The other neat thing I found today
Bill Houghton, cold and rainy in Sebastopol, CA
>I've been gathering compass saw blades lately at garage sales, mostly shiny pretty for $1; not sure why, but then I'm not sure why I buy most of the stuff I buy at garage sales - something to do with squirrels and walnuts. Found a neato handle for them today, pictured below. The wooden handle extends inside the part that looks like a plumbing coupling, and is slotted both ways - a vertical slot and a horizontal slot. The thumbscrew is long enough to press against the blade in either slot.
This message is, of course, an invitation to Todd Hughes to tell us he's got a barrel of 572 or so of these handles, picked up along with an 18th century henway and a 500 pound anvil for $2.23, and how he wasn't sure if he wanted the anvil because he'd have to carry it to his truck...