Starrett Square with Center Head

StewMac

StewMac (Stewart‑MacDonald Manufacturing) is a leading American supplier of specialized tools, parts, and educational materials for luthiers—artisans who build, repair, and mod guitars, banjos, mandolins, and other fretted instruments. Founded: 1968 by Kix Stewart and Bill MacDonald and headquartered in Athens, Ohio, USA. They were acquired by private equity firms (Brookside Capital & Champlain Capital) in 2016.

Tools for Working Wood

Where else can one buy a bow saw?

TFWW sells a broad selection of high-quality woodworking tools—including international brands like Veritas, Festool, and laying out hand tools—but is best known for its own lines:

Bosch

Bosch Tool Company is part of Robert Bosch GmbH, a globally recognized engineering and electronics company based in Germany. Bosch is widely respected for its innovation, engineering excellence, and quality — especially in the fields of power tools, automotive components, industrial technology, and home appliances.

Bosch Company website →

Albrecht

Albrecht Präzision GmbH & Co. KG, the renowned German maker of precision drill and milling chucks, in 1932 introduced the world’s first keyless, self-tightening drill chuck, that quickly became an industry standard.

Albrecht Precision Chucks → (Company website)

From the Albrecht Company website:

The L.S. Starrett Company, founded in 1880, manufactures more than 5,000 variations of Precision Tools, Gages, Measuring Instruments and Saw Blades for industrial, professional and consumer markets worldwide.

2018 visit to the Starrett factory (the old office in images below).

Lie-Nielsen

Lie-Nielsen Toolworks is a premium hand tool manufacturer based in the United States, renowned for producing high-quality woodworking tools inspired by traditional designs but made to modern standards of precision, durability, and aesthetics.

Thomas Lie-Nielsen founded the company in 1981 to revive and improve on the Stanley-Bailey-style bench planes, which were no longer being made to high quality by mainstream manufacturers.

Heavy Scrapers for Woodworking

Heavy scrapers are invaluable tools in the fine woodworking shop, especially when working with dense hardwoods or dealing with complex grain that defies the smooth finish left by planes and sandpaper. Unlike thin card scrapers, which are flexible and better suited to delicate work or final smoothing, heavy scrapers provide the rigidity and mass needed to remove material more aggressively and with greater control.

Fret Tools

Homemade handle with radius and self-stick wet&dry abrasive pads for polishing. These also work on the Dual-grit diamond fret files. Maybe the best way to re-crown frets. The 300-grit seems a bit much so I also use end of the diamond file for some paper tab polishing after the 150 grit has shaped the crown.

Custom fret tool for lapping frets.

Starrett

The L.S. Starrett Company is one of the oldest and most respected manufacturers of precision tools in the world. Known simply as Starrett, the company has played a pivotal role in shaping modern machining, metalworking, and metrology through its high-quality measuring tools, saw blades, and machine shop equipment.