Because rainy days need some Gonzo and his singing chickens. Read Full Story

19 years is a long time in cat life, but much too short in human life. That's Casey in the rear and Merlin in front. Casey is around 10 years old and Merlin rests in peace. After a long battle with a variety of illnesses, Merlin's body, but not his spirit, succumbed to colitis. We've lived with cat companions for more than half our lives. All have distinct personalities, yet there are some that stand out. Merlin was one of those stand-outs. Dr. Jean Duddy, our Vet, described Merlin's... Read Full Story

"Professor Franklin has picked up one shaving from the shop floor and used it as a sort of prism, glimpsing not only the board on which the plane worked but also the tree from which the board came - and most signicantly, the hand, the eye and the mind that guided the plane shaping the board from rough lumber." John Stilgoe, from the Preface to: A Rural Carpenter's World: The Craft in a Nineteenth-Century New York Township (American Land and Life Series) by Wayne Franklin. Franklin, a... Read Full Story

When last we visited The Chronicle  project, the problem was: How do you edit, convert, process, &c, &c, &c 4000 odd pages of scans? I really didn't want to do things in this fashion, but there was no choice but to request of the imaging service that all the scans be provided as individual image files. Not complete PDF documents, which would have made life so much easier. Unfortunately, there is no way to edit an individual page within a PDF document short of exporting the page as a Jpeg or... Read Full Story

With apologies for a lack of royalty payments to David Bowie, I've made a few minor navigational changes to my blog and website that I see fit to trumpet to all and sundry. It was good enough for Stephen Shepherd's Full Chisel Blog, so it must be good enough for me. Categories. I added a side bar item for Categories. It could be said that this feature was added to make it easier for my readers to find old blog posts. Or it could be said that my aging brain cells couldn't remember where... Read Full Story

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Come all present to witness the inventory of the worldly possessions of one Robert Yetton, late of Shelby County of the great state of Indiana! Stephen Shepherd, over at the Full Chisel Blog, has offered up for our enlightenment and pleasure, a reading of the inventory of an early 19th Century craftsman by the name of Robert Yetton. Most likely a probate inventory, we have here the worldly goods of a farmer / craftsman of some experience. Not the usual farmers... Read Full Story

Just when you think it's safe, things happen. I sent some sample issues over to the imaging service for trials. The size of the project required scanning on a commercial ADF scanner. Scanning on a flat bed scanner would take too much man-power and way too long. Scanning on a Planetary Scanner was an option, but most bureaus who use these tend to charge big bucks. Once again, the relatively small size of this project excluded us from some of the better local bureaus. The first sample came in... Read Full Story

Quite a while ago, Paul Womack sent along two great PDF files of articles from the journal Work, 1889, Vol. 1. To my great regret, I've been so caught up in a multitude of stuff that I neglected to get them posted to The Toolemera Press website. With abject apologies to Paul, I am hereby rectifying this most heinous of crimes against woodworkers. Let's start with this one, A Mitre Block and How To Make It. By David Denning. Over on this side of the Atlantic we call them Miter Jacks... Read Full Story

Getting The Chronicle of The Early American Industries Association from print to digital is becoming a story unto itself. I first announced this project back here. Or at least I announced it on my blog after reading in Shavings, the newsletter of the EAIA of the official proclamation of the soon-to-be availability of the journal on DVD. While waiting for the first batch of scanned images to arrive, I find myself reviewing how we got to where we are now. The first problem was assembling a... Read Full Story

Part two of A New Old Website... A long, long time ago, in a town far, far away, I had this idea of selling books and ephemera to old tools fanatics. Online. Through an email list and through posts to the Oldtools eMail list. The fledgling idea took shape as The Toolemera Press. Email was easy, posting on Flea Market Monday was easier (for the uninitiated, FMM was the first Monday of each month). Jump ahead a bunch of years and the fledgling Toolemera Press website. Version 1.0 was a fairly... Read Full Story