Toolemera Blog

The Cyclical Nature Of Collecting

Ever notice how collecting stuff runs in cycles? There's nothing, then there's a few things and then there's tons of things. Then back to nothing.

Possibly because I am now reading Terry Pratchett's new book "Snuff", which is looking to be one of his best yet, along with Mort, The Colour Of Magic and Going Postal, I find myself seeing patterns where there may be none. This from a professed believer in non-beliefs. Some people call me an athiest, some an agnosic. Honestly, I have never taken the time to make a decision on what I believe in or don't believe in. There has never been a pressing reason for me to make such a decision. When the time comes for me to do so, I am sure I will.

Be warned, when I read Disc World books, my master of verbiage and grasp of proper grammar goes out the basement windows of which there are six and all in need of replacement. I currently have two replacement windows and can't seem to decide which two to replace first.

A cyclical example: A while back I left middling to low bids on what looked to me like an ebony body unhandled plow plane (no fence, just the body) and on a handled fillester that looked like rosewood. Both came my way at crazy low prices and both were what I thought they were. Then, nothing for weeks and weeks.

Next up, a nice plow at an auction for cheap and a first edition of Stokes Cabinet Maker all in the same day.

There must be a rationale behind this.

Till next, Gary

 

iCloud, iDisk, .Mac, .Me, Stanley Book, Book Covers and Flounder

A. I am now migrated to iCloud, for better or for worse. Or for having no choice but to do so. Mail works much better. No iDisk for the future, so I'll have to figure out something to replace my Public Folder for easy peasey document transfers. At least now I can say I truly have my head in the clouds.

B. iDisk is soon to be vintage. Maybe I can sell it on Ebay?

C. .Mac is already vintage but I am keeping my .mac email because I still despise using .me.

D. .Me. I despise .me as an email address. 'Nuff said.

E. Stanley Book. At long last, Walter Jacob's book: Stanley Woodworking Tools: The Finest Years, is on the way to the Proof stage, soon to be proofed and then to be offered for sale. Stay tuned for the big announcement.

F. Book Covers. I loaded Snow Leopard in all it's glory to a partition on a 1 TB Samsung hard disc and all is glory now. The book cover software, along with a variety of other bits and pieces of bits and bytes that didn't like Lion are now happy.

G. Flounder. Flounder fishing is one of the most relaxing past times ever invented. I'm not talking about fishing from a boat. Not even fishing from a pier or a jetty. I'm talking fishing from a soft sand beach, one with gentle waves. Sand spike, medium weight salt water fishing gear, suns screen, beach chair, hat and you watch the water and wait. Some people fish for winter flounder. Me, it's spring and summer. The Zen of Fishing.

Till next, Gary

What A Wooden Plane Cost In 1840

Here's a look at part of the John Bowles planemakers price list I'm prepping for the Toolemera website. Bowles worked in Hartford, Ct., 1838-1843. From what we know of him, his was a small shop, typical of many 19th Century planemakers.

Take a look at the prices and types of planes offered. Aside from asking: What was a chimney plane, you can see what he was asking for many average wooden planes. He worked in a competitive area of the country as Hartford was home to a number of tool makers.

Simply something to think about. And drool over.

Till next, Gary

To eBook, Or, Not?

Hah! You thought I was going to do a Shakespeare quote, didn't you?

While waiting for the water to boil for pasta (rice pasta elbows, bolognese sauce, chicken-apple sausage), the lower left corner of my brain was working on this conundrum: What to do about DRM, or the lack thereof, scam artists, eBooks and old books that defy high quality digitization and digital reprinting?

Some early books, possessing of some very fine engravings, simply do not like modern commercial digital printing. The engravings come out with moire patterning, artifacts, blurring, elves, unicorns and all sorts of unwanted creatures. In some cases, it's no big deal, just an annoyance. But when the engraving IS the feature, that's a problem.

An option is to produce a high quality eBook for the iPad, Nook or even, gasp! The Kindle (must we bow to the great A?). That means that as soon as you do so, the doc will be scammed through various parts of the world and redistributed all over. Many of these book are already available for free through Google Books or the Internet Archive, although the quality runs from deplorable to illegible to good but huge in size.

Possibly, just possibly, I'm considering, only considering, mind you, publishing some books through the iPad service. Decent DRM, good PDF handling, good management of source material and a reasonable publisher price split. It does go against the paper in my veins, but it may be the only way to properly conserve these books, at least without finger tips intruding on the pages.

The kicker will be document size. The pdf needs to be small enough to meet iPad guidelines yet contain sufficient detail to meet the needs of the original book. At some point, some experimentation in Acrobat and Photoshop is in order (and putting my Mad Scientist goggles on too).

Maybe not Kindle. There is already too much junkgarbagetrashscam going on there. Besides, Amazon's mother wears army boots, so nyah!

Till next, Gary

What's Right/Wrong With Today's Tool Makers?

While in the process of figuring out how to reduce the workload on my poor, achey, aging, tired, graying (this is where you jump in and shower "oh poor Gary's" on me) master of his domains head, meaning: I got a few too many bits and bytes floating around out there and they have to be consolidated somehow and now seems to be a good time to begin figuring out how to do it, I had a thought [end, run-on sentence].

There's a few neat pieces of ephemera I'm prepping to post on the Toolemera website. Both are from early 19th Century U.S. planemakers. One is correspondence and the other is a price list. What struck me, and it struck me rather hard in the head if I must say so, is that these guys sold to practicing woodworkers. Duh! Yup, that was my Duh! moment. You could buy your basic beech plane or you could buy your boxwood, rosewood or even ebony plane if you so desired and you had the hard cash or live cow to trade for it.