Started the day at the car boot sale.

We take skill, tools and craft work by artisans past for granted here in Britain. A car boot sale is a mixture between the American garage or yard sale and a flea market. They can be in a farmer’s field or in a building like this one shown here. Wherever the venue, they range in size from a dozen cars to hundreds of booths. They can be very interesting and very uninteresting. You can find many bargains and you can find some items that cost more than in the store. For the main part bargains are to be had.

I walked the aisles looking for anything unusual and there is plenty of unusual junk to pick through. Many things have no use. They are relics of the past. You can buy a nice chest like one of these for about £100, or bargain for it and get it down to £80. None the less, the chests are dovetailed, and well made from old pine. This supports my statements that pine was once the most predominant wood for most furniture, doors, travel trunks toolboxes and much more. At venues like this with a high percentage of items over 100 years old, 90% of the wood used was pine.

Tools are around too. This older US Stanley with rosewood handle can be had for about £25 and the 120 for £10.

Marking gauges rarely gor for more than £1 and most often for 50p. How about a nice pair of wood and leather clogs for £30 hand made and quite lovely.

These sandstone grinding wheels show up from time to time and remind me of the non electric days when heat build up wasn’t too much of an issue and people could grind off exactly the right amount. People think that the bath was to cool the steel which of course it did, but the primary reason was to float of the particles of abraded steel; to prevent it from clogging the surface and reducing the abrasive qualities of the stone.