Flickr user whiteforge has a great collection of forged and antique tools, as you may remember from previous TM posts. This set of adjustable wrenches he posted caught my eye, since I’ve never seen any quite like them. Oldtools in the UK has some cool-looking twisted handle wrenches that are similar, but not identical.
Have any Toolmongers out there forged your own hand tools? It’s act of labor and love, and pretty humbling to think that people used to forge their own tools as the norm — not to mention every nail they used to build a house. I’ve heard that centuries ago, families would burn down their houses before moving just to collect all the hand-forged nails to build the next house. I don’t know if this is really true, but I wouldn’t blame folks for taking their nails with them.
If you’ve forged your own tools, or if you possess any hand-forged tools, do they still get regular use, or do they get a protected place in the tool retirement box?
Oldtools.co.uk [Website]