The Studley Toolbox in all of its organized glory (created between 1890 and 1920).
This beauty is 20×40 inches when closed (40×40 inches when open) and contains 300 tools within its carefully crafted mahogany rosewood, ebony, and mother-of-pearl case.
The tool chest was created by mason, carpenter, and piano maker H.O. Studley. Born in 1838 in Lowell, Mᴀssachusetts.
When the Studley tool cabinet book came out eight (!) years ago I had two great mutually exclusive hopes. The first was that a new wealth of information about Studley would come flooding in. The second was that the research I and my collaborators unearthed was pretty much all there was knowable about H.O. It turned out the second was the correct one, in the intervening years not a single useful datum has come my way. Sigh. Or celebration.
On the other hand, the interest in Studley’s tool cabinet and tools has grown to the point where replicas of his tools are being made and, even more impressively, replicas of his entire cabinet and its contents have been fabricated and ᴀssembled.
The latest of these is by Fred Armbruster, who intersected with my pal Ripplin’ John at a Rose Engine Lathe get together, and at John’s behest forwarded some pH๏τos of his own Studley creation. It is spectacular, as is Jim Moon’s recreation I wrote about in PopWood. Fred’s is every bit as deserving of praise and admiration, and I look forward to the time when I can see it in the flesh and shake his hand.
Virtuoso: The Tool Cabinet and Workbench of Henry O. Studley
