Thunderbox

I think I may have found the ideal place for a woodworker to get in some serious tool catalogue time - The Limited Edition Thomas Crapper Thunderbox! Voila. A thing of beauty, is it not? It's a shame woodworker's have become so divorced from this essential function. I have a very dim and distant memory from my extreme youth of being introduced to a two-seater privvy, which was essentially the Walmart version of the Thunderbox - the design boiled down to a wide board with a hole in it and next to it a slightly lower board with another hole in it. Ah, you may scoff and point out it's hardly advanced woodwork, but sure as hell the person who made it had to make sure they finished it properly. An errant splinter could spell disaster...

Meanwhile I've been musing on chisel handles and trying to get approximate measurements from the piccy of an original Stanley one in order to handle the unnumbered example I got a few months ago. I've already broken out one of the wad punches and a thick leather belt to see about some washers for the end. Only problem now is No Hickory and no Red Lacquer. The red I think I can work around okay, but the hickory is a problem. I find myself genuinely tempted to chop up the rather uninspiring German jointer simply for its wood. Not that it's hickory, but rather hornbeam, however it'd be kind of close and might make good stuff for the socket mortise chisel handles too... Seems sort of sacrilegious to destroy a tool though, so I 'spect nothing will come of it.