Studley Chest - Contents/Legend?

Re: Studley Chest - Contents/Legend?

wayne anderson

>I'm no expert on piano makers' tools, but I do think the disc-shaped objects are for tensioning wires.

There are at least three different types of marking gages...mortice, slitting, and single-point.

That poster is what got me interested in old tools.

-wayne

Re: Studley Chest - Contents/Legend?

Ryan Stagg - Cincinnati

>Interesting, Wayne. I'm sure Mr. Studley would have been very proud to know that he inspired a craftsman of your caliber.

Thanks for the ID on the brass discs - that makes a lot of sense.

Re: Studley Chest - Contents/Legend?

Binen

>If I am not mistaken Norm featured this chest at the start of one of his programs. Norm was building a wall mounted tool cabinet. I think the first 5 to 8 minutes of the show was on this chest, the tools and the original owner.

Binen

Re: Studley Chest - Contents/Legend? *LINK*

Stephen Slyke

>There is a list of about a third of the tools in an older article. I've enclosed a link below

-Stephen


Tool chest article

Re: Studley Chest - Contents/Legend?

Don Pierson

>I downloaded from Fine Woodworking an image of the tool chest and use it as my desktop background. I always enjoy looking at it.

Tools to compliment machine woodworking.

Bob Smalser

>Was the hero of Galoots everywhere not one himself? Probably.

Assuming the museum listed all the major pieces, from his tool inventory it seems Mr Studley installed the guts of pianos and organs...soundboards, strings, keys, etc....and didn't perform major stock preparation or carcass assembly, much of which was likely done by machine.

There is no shoulder plane, hand saws, mortise and firmer chisels or molding or compass tools. But there are plenty to lay out and fit large and small sound boards and bore for and install their components. There are loads of boring tools because that's a lot of what he did.

Plus he had only one whetstone. Probably not 8000 grit, either. ;)

Re: Studley Chest - Contents/Legend?

Robert Henderson

>I have it as my wallpaper at work, and frankly, it has not improved my productivity

Re: Studley Chest - Contents/Legend?

Rod Peterson -- Ormond Beach

>> If I am not mistaken Norm featured this chest at the start of one of his programs. Norm was building a wall mounted tool cabinet. I think the first 5 to 8 minutes of the show was on this chest, the tools and the original owner.

Correct in every respect. The episode was 1513, Wall Mounted Tool Chest. On the episode page in the Norm's Tools section of my website I also have a decent sized graphic of the tool chest—more of a 3-D view. I can't remember where I got it, now. I've collected the graphics from the links given elsewhere in this thread and hope to do something with them eventually. I also have that issue of Fine Woodworking in which it first appeared.

Rod

Re: Studley Chest - Contents/Legend?

Edward in Vancouver

>Only just became familiar with the chest when reading Tolpin's Toolbox book. I'd like to get a larger picture of it, perhaps in poster format, but don't know where to start looking. Any suggestions?

You can buy a poster from Taunton Publishing.

Ian Smith (Sydney Australia)

>You can buy a poster showing the Studley Chest here.

Regards,

Ian.

Re: You can buy a poster from Taunton Publishing.

Edward in Vancouver

>Thanks!

Interesting...

Ryan Stagg - Cincinnati

>I've never thought about it in those terms, Bob, but it would make sense that no one man - at least in a production environment - would turn out the whole piano. Google tells me that the average piano is around 10,000 components, so surely - as you say - the work is split up. Presumably carcass prep was done on machines by other teams, but I would think Mr. Studley, given the inlay work and such of the chest, did a variety of work. I wouldn't think the same guy would do inlay/key prep as worked on the 'action', but it would seem so in this case. Maybe different steps of his career?

Sharpening - I've always wondered about this in a production environment that uses hand tools. Could it be that most grinding/coarse work was done by apprentices, or a separate department, leaving the craftsman to only worry about honing on a final stone?

I guess there's probably not a vibrant amateur galoot piano making community to ask. ;-)

Sharpening in production

Warren in Lancaster, Pa

>I have sometimes had help in production runs in my handtool shop. In all cases I did all the sharpening for myself and the help. If I had a full time helper, he would have his own tools and maybe his own stones also. There is no way I would let someone else sharpen my tools. If you are doing production work, sharpening is kind of a welcome break from the routine, and is often done when you are getting a little tired.

I think it is possible that Studley had only a single stone, like a Belgian stone or a Washita, perhaps used in combination with a grinder or a strop or both.

Apprentices I knew sharpened shop tools.

Bob Smalser

>Or at least I did beginning as a 12-year old for a family team of boatbuilders. Other than a large thickness planer, jointer, bandsaw and drill press, those boats were built entirely using hand tools, and to a high standard.

Under tutelage, I learned on the well-worn tools used for rough work and work around hardware and I don't recall it taking long until I graduated to the shop's 1st-line tools.

There were two factors involved among the older, life-long builders I knew in the 1950's you don't see much of today:

1) Many of these guys weren't romantic at all about their tools. They were commodities to make a living with, and were fussed with minimally, as every hour spent on tools was an hour lost to building. Nor did they want their children growing up to "work with their hands", BTW.

2) Hand sharpening was a simple, elementary task considered basic training for woodworking. You didn't get to cut wood until you could hone a chisel adequately, period. "If you can't see the flat you made on the stone and correct your hold to put it where you want, how do you ever expect to do the same thing on wood where it counts?"

Given where Mr Studley worked, I suspect his one whetstone was a fine one like hard novaculite kept close at hand for touchups, and for coarser work he (or perhaps even his apprentices) used the factory's grinders and large supply of sandpaper. Because when honing the way I was taught to do it, grinding is something you only have to do when you drop the blade and chip it.

Re: Apprentices I knew sharpened shop tools.

Warren in Lancaster, Pa

>I know liitle about boat building, but in cabinetmaking, I see the 1950's as a kind of low point in handtools. You can see it in the quality of work produced and the quality of tools produced. You yourself suggest that the workers didn't want their children to take up the trade-perhaps they lacked enthusiasm for it. I do not see this era as one to hold up as an ideal.

Dennis Young, who apprenticed in a Japanese furnuriture shop, said he spent months doing nothing but learning to sharpen and that the young ones would sneak a peek at the master's tools after hours to see how they were sharpened. George Nakashima, in New Hope, Pa. said it took two years to teach a man to sharpen a chisel.

Re: Interesting...

Ian Smith (Sydney Australia)

>Here are some old pictures of piano's being manufactured. The pictures are from the Beale piano factory, an Australian manufacturer based in the Sydney suburb of Annandale. These pictures would, I think, be from a slightly later period than the one in which Studley worked but you can see that the process is definitely not a one man operation.

I lived in Annandale for about 5 years from 1999. The old piano factory building is still there but sadly it has been gutted and converted to residential apartments.

We have a 1908 vintage Beale upright grand piano (my wife's) in excellent condition in our house here in Sydney. It is a lovely old piano. They don't make 'em like that anymore.

Regards,

Ian.

"I know liitle about boat building..."

Bob Smalser

>Yup. There's never been a "low point" in crafting traditional wooden boats.

These were the last generation of craftsmen who made their living almost exclusively using hand tools, yet they put boats together just as fast as tailed tool, plywood boatbuilders do today. And with whatever level of finish the client was willing to pay for.

They only lacked enthusiasm for the future of hand tool work in a world rapidly changing to plastic, automation, and college degrees. And they were right.

When you can build an eye-sweet lapstrake wherry modified with a flat run aft for use with an outboard by "rack of eye" instead of plans, you'll have measured up to the level of work these gentlemen took for granted.

If the adjacent ugly flatiron skiff with crude oars looks like it was mostly built by the 12-year-old beginner in the flannel shirt.....well, it was.

Re: "I know liitle about boat building..."

DONALD THOMPSON

>And, were you the 12-year-old?