2018: Traditional Woodworker’s Hand Tools

Carpenter’s rulers. Collection: P.H. Sullivan
Photo Credit: Caje Rodrigues

Marking gauges. Collection: W.A. Hatfield
Photo Credit: Fatuma Ismael-Ali

Planes. Collection: W.A. Hatfield
Photo Credit: Lucy Ismael-Ali

Plough plane. Collection: W.A. Hatfield
Photo Credit: Kim Elliot

Claw hammer. Collection: W.A. Hatfield
Photo Credit: Kim Elliot

Bits and braces. Collection: P.H. Sullivan
Photo Credit: Bob Acton & Paul Harrison

Saws. Collection: W.A. Hatfield
Photo Credit: Bob Acton & Paul Harrison

Squares. Collection: W.A. Hatfield
Photo Credit: Bob Acton & Paul Harrison

Crown saw. Collection: W.A. Hatfield
Photo Credit: Bob Acton & Paul Harrison

Spiral ratchet screwdrivers. Collection: P.H. Sullivan
Photo Credit: Caje Rodrigues

Spoke shaves. Collection: W.A. Hatfield
Photo Credit: Bob Acton & Paul Harrison

Hand drills. Collection P.H. Sullivan
Photo Credit: Bob Acton & Paul Harrison

The tools photographed for this calendar belonged to Walter Augustine Hatfield and Patrick Horace Sullivan.

Gus Hatfield (1916-1981) was a time-served joiner. He worked in the maintenance department of Reckitt and Coleman, manufacturers of starch, laundry blue and disinfectant in Hull, England. Gus represented his fellow workers as shop steward with the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners. He was also the first aid man, and kept a one-inch chisel specially sharpened for removing splinters.

Pat Sullivan (1903-1988) worked in the carpentry shop at the New Calumet Mines on Calumet Island, in the Ottawa River, about 100 kms. northwest of Ottawa, where lead and zinc had been discovered in 1893. Pat was injured in a workplace accident in 1945 and told he would never walk again. Although he was left with one leg shorter than the other he returned to work after a year and was employed until 1966, two years before the mine closed.