Gentle Galoots,

I would like to say thanks to all the kind galoots who wished me good luck
on my cancer treatment.  The tool gods must have been watching.  After a
batch of chemo treatments, the doctors tell me I an in the clear.  It may
come back, but I am okay for now.  I have two more chemo treatments and
then I am through.

Just to keep the subject on finding tool parts, I have one to add.  Years
ago I found a Stanley block plane (very nice 9-1/2 type 3 or 6 ) at an
estate sale.  It wasn't a bad price ($ 8) because it had the attachment on
the back to hold the back knob.  Unfortunately, no knob.  Wandering around
the sale, on the other side I came across an item marked "wooden ball $2".
Oddly enough, the two parts fitted together.  I still use it on a regular
basis.

Please excuse me if I told this story years ago.  Chock it up to old age.

Frank Sronce (Fort Worth Armadillo Works)

Frank - great story and reminded me of another.  In an old carpenter’s basement
I found  a rare Stanley spokeshave - #57 cooper’s shave - that had a modern cap
on it.  On another bench was a modern Stanley 151 spokeshave with a funny cap,
older, but with a screw that looked like a hardware store ring eye instead of a
normal screw.  Bought them both, looked in the book, and it turns out that the
ring eyed screw was there on the early production (the tool was made from
1870-1923).  So I now have a really cool spokeshave that is 18” wide with a 2”
blade, with an 1872-1885 logo that they are calling a Type 1.


Ed Minch