1950s Carpenter Hand Tools

A folding carpenter's rule could be found on most workbenches during the 1950s.tool image by Zbigniew Nowak from Fotolia.com

The 1950s baby boom followed the scramble of young couples to set up housekeeping in their own homes. Some post war couples turned to building their homes as an affordable way to get a house. The "can do" attitude of the World War II generation produced men and women willing to pick up a hammer or saw to fix or build things. Power tools loomed ahead in the future, but hand tools were readily available.

Folding Carpenter's Rule

A carpenter's rule is a wooden measuring instrument which folds up using brass, swivel hinges into 7 to 8-inch sections. It resembles a slender yardstick from one angle and the folds of an accordion from another. These rules were accurate measuring tools as they were rigid and did not sag or flex. Kids often loved to fold and unfold them. They were 6 feet long when extended.

Flat head or straight blade screwdrivers have been a basic tool for carpentry chores. In the 1950s, they were constructed of tough steel with a wooden handle. The Phillips screwdriver, invented in 1936, features a cross-shaped blade to be used on Phillips head screws. These screws were developed for use in car manufacturing plants to give the automated machinery more torque to create a tighter fit. They came into common use for wood projects alongside the post WWII building boom.

A 16-ounce claw hammer was considered a good weight for a woman to wield in home repair projects as well.hammer head front image by Rich Johnson from Fotolia.com

Claw hammers were also known as carpenter's hammers. The head has a cleft, or claw, on one end for removing nails. The shaft was smooth hard wood which provided a firm grip for hefting the tool. Toward the end of the 1950s, new hammers appeared featuring rubber handles.

Planes are tools with adjustable razor-sharp blades for smoothing or shaping wood. Bench planes, ranging in size from 9 to 22 inches, come in three forms. Use a jointer to trim, straighten or square a long edge. To smooth or square a rough board, employ a jack plane. A smooth plane smooths and flattens the face of a board. Block planes divide into two categories: standard, featuring a 20 percent angled blade, and low angle, with a 12 percent blade pitch. The shavings often form wood curls.

Another staple of carpentry, the handsaw, has a long history dating back to pyramid-building days in Egypt. In the 1950s, a typical home workshop would have several handsaws of differing sizes for distinct chores. The size of the saw's teeth indicated the work it could handle. Larger teeth were for rough cutting jobs, while finer teeth made smoother cuts on smaller sized pieces of wood. Home handymen could sharpen the blades using a file and saw vise. The saws were made of tough spring steel with wooden handles.

Levels are tools used to determine true horizontal. They were constructed of rosewood, ebony or mahogany and varied in length from 2 to 8 feet long. A carpenter's square is an "L" shaped, steel measuring stick. These are still in use in modern times for framing and are known as framing squares.