Hello to everyone!
I found this site while researching tools.
I have been collecting vintage tools since I was a teenager. At first I bought garage sale / vintage / used tools because that is what I could afford. Now I collect them to use or just for the way they look (Mrs. Chilly claims I hoard tools. She never fails to notice when I get a tool "exactly like the other ones") She'll ask "Don't you have one or two of those?" I usually answer "Yeah, but I don't have this one. I'll keep the best one and get rid of the others." I rarely followed up on the getting rid part of the deal. Unlike other folks, our garage has never been used for vehicles.
I work glass (mostly warm glass, but hotwork as I feel the need), metalwork (silversmithing), lapidary, and of course regular metalwork, woodwork, and leatherwork. Our 5 kids grew up knowing they could make anything they put their mind to. They learned about quality early on, both in their tools and in the work they produced with them. (We still have quality macaroni masks hanging on our bedroom wall from 26 yrs ago.) I also remember replacing leather handles on a hammer the boys found down by the creek one Spring. When they brought their "find" in, I sent them back down there to find my other tools they had used busting up ice during the Winter.
By trade I started out as an apprentice fire sprinkler fitter. By the time I turned out I was in the office designing fire sprinkler systems and other fire protection systems. Always kept my union membership, even though I haven't had to pull wrenches in some decades. 31 years and counting.
My favorite power tool is my ~1936 Yates American scroll /jig saw. Beautiful, 268# of cast iron art deco style, original paint and runs smooth as a sewing machine. I'm convinced I got it because no one else at the auction wanted to lift it. My favorite hand tool is usually the one I am currently researching, restoring, or picking up with the rest of the flat. Either that or one one of my Fretz hammers (I have almost all of those.) I really like a good tool. Occasionally I get some part at HF, I'm just glad if none if my friends or family see me there. (But rubber gloves and stuff like that are easy to pick up there.)
I've spent a few hours looking around this site. I really like the openness and willingness to share of the members. I have hundreds of wrenches and other tools that I need to figure out. I have a few short sets, also. Personally, I would rather give a tool to another collector, or swap with them, than clean out my garage any other way. I hope I might helpout others with what little I know.
I am sorry if I rambled, I do that sometimes also.
