Hugh & Fiona Osborne don’t mind buying new tools when required, but often find that cheap, vintage tools make more sense on a smallholding…
Our neighbour uses a Fordson Major tractor as his everyday workhorse. Now this is not some immaculately restored enthusiasts “Vintage Tractor”. This 70 year-old machine sits out in all weathers has forks, a bucket, a PTO, three-point link and does hard work. He tells us that it’s mechanically straightforward, easy to maintain and does everything he needs it to do.
Of course he could buy a modern, compact tractor and pay a dealer to service it with the relevant laptops etc. but he finds a simpler, older tool to be perfectly adequate for his needs and much cheaper! This is a philosophy that we also subscribe to.
Let’s face it, none of us run a smallholding to get rich, nor is it about the latest, highest tech model of yields and efficiency. A smallholding is something personal and sustainable. It’s something we are willing to invest our effort into without seeking to quantify a return on our “sweat equity”. Our tools can (and maybe should) reflect our attitude to life. They must be effective, long lasting and, in our eyes at least, even beautiful.
OLD TOOLS WERE BUILT TO LAST
In times gone by, part of a tradesman’s role was to sharpen their tools, indeed most were given time (usually on a Friday afternoon) to carry out this vital task. If we imagine a cabinet maker, joiner or carpenter, they would have used a variety of planes to smooth, flatten and fit wood. Such planes came in a variety of sizes from an enormous no.8 plane with a very long. sole used to flatten long lengths of timber, through to a tiny low-angled block plane used to deal with end grain.
Some of these would have been expensive purchases and all would need their plane iron sharpening regularly to keep them working efficiently. Whilst this active maintenance of tools required some effort, once a tool had been purchased there was very little further investment needed. It is true that sharpening a plane iron will eventually wear it away, but it would take a tradesman years to wear out a plane iron and it’s doubtful that any smallholder would do so in less than a couple of generations. Contrast this with our DeWalt planer. A replacement blade set is about nine pounds and the blades are tiny.
This article extract was taken from the February 2025 edition of The Country Smallholder. To read the article in full, you can buy the issue here.
