I’ve had a few months off from my tool collecting activities. A very good friend and prominent author was looking to set up a “blog” and knowing that I had dabbled, asked if I could assist.
I picked up the Mathieson shoulder plane from the online shop for £40 (note to self, stop buying from that place). It required little more than a cleanup, to be fair. The Mathieson smoother, on the other hand, was something I picked up as part of a job lot. Both the front bun and the tote had been destroyed and needed replacing which I did, using sonokeling rosewood. This brings my total of Mathieson smoothers to 6, which isn’t too shabby for a Spiers collector.
The old tool collector 