Tools for life, not just Christmas
If you are scratching your head over what to give a young person this Christmas, consider hand tools. Today’s electronic gadgets and games may be old-hat by this time next year but a few well-chosen tools – of good quality and of a size to suit small hands – could establish the foundations of a lifetime hobby, perhaps even a career in boatbuilding.
So, what to buy? Presenting impetuous offspring with a carpenter’s axe isn’t recommended but you should be on safer ground with a small hammer which, even as hands grow larger, will always find a purpose. When its young owner has mastered the eye-hand coordination required for driving nails home, a 4oz ball-peen hammer (1) will graduate to peening copper boat rivets. And for the nail which goes awry, don’t forget the pincers to pull it out again if opting for the ball-peen rather than a claw.
Besides giving an idea of scale for our bijou nail-basher, the four-fold carpenters’ rule (folding down to 6in) is not only the traditional woodworker’s choice of measuring instrument but endlessly fascinating with its brass-hinged boxwood leaves. An early use for it might be measuring twice before cutting once with the gents’ saw (2), a brassbacked fine-toothed tool with in-line handle offering excellent control – later to prove invaluable when cutting dovetail joints. Also note the pocket-sized try-square used to mark around the work when making a square cut.
If there’s one tool that symbolises joinery more than any other, it is perhaps the plane, but beware of confronting a youngster with a plane that’s cumbersome and complicated. Begin with a small and simple block plane (3), taking fine shavings from a congenial timber and they’ll be hooked. I’ve been using this Record 102 since 1968.
Planing, sawing and most other work goes better if the wood is firmly immobilised for which a portable vice such as this Record Junior 51 is ideal (4). Clamp it to the desk or kitchen table (if that’s allowed) using card or plywood offcuts to protect the domestic surface. A good vintage Junior 51, or today’s equivalent the Irwin TV150, can be found for £30 or less.
Sticking with long-lived tools that are neither too pointy nor worryingly sharp-edged, you can’t beat the magic of the spirit level with its strangely hypnotic bubble tubes. A 6 or 9in ‘boat’ level of the sort shown here will be sure to occupy an inquiring mind, investigating surfaces around the home or workshop long after the last Christmas cracker has been pulled.