Regular attendance at the local auctions has paid off.

A toolbox and its contents were auctioned this week, in 7
separate lots.

It is too bad they broke it up. I got 5 of the lots, including
the toolbox, but two of the lots got away. The two that got
away went to the same person, who did not even bid on the USER
tools. He got a (J Pollock, Edinburgh 1870's) plow with 7 irons
and a small brass rabbet with wooden (ebony?) wedge. Since I am
a user not a collector and since these would be duplicates,
more or less, I did not feel too bad.

Had they not broken it up, he probably would not have bid, since
that would have left him with a lot of crappy old user tools:
14 chisels, 4 shaves, 6 wooden planes, and the box itself.

After 4 hours of cleaning I have a couple of questions about the
makers of 3 chisels and 1 shave.

 1. ELECTRO BORACIC STEEL: a 3/8" gouge is has only this stamp.
    I sharpened this one up and tried it out on a piece of green
    cherry (garden tree died, this is woodturning practice wood)
    and it cuts as well as any woodturning gouge I have (of
    course it is not a woodturning chisel, but it was a quick
    way to check the edge).

 2. C E T Co. GALT CANADA. (I am just guess on the C E T Co
    part) This mark is complicated, and since it is Canadian,
    probably obscure. It is almost 4 concentric circles. In the
    outer ring, GALT at the top, CANADA at the bottom, C on the
    left, O on the right. The third concentric circle is the C
    (the circle does not close). The fourth concentric circle is
    the E: like a nested C with an added middle bar of make the
    E. The T lies below the middle E bar, reaching down to the
    C.

 3. 3/4" square sided mortise chisel, maker JOHN BULL, ????,
    SHEFFIELD. The mark includes an outline of a person,
    presumably mister bull.

Can anyone help with further information about these marks?

The rest of the chisels:

 - 3/32" and 4/32" mortise chisels marked only CAST STEEL,
 - 1 W Marples and Sons,
 - 1 Robt Sorby,
 - 3 WARD, and
 - 4 IBBOTSON and Sons.

R Hughes was consistent in chisel sharpening, but used a very
shallow 13 degree primary bevel, 22 degree secondary on his
paring chisels. His mortise chisels have 17 degree primary, up
to 30 degree secondary bevels.

Most the the chisels still have lots of life. The two 3/4
mortise chisels are both down under 2" of blade.

The shave that I cannot identify has mark

   ?ELA??EH & SONS
     SOL?V WORKS
     SHEFFIELD

where most of the letters in the company name and works name
are just guesses.

The other 3 shaves:

 - R Kelley & Sons, Liverpool, 3"
 - Marples & Sons, Hibernia, Sheffield, 2-1/2"
 - Stanley #64, type BB blade.

I am thinking I can now take my modern marple and stanley
chisels down to the auction and get more than I paid for these
old ones.

Brent

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Brent Beach, Victoria, BC, CA