tools in peru

[khsquarehead]

I will be in Lima Peru next week. I will be scouring the city for tools. My last trip to Uruguay I came across some local maker molding planes, and balked at the prices asked (about $40+ each for common molding patterns, it was found only at antique dealers). once back in usa I instantly regretted it. Of course it is ridiculous to overpay for british and American made planes,and this is what put me off, but when will I ever see planemakers from Montevideo again?(there were a few, not many). Anyway, I have been advised that much junk yards and fleas of merit are unsafe for americans to go to in Lima. Throwing caution to the wind I will probably go anywhere anyway. I will be glad to post my findings with you guys, but figured before I go...does anybody on the board have any prior experiences / contacts for tools in Peru?

[Papaw]

My nephew's wife is from Peru, but she doesn't know a screwdriver from a dish towel.

[khsquarehead]

  This has been the case for most of my Peruvian contacts as well!!

[Charles Garrett]

No recommendations but I have been in many places that presumably European types were in great danger and nothing happened and nobody seemed to care.  Africa , the Orient etc.

[khsquarehead]

Well I'm back and was kind of disappointed with the findings. It seems that this is a country that uses everything till completely useless and little disposable income for tools. I saw municipal workers using palm tree branches equally as those using brooms to clean street. I've never seen so many rivets in my life! Great sheet metal repairs/creations on vehicles. they rivet car moldings and emblems to vehicles to prevent theft. lots of creative uses of things. They still have a guy who grinds knife blades for you. His stone was powered by a bicycle pedal and wheel attached by belt to stone. Guys making/ carving picture frames used putty knives ground to shape of need. Welding seemed the same as here, but quality of welds seemed worse than I'm used to seeing. Getting around city was horrendous, infrastructure is poor. I wasted lots of my free time chasing poor leads....so still an incomplete. Antiques were common, overpriced and had no tools at all. I would be interested in looking up old documents next time to see if there were 18th-19th century toolmakers or If everything was imported. Found some old books on occupations in 19th century, but was mostly types of vendors, no tools mentioned. I think I would have better luck outside of Lima in the countryside. While this was uneventful, It has peaked my interest to see what else I can find. I will update if I find out anything further.

[Branson]

Tools made in Peru most likely were of Spanish design -- and some probably still are.  At least until fairly recently, Collins made Spanish pattern felling axes expressly for the South American market.  (Got one of these for use at Sutter's Fort.) 

There was an export trade for the Americas and East Indies in the mid 19th Century, and more than one nation produced tools for export there.  One German company sold all manner of hardware and tools through the area, and interestingly, marketed different styles of the same tool -- they sold both the cochoire (French and German coopers) and the familiar English and American cooper's side axe for example.  The brace and try square in their catalog were both standard Sheffield patterns.

Hawaii hosted a veritable World Market, with merchants of many nations had warehouses to exploit the Pacific Trade Triangle.  The Salem merchants were particularly  successful, and by the mid-19th Century, even the Russians were buying American made tools. 

But I would expect that for Latin America, the Spanish and Portuguese tools dominated.