The Whole Garage Catalogue: May 2012

Monday, May 21, 2012

A 2 1/2" C-Clamp

It's missing the pad for the end of the screw, and that's a pretty lame looking screw.

There's a logo on the frame that looks like a capital 'F' enclosed in a 'diamond'. I don't recognize it.

Fabricating a replacement pad for the screw could be an interesting problem. I must give some thought to how that could be done.

Meanwhile, this can go in my spare tools drawer.

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A Harris 4" Putty Knife

The blade is in fine condition.

Harris appears to still be a going concern.

This can join my other putty knives.

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Sunday, May 20, 2012

A 3/4" Wood Chisel

And it has its own leather edge protector.

On the front it says "ARDEX", and on the rear it says "GERMANY". It must pre-date WWII, since there's no indication of 'West' or 'East' Germany, and it's unlikely to be from the time since reunification.

I'm sure I've seen the name 'Ardex' on tools before, but the 'Ardex' I find via Google doesn't appear to be a tool maker.

Anyway, it looks like quite a fine chisel, though it does need to be reground properly. Into the chisels drawer it goes.

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Introduction

This blog is in honour of my deceased father, Nick Gaspick.

It sprang from what had started out as merely a post on my workshop blog, Rouge River Workshop. Here's my introduction to that post:

"My son has been clearing out my deceased father's garage, so he'll have a place to restore an old car, and he's been finding all manner of stuff. I've begun one post about an old woodworking vise that I mean to restore. This weekend, my son brought me four toolboxes full of items. As a small honour to my father, I'll 'catalogue' them in this post, in no particular order, little-by-little as I go through the boxes."

The nature of the post was for it to grow ever longer, and that can be dangerous. Blogger has some quirks that I've experienced in the past, and I was getting tired of always backing up the entire post so I wouldn't lose it should Blogger vapourize an editing session. I finally decided to make a full-blown blog with an index out of the post. Here it is.

I'll leave the original post as it is, where it is, but I'll bring over all the items in it so far as individual, indexed posts here as well. Needless to say, new material will only appear here.

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A Little About My Father:

My father emigrated to Canada with his family from Croatia at about the age of seven. His family took on a homestead up Sudbury, Ontario way, and made a living there through the great depression.

My father loved school, and yearned to continue his schooling past grade eight, but that was not on. He had to leave school to make a living -- trapping, mining, whatever. Eventually, he and his made their way to Toronto -- the big smoke in Canada.

My father was built like a brick shit-house; he was a sturdy guy, unlike scrawny me. My father was a guy who could clear an acre of Canadian bush before breakfast, have it tilled and planted before lunchtime, with the plants sprouting before dinnertime.

Jesus H. Christ!-- a guy like my father ought to have lived forever!