Another view of the bronze drill

[george wilson]

This view shows the contouring of the bevel gear better. I need to go over the drill as it was away for many years,and has been buffed. Need to sharpen it back up.

I made it for a wealthy tool collector,who had a huge collection that he planned to make a museum for. He never got around to it,and is now elderly. In a visit of the Early American Industries Association that was in my shop few years ago,he very generously offered to return it to me.

[Johnny Kleso]

Wow very nice work.....

[Leigh Betsch]

Keep posting George these are great! Then lets vote. I'm vot'n for the rabbit plane.

[george wilson]

I made other rabbett planes. People kept offering money! The drill was much more trouble.Actually,I have made very many planes.Used to make planes almost exclusively at home. I had a very small shop,and made small things.

[Leigh Betsch]

Your craftsmanship is inspiring. I used to be a moldmaker so I know metal, and precision machining. Splitting a .001 was not even work, now splitting a .0001 took some effort but could be done in the right climate controlled room. Nowadays it's all CNC. But your work is true craftsmanship.

[Jameel Abraham]

More tool candy. Gorgeous work George!

[george wilson]

Leigh,I can't even use a computer much,let alone CNC stuff!

[harry strasil]

Don't ever learn CNC, you are too good a craftsman to waste on CNC, Besides CNC can't come close to doing what you are capable of, I wish I had a 10th of your abilities.

[george wilson]

Harry,you speak the truth. CNC cannot create with the subtlety of hand workmanship,though I have seen work at NASA that would be very difficult to do by old methods. It has its place,but not among the fine arts.

[Brian Kent]

Did you do the metal work on the gears?

[george wilson]

Yes,Brian. There is no other way to get them(except,I suppose,to pay $500.00 for some machine shop to cut them). I am also a machinist,and have a complete machine shop for doing all such work. That is done on my Harrisson universal horizontal mill with an index head, The gears are,of course,tapered,but that,too, is done with indexing.Most of the other work is essentially hand filing,especially the bevels on the frame and crank handle. Wood is hand turned. All contoured steel and brass parts also freehand turned. I have no CNC,nor could CNC really do it with finesse.

[Brian Kent]

That is done on my Harrisson universal horizontal mill with an index head…

Aah, the Harrisson universal horizontal mill with an index head! i should have guessed. Actually I have no idea what that is, but I am content in my ignorance for the time being.;)

[Clay Thigpen]

As always Beautiful work George. That's sad about the tool collector though so many unique tools can find their way into private collections and it's be nice to see more museums for this kind of stuff. Then again with the economy the way it is it's not hard to see how ideas like that just never make it to fruition. The car museum at Stone Mountain,GA shut down and the owner auctioned off the contents last weekend. Attendance had dropped from 900 people on a good weekend to less than 300 on average. But you know all to well how this goes.

[Bill White]

George, why not a full showing of your work (Pics). I sure would love to see more of you great work.
PWEEEEZE? :o
Bill

[george wilson]

Bill,I made many of my files too large to put up,and have to re photograpy. I seem to have no way to reduce 5 Mega Byte files in the simple IPhoto in this computer.

My best work is on photographs,and especially in slides.I have to figure out how to scan the photos into the Mac,and have to get slides put on a disc.I have thousands of slides,so it won't be easy. One of our employees,a computer whiz kid,is working here Friday. He can help show me how to scan photos of my work into the computer,and access it. Those photos are mostly much better work for heads of state,executive gifts,etc..