As you might know, we’re a non-profit, but we don’t often receive donations. Just recently we were gifted a beautiful selection of tools and wanted to share the story here. You only need to take a quick look at projects like our Nest at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum to see how important tools are to us. Often we’re leading workshops for dozens of people at the same time. We’ve always leaned more towards manual tools for drilling, driving and cutting, the tactile quality of working the material is really important. Often the best (and affordable) way to get high quality tools in the quantity we need them is to go vintage. Bob Hodson was a very talented Coventry machinist and engineer, came from a line of them. Sadly, Bob passed away last year and their neighbour Richard has been helping his wife Pat clear an incredibly well stocked garage. Besides obviously being a thoroughly nice guy. Richard is an EMC Principle Engineer at HORIBA MIRA and shares a passion for good quality tools. Pat and Richard were kind enough to pass on a beautiful selection of hand tools, spanners and socket sets. The pièce de résistance is clearly the stunning Jones of Croydon weighted pillar drill which will hopefully gracing public workshops very soon. A massive thank you to Richard, Pat and of course, Bob. We’ll take really good care of them and make sure they’re used widely for years to come.