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There's no such thing as an old joke - there's always somebody who hasn't heard it yet! Perhaps we could give it a try. Les

People speak well of electrolytic rust removal, where you immerse the item in a bath of washing soda (sodium carbonate) and pass an electric current through it. I haven't tried it myself - is there anybody here who has? Les

I believe Boeing can help with this... (Sorry, couldn't resist.) Les

I've got one of Tyzack's catalogues from about 1910 (regrettably it's not dated) and your plane is similar to their No. 246 Steel Panel and Jointer plane "Steel frame, Rosewood body, Gun-metal lever". It was available in various lengths from 13½" to 26½" and widths from 2½" upwards. It's...

I've found that self-adhesive labels tend to peel off the black plastic, especially as so many cases have a textured finish, and I suspect that there may be some sort of release compound from the moulding process. I've resorted to one of the white correction pens and my Best Handwriting, and it...

Thanks for the replies and suggestions. Niall's suggestion of Avon Ropes sounds most promising - they select, fell, process and air-dry their own ash specifically with bell stays in mind, and you couldn't ask for better than that. They also have a very progressive approach to the manufacture...

I've recently got involved in maintaining a church bell installation in the Portsmouth area and need a supply of ash for the stays that prevent the bells from turning over the top when they are rung. The stay is the 'fuse' in the system and is designed to break before anything else does, and...

That looks useful! Les

Amazing stuff, sold under the name of Polymorph. The regular stuff softens at 62 C and there is a low temperature version. I've used it a lot working with disabled people to make personalised hand grips for things. Les

And thanks for letting us know how it went. Not everybody remembers to do so! Les

This seems unnecessarily snippy and not what I'm used to on this site. Les

Idigbo!

I have some lab bench tops from the mid 1950s which are made of Utile. They were from a lab which had Parana pine cupboards and bookshelves, and notice boards from an African hardwood whose name escapes me for the moment. Stools were made of beech. They were all ripped out in the 1990s and...

Any jig with wheels that run on the stone, such as the Eclipse that I use, will have a limit to how short a blade can be sharpened to the desired angle, caused by the laws of geometry. The Eclipse has the correct protrusion lengths for 30° and 25° cast into its body, and if you cannot achieve...

I've actually been told this by a 'superior'. Apparently my bevels weren't big enough! I explained that I followed the American practice of micro-bevels and nothing further was said... Les

Assuming it's British made, the thread will be 5/32" BSW, which was used for drawer handles (I still have some). It's the same thread as originally used for Meccano, so if you still have some of that lying around you can swipe one of the nuts. There were never enough Meccano nuts anyway, so...

Oo that's nice! Les

I notice that some of your wood-handled tools are held by Terry clips. I've always avoided doing that in case the clips mar the handles. Do you find that it does, or am I being over-sensitive? Les

The dog would have to be a boxer for that. Les

This makes sense, because until the advent of the metric system, France used the foot (pied) and the inch (pouce). It amused me to discover when learning French that "I have five feet and eight thumbs", which describes me to a T. The French foot was, of course, different from all the other feet...