General blog post
In May of 2024 I took a long drive down to a place near Wollongong to pick up a collection of tools that Alan contacted me about some months earlier. He had inherited a collection of tools from his father, a cabinet maker. I was excited about the extensive collection Read more…
An article to explain how we clean vintage tools and why we use these methods. It compares hand, powered & chemical cleaning
I was in the lucky position to be able to commission a handmade Mathieson style Mitre Plane by Bruce Neville. This is my experience of the process and the results. This is a completely independent review.
An article documenting our process for restoring an infill plane. It includes metal and wood restoration and bringing the tool back to life.
Although this article is titled the best way to restore, it actually includes things you should never do if you want to restore vintage tools. The reason for this is that there are numerous ways to restore tools and they are all ok, but there are some methods which you Read more…
On a recent trip I visited the Wooden Boat Centre located in Franklin, Tasmania where for the past 30 years, they’ve been producing a range of beautiful timber boats. The timber boats are crafted by hand on the banks of the Huon River using local timbers and traditional methods.
Wooden planes are simple to restore, but there are limits. We tend to only restore planes which are intact and complete. We have restored the mouths and handles of some wooden planes, but otherwise we tend to leave them alone. The surface finish As with most of our tools we Read more…
Buying, restoring and learning about a collection of vintage Dutch woodworking tools
This Stanley bench plane type study only applies to planes made in the USA. Stanley also made planes in the UK from the 1937 to late 1980s, Canada from the 1908 and Australia from 1965 to 1990s. To date Stanley planes from countries other than the USA please seek an Read more…
This article gives an insight into the Old Tool Shop’s sympathetic restoration methods