It's a long story

[Papaw]

Two hole punches.
The 3/4" one is marked L A Sayre & CO. NEWARK N.J.

The 5/8" one is not marked.

[Papaw]

Finally- for today at least- some bits from that box. I intend to keep most of these for use with a ratcheting drill and an eggbeater. I know Branson is interested in one of these, but i don't know which one.





The countersink is a KEEN KUTTER.

The 1 1/2" hole drilling bit is marked BAGSHAW & FIELD.

The little gimlet is marked M BOKER .

[rusty]

Bagshaw & Field was an old Philadelphia maker of edge tools and bits going back to the 1880's at least ....

They also made those neat "handle with a lot of bits" type tools, usually in nice rosewood...

Dunno where they went, they don't appear after mid 1920's...

Edit: DATM says 1881-1931

[Bill Houghton]

About that one chisel: I've never seen a turning chisel that used a socket - in fact, I think it would be dangerous to turn with a socket chisel.  One catch with the resulting shock to the handle-to-chisel connection, and you could have a flying chisel.  It looks like a firmer chisel.  From the photo, it looks fairly narrow - 1/4" or 3/8"?  Those often have rather wide lands (the side of the chisel).

The maker's not familiar, but I'm no kinda old-maker's-marks eggspert.

That one punch, with the handle off to the side, is interesting,  I've seen plenty of arch punches (the other one in the picture), as have most of us; and in an arch punch, the force is centered on the hole.  The side-handle punch would require some attention to make a clean hole.  I wonder if it was a special-application tool?

[rusty]

>The side-handle punch would require some attention to make a clean hole
It might be useful for making, say, washers, where you need to see into the punch area tho..

[scottg]

The long chisel is a "near miss" with the marking stamp.
 L & I J White is what is was supposed to say. This a venerable old edge tool company.
 
Either you shot it perfectly on edge, or its a very narrow chisel?
 If its 1/4" wide or wider across the cutting edge, then its just your standard professional grade bench chisel. (all pro chisels had 6" blades).

  Turning tools are always tang chisels, otherwise the tool vibrates off the handle in use, and bad thing happen.
  Bench chisels get pushed or pounded so the handle lasts longer in a socket.
 
 Bench chisels with tangs were (are) also available, but they nearly always have a bolster at the handle (a swelling of metal)  so the tang can't just get driven in and split the handle.
 Turning tools don't get driven, so they never have the bolster.

 Bolster or no bolster is how you tell a turning tool from a bench chisel at a glance, when there are no handles and they are laying in a pile. :)   
 
 If its 1/8" wide then its a cane chisel!
  Pre-woven cane was (and still is) a miracle.  Just chisel out the old spline, soak the new cane for a little while in warm water, and drive it into the groove with glue and the new spline. You can re-do a chair back or seat, or both, in an hour.
    But you need a long skinny chisel to clean up the groove first.
 Weaving mile long strips of cane takes forever to achieve the same result.
      yours Scott
       

[Papaw]

The spine is 1/8". The beveled portion is also 1/8" or near it for its whole length.

[Branson]

Let's look at some more-
A socket chisel, I guess for wood turning. 8 1/4" long with the socket.Five faces with a sharp angled end. The markings I can see seem to be missing one or two letters, then & (somethoing).J.White.

L&IJ White.  Premium tool maker -- great steel.  It's not for turning, but is a mortise chisel.  How wide is the blade?

[Branson]

I said it would be a long story! I have finally found time and energy to take a look at some more of the tools in that box.
First is a Nicholson 3 XF curved file that may have seen all the use one can get out of it. I can see only a few spots where the file is not worn off.

Test some of the "worn off" places.  I have a similar file -- looks like it has no teeth, but has something like diamond dust impregnating the surface.

[Bill Houghton]

Let's look at some more-
A socket chisel, I guess for wood turning. 8 1/4" long with the socket.Five faces with a sharp angled end. The markings I can see seem to be missing one or two letters, then & (somethoing).J.White.

L&IJ White.  Premium tool maker -- great steel.  It's not for turning, but is a mortise chisel.  How wide is the blade?

Not sure about the mortise chisel designation, although of course you could use it for mortises.  I've got a 1/8" mortise chisel, and it gets thick (90 degrees to the width) pretty fast, with no bevels.  On the other hand, I've noticed the narrow beveled firmer chisels often had those wide lands.  Kind of fine distinctions, though, for chisels that narrow.

[Branson]

>Not sure about the mortise chisel designation, although of course you could use it for mortises.  I've got a 1/8" mortise chisel, and it gets thick (90 degrees to the width) pretty fast, with no bevels.  On the other hand, I've noticed the narrow beveled firmer chisels often had those wide lands.  Kind of fine distinctions, though, for chisels that narrow.

Could be that Scott is correct in calling it a cane chisel -- I've certainly used one for this work.  But I've accumulated at least 4, and they feel like mortise chisels, and I've used them more often for such.  Last time was cutting a mortise through a spinning wheel piece to make a slot for the leather that holds the bobbin in place.

[Bill Houghton]

>Not sure about the mortise chisel designation, although of course you could use it for mortises.  I've got a 1/8" mortise chisel, and it gets thick (90 degrees to the width) pretty fast, with no bevels.  On the other hand, I've noticed the narrow beveled firmer chisels often had those wide lands.  Kind of fine distinctions, though, for chisels that narrow.

Could be that Scott is correct in calling it a cane chisel -- I've certainly used one for this work.  But I've accumulated at least 4, and they feel like mortise chisels, and I've used them more often for such.  Last time was cutting a mortise through a spinning wheel piece to make a slot for the leather that holds the bobbin in place.

Well, yeah: I wasn't disagreeing with you substantively.  With a chisel with that kind of ratio of thickness to width, it's something of a po-tay-to/po-tah-to thing.  Cane, mortise, firmer - useful for cutting firm cane mortises!

[scottg]

Chisel names are a funny thing. Whatever you call any chisel, is always right! Because in different regions of the country or world, somebody probably calls it that.
  Chisels with a 6" usable blade I call a pro bench chisel. Some just call them bench chisels. Paring and mortise also come into play.
  I think some of the old chisel manufacturers originally just called them chisels, and made up names for the other patterns.

 Everyone has their own theory of paring chisel. There is nothing that could ever be "incorrect" in a paring chisel since every chisel can pare wood, and all of them do! 
 My own definition is one with at least 8" of usable blade, and very thin in cross section. Never struck, only pushed.

 Ditto the word mortise chisel. You can chop a mortise with a busted off soupspoon handle and a claw hammer, and I am sure someone, somewhere, has done just that.

  I once made chisels from hardened cement nails long ago. I was about 20. What'd I know? I used nails and round ball drawer pulls and some steel threaded inserts.
  Even though anybody else would take one look and say ........... you could never use those!,  my wife carved this from black walnut with nothing but them. 
   
  Personally I think of a mortise chisel as one that is at least 3 times thicker than it is wide, but that's just me. 
   yours Scott   
 

[oldtools]

Scott, Do you have any photos of your home made chisels? sounds interesting!!

"I once made chisels from hardened cement nails long ago. I was about 20. What'd I know? I used nails and round ball drawer pulls and some steel threaded inserts.
  Even though anybody else would take one look and say ........... you could never use those!,  my wife carved this from black walnut with nothing but them." 

[scottg]

Scott, Do you have any photos of your home made chisels? sounds interesting!!

  Sorry Partner, we are talking over 40 years ago here. I have a few tools left from that time. Couple of saws and a plane that I still use come to mind.  But that's about it.
      yours Scott