printed, warts and all, gave the hands-on feeling I was looking for. But... the question is: why is there scan-through and is that a mistake?

I scratched my head for a minute. An easy task now as my hair thins. After loosening a few more hairs, I realized why people thought this was a case of scan-through. First, what is scan-through? When you scan a piece of paper, or page from a book, the light of the scanner bulb may shine through the page, reflect from the white backing of the top platten and produce a ghost image of what is on the reverse of the page. The typical resolution for this problem is to place a piece of black paper or other material on top of the paper to be scanned. No reflection, no scan-through.

So take a look at this image to the left. This is a low resolution copy of one of the TIFF images I used to create the PDF. The text block is all akilter and there are what looks like scan-through images from the next page. But no, this page looks exactly like the original.

Look closely at the enlargement (go ahead, click on the image). You can see the impressions of the type, the fault of the printer using too much pressure. You can see ghost-like images of the letters. This is bleed through from the original ink. Was there too much ink on the type or perhaps over the centuries there was some bleed-through or chemical change to produce the ghost image? On pages facing ink heavy graphics, you can often see an image of the graphics from the facing page. Decades or centuries of pressure and chemical actions have transferred the image from one page to another.

All this is part of reading the original text. Many modern facsimiles are actually 'literal' facsimiles that have been re-typeset with a matching font along with photographic or digital copies of the graphic elements. With the advent of new digital imaging technologies (Google Books, for one), high resolution digital cameras take a shot of the page and some very advanced imaging software removes the 'offending' background clutter. What you get is a black or gray type against a stark white background. Fine details, such as the lines in old wood, copper or steel engravings are lost or mushed together (that's a technical word used by Yiddish pressmen). Some attempt is made to isolate and image the engraved portions as separate items. The result is usually less than satisfactory when processed by your average scan operator. You end up with those annoying moire lines, funny color artifacts or just plain burry images.

That is why I like true facsimile reproductions. Ok, so 'true facsimile' is a repetitive statement. I should worry? You should have better things to do with your day than get all ver klempt about repetitive statements.

And that is why (Sorry Mr. Schwarz, it's a poorly formed sentence, but I am still too ver klempt what with all this mishagos to remember my high school grammar) I like to read facsimiles and to publish them. When possible, I like to have the experience of  reading the real thing. If I can't afford to buy a copy of the real thing, a good facsimile is the next best thing to the real thing. That's enough about Things for today. If you want to learn more about Things, go rent a copy of The Adams Family.

Till  next, Gary

Of Bindings, in Paper, Cloth or Leather

Lately I've been reading up on cloth book bindings of the 19th century. It's not a difficult topic to read up on as there is not all that much written on the subject. At least in comparison to some other topics. i've become one of those peculiar people who, if he reads or purchases a book with a jacket, immediately removes the jacket to see what the cased cover looks like (casing being the typical cloth binding method of today). I want to see if there is an imprint in faux gold on the cover, what the spine looks like and if some nicely colored cloth was used. Or if the publisher opted for a bland but serviceable library type binding.

Perhaps it's because I spend so much time with books of the 19th Century that my fingers seem to prefer a cloth, or embossed cloth binding. Paper book jackets just seem so, un-bookish to me now. My tactile sense is confused. Am I holding a paperback or a hard back book? I have to be careful of the jacket too. They tend to slip up and down on the book, come loose at awkward moments and are edible delights to some cats.

When I walk into a used book store (or antiquarian book store as they prefer to say in Bahsten) I gravitate towards the shelves of gold stamped cloth or leather bindings. It's as if the radar in my head (once I remove the aluminum foil of course) picks up the reflected signals of the metallic stamping and directs me to the proper target. The new book market loves book jackets, or laminated book covers for trade paperbacks. Line them up on miriad shelves and you have a concaphony of images, colors. titles and authors.

Give me a shelf of stamped cloth bindings and I can most likely pick out those published by Henry Carey Baird, Evans Bros, Upton Gill (sorry, not much yet on these guys), and so on. I'm not bragging. It's just a learned habit. I can scan across the shelf and pick up the titles or authors with ease.

"Manual of Book-Binding. Nicholson. Baird"
"Holtzapffel's Turning and Mechanical Manipulation. Vol. II. Construction and Action of Cutting Tools. London. 1847"
"Drawing for Carpenter's & Joiners. Cassell's"

And so on. I don't have to figure out what the jacket cover really means, what the image has to do with the title (if anything) and why the author's name is either larger or smaller than the title. Beware the tiny author, that's a newbie and possibly written by a high school senior for a class project. Stick with the AUTHOR title book jacket for safety.

Recently Chris Schwarz published his interpretation of Moxon's chapter on Joinery as a hard back book. No jacket, just a nicely colored cloth with a stamped spine and cover. This book fits into my book shelf comfortably, as if it was a product of Baird & Co. When I read it, the cloth cover presents a comfortable tactile experience, unlike a slick paper jacket, complete with film laminated protection or a polyester book jacket protector.

I realize that it's more expensive to produce a book with a cloth cover. But these books are meant to be read, enjoyed, used, and reread. Guess I'm a cloth book cover snob at heart. S'cuse me while I fill my glass of Tanqueray Gin & Schwepps Tonic Water, twist of barbados lime and relax in my broadcloth shirt, khaki Brooks Brothers slacks and TopSider mocassins, sans socks, on the porch over looking the Habah.

Till next, Gary