Car booty – 01/04/2013

Today we went to our first two Car Boot Sales of 2013.

The first one was the local one we last went to in August.

There wasn’t much of interest (in fact I didn’t buy anything at all!) so we moved on to a larger one that we’d never been to before.

It was the first day this year that the field had been used and it was a bit squelchy in places, but not too bad.

The first thing I spotted was a selection of Marples and Crown woodturning gouges (£6 each or all 10 for £50) – I was tempted but didn’t much like the sales pitch of the stallholder, who tried to tell me that each one was worth £60, so I left them!

My first purchase rather snuck up on me – I’m not normally interested in wooden planes but this was in quite decent condition with a W. Marples & Sons blade in it and they were only asking a fiver, so I made an exception.

• Wooden plane – £5

The plane isn’t quite flat along its length (there’s a slight rise near the mouth) but it’s not far out.

There are various stamped marks on the plane, but I think most are owners rather than makers marks

The blade is marked “W. Marples & Sons”,  “Hibernia”, “Warranted” and “Cast Steel”:

J Honeywood – Owners mark?

A Degg – Owners mark?

I don’t know enough about wooden planes to be certain, but I think this is how it’s meant to be, rather than a sign of a missing front knob:

The hammer marks around the small button make me think it’s probably meant to be hit and my Dad suggests that this is to remove the wedge, although that is quite some way back from this point.

The mouth may have been repaired but it’s a nice job:

Some much finer text is just visible on the toe:

I think this is the makers mark. I’ve given it a quick scrub with a toothbrush and some white spirit since the above photo was taken and I think it’s an upside down Marples logo:

You can just make out the 3 leafed logo, then

Hibernia
?W? Marples & Sons
Sheffield

I next found a small Record vice (I think it was a No. 55) which the stallholder wanted £3 for, but I was strong and beat the temptation!

It was small enough to have made a nice vice for a childs workbench, but my daughter already has a bench and vice at her Grandmother’s house.

I also found what would have made a nice saw for my daughter, but unfortunately it was very rusted and so badly bent I wasn’t confident I could straighten it so I left that too.

The next stall with any tools on it had a massive selection and I got quite a lot from it.

• Mini wrench – £3

This is labelled PML:

And is absolutely tiny:

• 5 large Starrett calipers – £3 each
• Small Starrett calipers – £2

I already had some no-name internal calipers which I got from Bentley Woodfair, but I’m a bit obsessive about things matching and not breaking sets, so I got them all!

• Moore and Wright hand screw clamp – £3

• 2 cast steel chisels – £2 each

One is marked “Thos Ibbotson & Co, Cast Steel” and the other “Merring Bros, London, Cast Steel”

• 2 Woodcock Sheffield chisels – £2 each

I got all the above items for £28 and the £2 got my eldest daughter admission to the bouncy castle and inflatable slide.

The very kind man running the inflatables also allowed my youngest in to sit on the edge of the bouncy castle and she had a whale of a time! 🙂

There was another tool stall with a good selection on it and I found a massive amount of good stuff:

• Stanley hand drill – £3

This is another tool I don’t really need, but having seen my existing one against the larger Stanley 905 and it just looks cheap and nasty:

I’ll get rid of the newer plastic version

• Stanley No. 75 plane – £10

I don’t strictly need this one, as my Axminster 3 in 1 covers this, but I’m a bit of a sucker for Stanley planes so I got it anyway.

• Stanley No. 220 plane – £8

• Stanley No. 130 plane – £10

This seems to be missing the rod for use in bull-nose mode (assuming they were always supplied with both), but it looks like you can swap the remaining rod from front to back.

I’d never seen a double ended block plane before so I had to have this one!

• 2 small F clamps – £3

Last of all was something I’d been considering for a while and to be honest I would have prefered the Stanley version, but the stallholder offered to include it with all the above for £45

• Record No. 050 – £15

This came with a large number of blades and accessories on a wooden board with storage at one end.

There’s a large selection of straight and beading blades:

(I realised I’d missed one out of the above picture when I found it at the bottom of the bag)

There’s also two different length bars and some other bits and bobs that I’m not sure about:

I think the previous owner must have lost one part, as there’s a somewhat odd couple of this part, with one looking decidedly home made:

If anyone can tell me what that bit’s for that’d be great! 🙂

It was a good sale and we’ll definitely go back there.

• Admission: £1 (1 car)
• Total tool spend: £78
• Total other spend: £2
• Grand total: £81