1860s Starrett Food Chopper [Restoration]

The restoration is on the oldest tool I have worked on so far for YouTube. This is a food chopper or hasher patented by L.S. Starrett (of Starrett tool fame) in 1865. It was one of his first patented inventions. You can see the patent here: At the time of production, this was used mainly to dice meat in to smaller pieces at a much faster pace than doing it by hand. The rich or businesses would find this affordable as it sold for $10 USD in 1869, which is equivalent to ~$2000USD in 2020. I found this tool about two years ago and wanted it for my personal collection. Since this piece was not a commission, I was able to do whatever I liked with it during the restoration process. With that in mind, I purposely did not remake any wooden pieces as they had a very attractive pattern on them from years of use. With that decision made, it would look odd to remake the damaged bucket as well, so that was just repaired and left as found. The