Diamond in the Rough

I enjoy the speed and accuracy of power tools for woodworking, but I get a special kind of pleasure using hand tools -- good hand tools, that is. If it's a tool I bought new and had for a long time, I can think about some of the things it's helped me make. If it's an old tool but I'm not the first owner, I often find myself wondering about its history.

A few months ago I went to a tool sale to see a thickness planer that I ended up buying. I also bought this old Millers Falls plane. I'd made do with my little smoothing plane for 50 years, using it for jobs where a bigger plane would have been more suitable. Now I have one. It just needs a little bit of work to make it beautiful as well as useful.

Better late than never.