The Whole Garage Catalogue: April 2012

Saturday, April 28, 2012

A 12-Ounce Claw Hammer

It's a cheap, no-name tool, but it's quite decent. The handle is well secured and comfortable. I like it. It can go in my spare tools drawer for now.

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Sunday, April 22, 2012

A Faucet Valve Seat Ruiner...er...Reamer

Perhaps there are those who know how to use these things to good effect. I don't.

I think I'll stash this in my bin of 3/8" diameter stuff. If I ever need a 3/8"-16 ring nut, I'll know where to find one.

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Saturday, April 21, 2012

A Mystery Chisel

It looks to me like a variant of a woodturning parting chisel, but my dad didn't do any woodturning. It may have been a gunsmithing tool. There's room for it in my lathe chisels rack. I'll put it there and see how it is as a parting chisel.

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Saturday, April 14, 2012

A 3/8" Square Drive Spinner Handle

Can I ever use this. I have a couple of these in 1/4" drive, but I could often use a bigger one. This is going to get a hole drilled through the handle so I can hang it on a nail on a toolboard.

All it says on the handle is "MADE IN U.S.A." The quality looks as good as Snap-On, but there's no maker's name on it.

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Monday, April 2, 2012

A Little Specialized Spanner

[I've been away from this project for quite awhile; 'time to get back to it.]

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Here's a little spanner that I have no idea what its purpose was. It's about three inches long; about one inch across the full width of its head. It's quite nicely made.

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Wouldn't it be neat to have a time machine? A time machine that you could show an item to, and say, "Time machine, take me back to when and where this was in use, and let me be a fly on the wall there." There is, of course, the downside possibility to that that you might learn things you'd really rather not know.

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In any event, this belongs in my 'little specialized spanners' drawer. Where else?

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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!