So, if you'll bear with me, this may take some 'splainin'.
First off, I keep a lot of the bigger vintage military stuff to one side in the garage. Chests and foot lockers and cots and what not, and some of the bigger or grungier tools and equipment (e.g., grease guns) are in some of those boxes. Also anything vintage civilian garage related that just doesn’t make sense in the house, like vintage creepers and a Huot stack on a bench with a Parker vise. I use that bench as a work bench and I keep my users in the stack. Even though the garage is heated (28 years ago it was an artists's studio for the wife of the former owner, a chemist for Johnson & Johnson), it’s also stuffed with the last vestiges of a high optempo life raising 5 kids (16, 19, 25, 31, and 32), who were all sports nuts, one of whom is still in the house, so early on in this crazy hobby/addiction I knew it wasn't going to work as place to keep treasures.
The house was built in 1893. It has a brick foundation with an "earthen" floor, which is a fancy way of saying it was just dirt and gravel until a previous owner did some concrete work himself, not very much of it level. The steps are off a pantry in the kitchen. It is rather poorly lit, all of the beams are exposed, along with all the old knob-and-tube wiring that a previous owner left in place when it was updated, and there is a funky crawl space and a cranky furnace that I converted to gas with pipes going every which way. The house has three hearths and all of them have brick support columns and coal pits underneath them in the basement. While guys like to call their rooms or dens or cellars a "Man Cave," when I say it, it can actually be taken fairly
literally.
Point is - NOBODY likes to go down there but me! But it's very dry, unbelievably cool in the summer, and because of the proximity to the furnace, nice and toasty in the winter.
Lastly, I like to think of this space as half curator's office, half curator's workshop. This is where I do
everything collectible tool-related - cleaning, repair, research, storage, and GJ show n' tell photography. I even read and post to GJ from down here.
With all that as prelude, here are some photos I took and posted for Drivesitfar on his "Cabinets" thread.
The dark OD green cabinet with the wood butcher block top, a grinder and a vise clamped on it, and a machinists chest (filled with some machinists tools) on top, are all wartime or late 40's military. The drawers are all full of tools organized by type of tool, not brand. DOE/DBE wrenches, pipe wrenches, pliers, screwdrivers, and hammers, mainly. The top drawer is all specials. Except for one drawer that has all my old K-D stuff. There's a cabinet to the left of that facing to the left at the foot of the steps with smalls in it.
That long plank workbench has a shelf underneath it. Like a dummy, I never did take photos with the "curtain" (vintage Army GMTK tool inspection layout from GJ'er Heelspur) pulled back for some reason, but that's where a lot of roll-ups and all my 3/8- and 1/4-inch socket drive sets are stored. On top is my library, inside an overturned wartime Army chest. All vintage period references from catalogs to manuals to books. On top, behind the lid is a bunch of militaria.
Same thing on the other side of long workbench where there is another vise and a flexible lamp. Underneath, all my WWII Jeep kit correct wrenches (in very un-period correct plastic bins!
), and all my tap and die sets, and underneath that on the floor, jacks and vises and other heavy bulky stuff. In the cabinet, with a wartime "U.S." lock, are all my special smalls. Rare pieces, valuable pieces, or just pieces that would get lost or broken in the shuffle somewhere else. Lyon Stack-a Bins with some orphan sockets to the right of that.
This is where I desperately need another cabinet. Antique DOE wrench sets, gasket and Babbitt scrapers, and everything else is boxes or removable trays filled with in-progress Master Mechanics type sets (Cornwell, Snap-on, Herbrand, PENENS, etc) that don’t have their correct boxes to go in. The camouflage net is for a Jeep. (I used to make and sell WWII-correct reproductions out of fishing nets garnished in Greek key pattern burlap strips.)
Running out of steam here... Another workbench. A smaller grinder and vise. More antique and vintage boxes filled with mainly antique-era tools underneath. Another machinists chest (for more machinists tools) and another vintage GMTK tool inspection layout "curtain", this time keeping the dust off all my early roaring 20's era socket sets. One and only power tool - B&D drill in a B&D spring-type drill press.
There's a room to the right of that for overflow. I didn’t take a photo of that - and I'm not going to!
Just so you don’t think I'm a kook - I don’t use the hand grinders much. I'll take mushrooms and burrs off tools with them. That's about it. Does it take longer than power? Of course. But I'm not in a hurry. The method to my madness is that I feel totally immersed. The whole space is period correct, so to speak, not just the tools, so it's like being in a time machine when I'm down there. Maybe I'm a little weird. I am 'older than I really am' (58) as lots of people tell me, probably because my dad was old (41) when I was born. He was a WWII vet and as old school as they come. It's not like I 'wish I was born in a different time' - as the saying goes. But there is something about visiting it that I like.
Probably way more than your question required. Sorry about that. It's hard to show someone your "sanctuary" without a little explanation.
I am down to the BSA WDM20, which is not rolling yet. I've been going civilian on the tools more and more, and earlier and earlier. I looked around the other day and realized that most of my collection is now 1920's!(Otherwise and less affectionately known as "the basement.") [emoji38]
HAHA!
