The Whole Garage Catalogue: A Mystery Arbor/Mandrel

Saturday, January 14, 2012

A Mystery Arbor/Mandrel

And speaking of mysteries, the difference between 'arbor' and 'mandrel' has to be one of English's great ones. To me, it's about like the difference between 'darn' and 'drat'.

Here are the Concise Oxford Dictionary's main entries:

arbor n. Axle or spindle on which something revolves.

mandrel n. (In lathe) shaft to which work is fixed while being turned.

I'm inclined to avoid both words and just use 'spindle':

spindle n. Pin or axis that revolves or on which a thing revolves.

Anyway, this thing had me baffled for quite awhile until it dawned on me that two things are missing -- a 1/4" pilot drill and saw teeth -- it's a hole saw sans teeth. Here it is taken apart, but with a pilot drill inserted in the 'spindle'.

The American manufacturer, Millers Falls, is no longer with us, but an internet search reveals that considerable interest in the firm's tools remains. I found a couple of their hole saws on Ebay; here's one of the photos.

This one pictured is 2 1/4". The one I have is 7/8". I'll never know how or why it came to be toothless.

I suppose it belongs in the cabinet with my other holesaws, in kinship if not in effect.

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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!