Saturday morning tool hunt

Saturday I ventured out with a friend to checkout a Craigslist add for a huge liquidation sale that turned out to be a bust. Nothing but old moldy furniture and Chinese made power tools. In an attempt to save the day we hit up a few local antique spots on the way home and both of us ended up finding a few new(old) tools!

At the first stop I found this wooden adjustable rabbet plane.

I’m still looking into the history and manufacturer but it’s beautiful and in great shape. There’s a No.146 stamped on one end and appears to be a very faint manufacturer’s mark on the opposite. It appears to read “Union Factory Warranted” and “H. Chapin”.

Hermon Chapin was a well known wood plane maker in Connecticut during the early 1900’s. I’m looking forward to researching more into H. Chapin and his planes.

It’s 9.5″ long, 2.375″ wide and the body is 3.75″ tall including the fence. The iron is 1.625″ wide at the cutting edge and the fence can be adjusted between 0 and1.375″.

My second find was this Stanley level.

I don’t pay much attention to wooden levels because they are usually broken or completely beat up. This one has both vials in tact and the body is pretty solid. It’s 28.375″ long, 3.125″ tall and 1.376″ wide. The main vial plate is marked with four patent dates (7-17-94, 6-23-96, 5-8-06, and 11-3-08). There is a “3” stamped onto the top of the level between the two brass plates.

The ends are capped with brass plates and the viles are adjustable which means that after I clean the body up I’ll be able to calibrate it. It’s pretty accurate now when compared to one of my modern levels. Look for a future post on my refurbishment of this level.

After some quick research I think it’s a No. 3. Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be a bunch of information on Stanley’s line of levels. I’ll do some more digging but if you have any information, I welcome your comments.

The last item of the day was this sharpening stone made by Norton. It’s a 8″x2″x1″ combination oilstone and appears to be in mint condition.

I’ve been looking for a of stone but was hesitant to fork over $20+ for something at the local hardware store. At $8, I couldn’t pass it up. It’ll come in very handy when cleaning up chisels and plane irons.

All in all, it was a pretty good Saturday. Expect to see more of these tools in future posts. I welcome comments if you have any questions or know something about one of these tools.