Rust hunt morsel

[Rob Luter]

My Bride and I usually spend Black Friday stalking antique shops and avoiding retail areas. There aren't as many dealers with tools as there was in the past but occasionally I find something I can put to use. A little town to the south of us has an antique store that still has a "tool guy" His booth was mostly full of off brand planes and old saws, all with fire sale prices. Among the rubble was this #66 beading tool body with intact blade clamp. It's missing cutters (no big deal) but also the fences. For the asking price of $5.00, I like the odds of me finding (or making) a serviceable fence. The cutters are available from Lee Valley and Lie Nielsen, or I can make my own. Once I clean it up is should be a good user for the occasional beading task.

[Jim Koepke]

Nice find Rob. The one I found many years ago didn't have the thumbscrew. So a substitute was made.

Lie-Nielsen used to sell the fences separately. They are not currently listed. I purchased a set and had to adjust (file) the size to fit the slot a little.

jtk

[Eric Brown]

Nice find Rob. The one I found many years ago didn't have the thumbscrew. So a substitute was made.

Lie-Nielsen used to sell the fences separately. They are not currently listed. I purchased a set and had to adjust (file) the size to fit the slot a little.

jtk

I believe you might be able to get replacement fence and blades from St. James Bay also.

[Rob Luter]

I found a fence on line. Allow me to give a thumbs up to Woodyah.com for a custom fence kit. Now I need to source the cutters.

Screenshot 2023-12-11 202318.jpg

[Jim Koepke]

I found a fence on line. Allow me to give a thumbs up to Woodyah.com for a custom fence kit. Now I need to source the cutters.

Screenshot 2023-12-11 202318.jpg

Nice find, the cutters can be made out of pieces of old saw blades.

Chainsaw files are pretty good for making beading cutters.

jtk

[Eric Brown]

I found a fence on line. Allow me to give a thumbs up to Woodyah.com for a custom fence kit. Now I need to source the cutters.

Screenshot 2023-12-11 202318.jpg

Thanks for the link. I needed a #66 fence too.

[Jim Koepke]

It looks like they also have the curved fences for the #66.

They have a router blade collar I like. The write up say it fits; Stanley, Record, and Millers Falls router planes. Wouldn't you know it, my router plane is made by Sargent.

jtk

[Thomas L Carpenter]

While not rust morsels I did find two morsels on this thread that may be beneficial to me. Stjamestoolco.com and woodya.com are two that I had never heard of. I realized that over the years I have read of many smaller companies not known to me and wish I had made some kind of list of them. Does anyone know If one exists?

[Jim Koepke]

While not rust morsels I did find two morsels on this thread that may be beneficial to me. Stjamestoolco.com and woodya.com are two that I had never heard of. I realized that over the years I have read of many smaller companies not known to me and wish I had made some kind of list of them. Does anyone know If one exists?

Maybe it would be a good idea to start a thread with the intention of listing everyone's sources of various items. I tend to bookmark everything:

Tool Source Bookmarks.png

Some of those may be dead ends so I don't want to list URLs until they can be checked.

With many of them I have never done any business, so I can not vouch for their reliability.

Just for fun, I checked one of the other sites, there was a listed tool that was too hard to resist. Now I am out about fifty bucks. That is one reason not to review all of the sites on my list.

The one at the top, Victory Machinery, has been used many times and has a lot of hard to find items such as odd tap & die sizes. Their inventory ebbs and flows so if a specialty tap or die isn't listed, it may be temporarily out of stock.

jtk

[Rob Luter]

Well, I got it all cleaned up and installed the fence. It needed a place to live so I adapted a box I made a while back with a little nest and locking tabs. The die cut numbers on the lifd turned out a bit goofy looking but they'll do. I expect oce I hit them with some finish they'll mellow a bit. Once I get some cutters I'll add a little storage till on the inside.

[Thomas L Carpenter]

Thanks Jim. That's a good start.

[Jim Koepke]

Nice case Rob.

jtk