Sheffield and eBay-Ancient tools still supplying the here and now

I know I perhaps bang on a little about eBay so perhaps I should qualify my thoughts. It’s not eBay I feel proud of but Britain’s historic contribution in developing and manufacturing the best range of woodworking hand tools for centuries of British woodworkers and woodworking. I look too at what their cutting edges made from in this part of the western world and feel, well, amazed. Of course it’s not just here but around the world. Britain’s been a massive central hub to Europe as a whole and then on to other continents too. I shouldn’t wonder that Britain’s tool history doesn’t have one of the widest outreaches of any country in the world if I think about it. Mostly from a small city called Sheffield, but other cities and towns within a 100 mile radius or so. Quite amazing really, if you think that the population of Sheffield in the mid 1800’s was a mere 180,000. I suppose that might max out somewhere around 30,000 in its workforce. Quite remarkable. Of course it never stopped with the UK supplies alone, its contribution to the past and present world of woodworking was and still is most immense.

Today I find most of the tools I want from eBay. I have never bought anything yet I couldn’t bring up to full working level within a few minutes. A saw takes me 20-30 minutes if rusted a little and dull. A plane might take the same. Imagine, I bought a Woden #78 rabbet plane this week for under £10. Without eBay I would be paying hundreds of pounds more than I do. Here's a Woden 4 1/2 that came in too. Looks a bit rugged. I like them that way and I like paying £12 for them if I can. In the pre-web days around 1980-85 tools were sold by adverts in mags and tool dealers. We paid much higher prices then than we do now, I can tell you, but that’s not my reasoning at all. I think today we see tools that would have been lost to us, perhaps rotted in rust and mildew. Tools keep coming and there are enough to cycle through for every generation of woodworkers yet to come. How about that. A Sheffield, England legacy no one ever knew would happen and no one ever planned for. Sheffield, despite it’s present tool producing demise, is still supplying the new demand for quality tools from its heirloom treasure trove via eBay. I used my I Sorby today to joint the edges of my oak tabletop. I had sharpened bevel ups and bevel downs and the results were good, but when my Sorby licked the surface of the gnarly knots in the oak I felt happy with my rarest of all finds. I know of only two of these planes. John, my last apprentice, has the other. You should have felt it slicing through impossibilities.