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Sunday, May 6, 2012

Off-grid Carpentry

Bailey type No. 5 Jack PlaneBailey type No. 5 Jack Plane (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Original Article

I could also call this old-fashioned carpentry, since this list comes from Handy Farm Devices and How To Make Them, a book from 1907.

This is a list of the essential tools needed for a farmer in the ages before electricity. Mr D and I will use this as our checklist as we build up our tool collection. Where I could, and felt it necessary, I added notes and descriptions. Any thoughts?
  • Rip saw - the front edge is flat and the teeth are not angled forward or backward, allowing each tooth to act like a chisel instead of a knife so that the saw does not follow grain lines.
  • Crosscut saw - the front edge is flat, the cutting edge of each tooth is angled back with a beveled edge, allowing each tooth to act like a knife and cut horizontally through a trunk or piece of lumber.
  • Back saw - a handsaw with a stiffening rib opposite the cutting edge, allowing for more precise cutting.
  • Compass saw - a handsaw with a narrow triangular blade for cutting circles and curves in wood
  • Keyhole saw - smaller than a compass saw, this is the non-electric version of a jigsaw, with a long, narrow, tapered blade.
  • Scrub plane - plane used to remove large amounts of wood from the surface of lumber, it makes a deep, gouging cut
  • Jack plane - general all-purpose bench plane, the "jack of all trades", about 12-15 inches long, used after the scrub plane and before the jointer plane and smooth plane.
  • Fore plane (also called jointer plane, try plane or trying plane) is used to straighten the edges of boards or flatten the surface of a board
  • Smoothing plane - used properly, this gives a much finer surface than sandpaper or scrapers
  • Drawknife - this is a long, curved blade with a handle at each end and is used to shape wood by removing shavings
  • Two or three chisels of different sizes for woodworking
  • Cold chisel - a tool made of tempered steel used for cutting "cold" metals, ie., ones that have not been heated in some fashion
  • A gouge or two - similar to a chisel except that the blade edge is curved instead of flat
  • A good hatchet - a small, short-handled ax, usually with a hammer on the side opposite the blade
  • Two or three hammers, including a tack hammer (for small nails) and a bell-faced claw hammer
  • Brace or bit stock with a set of half a dozen or more bits of different sizes
  • One or more gimlets - a small tool for boring holes, having a shaft with a pointed screw on one end and a handle perpendicular to the shaft on the other
  • Mallet - a hammer with a rubber head
  • Nail set
  • Large screw driver and a small one
  • Gauge
  • Spirit level - where the bubble lets you know if the piece is straight
  • Miter box - for cutting precise angles, usually with a backsaw
  • Steel square
  • Compasses or dividers
  • Cut nippers - possibly an old term for tin snips?
  • A pair of small pincers and a pair of large ones
  • A rasp
  • A large, flat file
  • At least one medium-sized three-cornered file
  • A half-round file - a file that is flat on one side and convex on the other
  • A variety of nails, brads and tacks, screws, rivets, bolts, washers and nuts
  • Small bolts about 2 inches long with thumb nuts
  • Hinges, hasps, staples, sandpaper
  • A good plumb line, chalk and pencils
  • A pair of carpenter's saw benches, a shaving horse, a small anvil and a grindstone
  • Painting supplies, including several colors of good standard ready-mixed paints and stains, raw linseed (flaxseed) oil, boiled linseed oil, turpentine, varnish, putty, points for setting glass, several brushes of different sizes, a good putty knife and panes of glass of different sizes ready for emergency
  • Soldering iron, a bar of solder, resin, a little bottle of soldering fluid, which can be purchased already prepared, also a small sheet-iron furnace in which to heat the soldering iron - A non-electric soldering iron has a wooden handle and is available in different sizes. Like its electric counterpart, it is heated and then apply to the solder.
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