Kieth,
The Bermudan Dovetail diagram came from a museum in Bermuda and was passed on to me by a boatbuilder there. That's all we have of it, but it's likely an old ship's carpenter's tool chest from a month or so of being becalmed in the doldrums somewhere. A future project....playing with those decorative dovetails.
Nice thought, Chris, but the coping saw article was for y'all to make your own, not for me to sell them. Way too many seperate operations involved to ever be able to produce them at that level of shape and finish for anything other than a special gift...even though I've made dozens of frame saws over the decades, usually in a modest run for extras to trade or give away.
My blacksmith friend and I may make a larger run of mesquite/tool steel caulking mallets later this winter for sale to boatbuilders, but they'll go for $200 or so each with about a fourth of the labor involved in one of those little saws.
As Pam points out, I do sell excess on Ebay occasionally. When I get a request I can't turn down from a tradesman pal (most of whom don't use computers) for an old-time set of whatever tools with custom handles, I buy up large lots and sell off what I can't use for a set. Making something more useful out of the give-away shorties and a myriad of unneeded handles below is fun, and I recommend it...why pay 30-80 bucks each for modern chisels when even the best classics average me less than 6 bucks in lots over time?
Moreover, folks....why should you buy that mortise chisel set I made up for what may be another ridiculous sum when you can do all this yourself on the cheap?
Here's a 30-dollar lot of junkers I got last week with two of those valuable mortise chisels hidden therein. 5 bucks each...and one is a Swan.
Last edited by Bob Smalser; 11-02-2004 at 9:15 PM.
““Perhaps then, you will say, ‘But where can one have a boat like that built today?’ And I will tell you that there are still some honest men who can sharpen a saw, plane, or adze...men (who) live and work in out of the way places, but that is lucky, for they can acquire materials for one third of city prices. Best, some of these gentlemen’s boatshops are in places where nothing but the occasional honk of a wild goose will distract them from their work.” -- L Francis Herreshoff
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Originally Posted by Chris Padilla
Bob,I think it is simply wonderful to support those of you making tools for SMC/yourselves/buddies. I have a marking knife from Dave Anderson and if Leif or you have some stuff to sell, I'm all ears!
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