Oh I agree, everyone needs a selection of humble tools like these. Woodworking is a practical pursuit but I think there's room for some sentiment too...
The picture shows, from left to right:
- A fancy American job from Horace Brittain, with a selection of little tools inside and a cunning collet. It's showing a very useful four sided blade that will scrape a hole for a screw. A useful tool.
- A cheaper 19th century English offering with a simpler 2-jaw collet and a captive nut on a left-handed thread. Also useful.
- A fancy boxwood handled awl with a long slender spike. I bought it because I thought it looked pretty!
- A simple no name beech handled awl with a screwdriver type blade, great for making slightly larger holes in wood. On eBay it would doubtless be listed as "vintage" but I remember walking to a nearby tool shop and just buying it, new, which sort of makes me feel old.
- But not so much as the last one, which started as a cheap screwdriver. I filed a point on it and painted it green with paint left over from an Airfix kit. I was probably about nine years old. It's still useful for marking hole centres through hinges etc. I have to keep this one!
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