Toolemera Blog

Australia and New Zealand Printing Services

After a very long passage of time, I now have active printing and shipping services in Australia via Lightning Source/Ingram. The contracts are signed where they are supposed to be signed, the online short run order form is active and all is good.

If you live in New Zealand or Australia you can order direct from the Toolemera Shop and your books will be printed locally and shipped direct at local costs. No more UK shipping costs. No more waiting for UK shipping times. No more UK shipments disappearing into the cold, dark depths of the ocean.

Now if only there were a few Australian books to reprint that were copyright cleared...

Till next, Gary

John Farey, Thomas Martin, Mr. Anyonymous

I've been occupied in digging as deeply as possible into every intsy bit of data I can dig up on John Farey and Thomas Martin in an effort to determine if they are one and the same.

There is, what at present I will call a bit of mythology, that Thomas Martin, author of The Circle Of The Mechanical Arts and The Carpenters and Joiners' Instructor was actually John Farey, a geoleogist, civil engineer, polymath and all around latter day Da Vinci.

In this endeavor, I have checked citations to their sources, referenced original journals, compared original books, read obits, and generally done all that I can think of short of hiring a medium.

I can find no hard evidence that John Farey wrote as Thomas Martin. For that matter, I can find no evidence that a Thomas Martin actually existed as a civil engineer. But, not all Civil Engineers were members of formal societies.

The Circle Of The Mechanical Arts was an EDITED work rather than an Authored work. The editor freely thanks all those experts who contriburted their expertise to the volume, which volume continued to be referenced for many years after in numerous technical works.

The second title, Instructor, of which I have a copy, is essentially a reprint of the Carpentry and Joinery section of Circle. Someone thought it was worthwhile as there is a note on the inside front cover:

"Presented by R. Snowdon to M Henry Creamer as a Mark of his Respect this 16th day of February 1842"

The book was published in 1826.

The book binding section of Circle was writting by a G. Martin, who subsequently published that chapter under his own title (thanks to Jeff Peachy for bringing this to my attention). Other than the last name, I take that to be a coincidence.

At a later date I'll pull together all the citations, obits, advertisements, etc. that document this search. Much of this will find it's way into the intro to the reprint of Circle. For now, so far as I am concerned, there is no evidence to support Farey as Martin. The references I've received that refer to Farey as Martin are simply to technical articles Farey wrote that have nothing to do with bookbinding, Circle, or publshing of any sort.

If anyone has any good solid information, I'ld appreciate a buzz. The legal sort, please.

Martin's Half Circle Of The Mechanical Arts

Thomas Martin wrote The tome of The Mechanical Arts back in 1813. Unfortunately for Thomas, shortly thereafter Peter Nicholson came out with his Mechanic's Companion, a volume of smaller dimensions, fewer pages and most of all, bearing the name of a more well known author.

Still and all, at the time of it's publishing, The Circle Of The Mechanical Arts met with much praise and approbration by the learned community of learned folks, or at least of those folks who wanted to appear to each other as being learned. Some things never change.

I've been prepping my copy for publication. In doing so, I found that a few of the plates were nigh on impossible to reproduce by any means. Not many, just two. Being the resourceful type of bloke that I am, I ordered a copy from Kirtas Books. Kirtas Books is the sales arm of Kirtas, the people who make the machinery that powers Google Books and many university driven book digitization projects.

Before you raise your arms high and shout: "Woa, there! Those Google Books are messy!", I have to set the story right and say that it's not the equipment, it's the operators. Most are paid minimum wage, barely trained, unsupervised and the outgoing product is, as we all know, not exactly checked for quality.

Back to the copy I ordered. I wanted to see if another copy of the book would produce a decent image. Unfortunately, Kirtas had to refund my order price as they were unable to digitize the book. Rats. Mice and other furry critters. So Google Books could pull a copy but Kirtas couldn't.

I could always go ahead and publish with the two plates as blank pages with a note on each page stating: "Don't Stop Here! Keep Reading!" or something to that effect. Or add the two nearly illegible plates with notes of abject apology. It's these decisions that keep publisher committees up late at night. Luckily for me, I am a committee of one. We'll be discussing this vexing issue late into the Leap Night in pursuit of a reasonable answer.

Happy Leap Year, Gary

Verrry Fishy

Sometime in the not verrry distant future there will be an expansion into fish, agriculture, cookery and suchlike at the main website. The material is there in my files. I simply haven't had time to get to it.

This entire process of sorting and filing is helpful in realizing just how much of a hoard... sorry, student of history I have been and continue to be. Plus, at times I tire of the endless debates on left handed versus right handed dovetail saws and why the nib was made His Nibs.

There Will Be Fishing. That's for certain. I have a fair amount of fishing ephemera and continue to add to that personal library. Much of it is Garcia Mitchell. In fact, almost all of it is although other names trickle in here and there. Then there are the rods and reels. I have a weakness for Conolon and Narmco rods, in particular the Gold series rods.

What, you don't know of what I write? You will. As certainly as Great A'Tuin slowly traverses the heavens, so will Garcia information slowly find it's way to my website and blog. Much of it is from the 1950-1960 era, which, for fishing tackle, is down right vintage. No fly fishing, sorry. I'm a spinning guy. Maybe some spin casting and once in a bit some bait casting but on a whole, spinning tackle. I'll leave the fly stuff for the gentry.

Agriculture is a weak point of mine. Strangely enough, there was not much farming going on in Jamaica, New York City during my formative years. I did spend some summers on various farms which does help but on a whole, it's a subject I'll be reaching out to others for advice on.

Cookery is something I can relate to. In past employment, I've been a short order cook, hash slinger, call it what you will and for decades an avocational cook specializing in whatever I like to eat that is fast and easy to make. And of course, old books about cookery so I have a few nice ones on the shelves.

Camp Cookery is a favorite topic but as for old books, is a tough title to track down. For some odd reason, these books tend to be handled roughly, have numerous recipes pasted all over them and have fallen into such disrepair that the only solution is to wring the cooking oil out of them and make paper mache from the ramains. But, I persevere in their pursuit.

Now, I'm hungry. For fish.

Till next, Gary

And then there is the Internet Archive

Internet Archive BookReader

Till next, Gary