The Island of Tools

Welcome to the Island of Tools

(But please don't forget to visit the "I can't bake so I am going to try to make a Violin" post

Just in case you missed "I can't bake so I am going to try to make a Violin" and have come straight here, you are most welcome, but be sure to look at my other post about my attempt to make a violin during 'lockdown'

Violin Cobbler's small home-made plane in action

I am concentrating on making violin at the moment but when it is finished I will migrate here, and concentrate on, The Island of Tools )

I am glad you have made it to the Island of tools (Rabelais Tool Island ) in this post I plan to spend more time on the stuff relating to my interest in hand tools . I have been messing about with trying to recreate historical woodworking techniques for quite a while ( I know I have already mentioned this as Violin Cobbler but you may have missed it? The Search for the Lutemaker's donkey ) so have lots of old photos of my woodworking misadventures to put in here. I must get back to my violin cobbling but here is a picture of a pig sitting next to some japanese whaleback saws

I asked his permission to include his picture and he said "oinkay". He looks tired as he has just finished being made!

Travel restrictions? This year, spend some time on The Island of tools.

(Or ... even better Walk more and Plant trees?)

I have always been easily pleased with and have taken delight in ordinary things. The present situation has meant, for many of us, our worlds have become a lot more local. Do not despair and try if you can, to embrace a slower pace of life. Once you start to walk more you can notice more and even a walk to the shops itself can become fun, less flies and bumblebees end up on windscreens, less stress finding a parking place, more hedgehogs live to see their grandchildren? With the reduced road traffic the air seems fresher, walking in town is more pleasant and the birds sound like they are out -tweeting Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

Coming Soon(ish)

More details and photos will be added soon, at the moment I am concentrating on trying to get my violin finished, but these are the kinds of things I will be exploring in this post

Making a small metal plane

Drawings, tools and metal

Big Shears

Small Shavings

Sawing wood, Maebiki Japanese Whaleback saw

No such thing as free wood

The little face (above the saw) is laughing be cause he knows, a couple of years later, I will break my big toe doing the same sawing charade!

Saw shavings

Small Sawn beech boards

Sycamore half log versus big toe.

I dropped one of these on my toe, needless to say the log won.

Next day I took the bus to the hospital. "Of course I took the bus as I couldn't cycle with a broken toe. What do you mean taxi!"

Italian Pull plane similar to Ancient Roman designs

Noah's tools

Design taken and drawing made from Jacop Bassano's (1560?) painting of the Building of the Ark

Roughing beech block with side axe

Plane

The loneliness of the long distance sawyer.

Sawing thin boards for guitar backs and sides

Only a few hours to go think of the calories burnt!

Guitar Bore

Dinner time

Please forgive the absence of a table cloth on my anvil, I was in a hurry after all that sawing wood! Of course I wasn't going to eat out of the pan!

"I hope I'm gonna get that apple" Grunted the little pig

Small Wooden pig sitting in hand wants apple

Disgruntled

14th of July. The Messiah of Handles?

Making a chisel handle

I know that is a bit of a far fetched title but I've just checked and Messiah means "the annointed one". and I have put some walnut oil on my handle to finish it.

Anyway ...

I need to make some long handles for some gouges I want to use (See my other post "I still can't bake etc etc") . I quite like making tool handles it allows me to use up some of the scraps of wood that I can never bear to throw away.

Here are some old chisels with their nice old handles. The wood has a really nice colour and general look acquired through, in some cases, a couple of centuries of use and handling or maybe lying in the dark in a corner of a tool chest?

These well used chisels have had their boxwood handles damaged probably by being hit with hammers. I still like the look of them, scarred but still sharp and ready for action

Many old chisels have user made handles and very often they are octagonal. An octagonal handle can have the advantage over a round handle in tending not to allow a chisel to roll of the bench, edge first, onto the floor. These two chisels have a nice variation on the usual octagonal handle in that on each side two of the facets are taken around in a curve to meet at the top of the handle - the photos show it better than my clumsy words. I really like this interesting octagonal handle variant, the handles ends seem more finished as the facets dont just end, they meet up, apart from the two which have semicircular ends, and go around the end of the handle

Another view of the 'deluxe' model octagonal handles, I decided to try and make my new long handles in this style

The perils of ferrules

Many old chisels have 'home-made' handles which have no ferrules and have survived much use. Ferrules are maybe useful for chisels in some cases such as those with a tang and no bolster (like many turning chisels) but I prefer chisel handles without them as they can dig into the hand or workpiece when working vigorously. Also they are another thing to find or make and then they will take time to fit unless the handle is turned.

15th of july

I thought I would use some Elder wood for one handle. I have cut a suitable length and am splitting it.

I discovered a woodworm sitting in a little hole in the smaller half. I had noticed one flight hole on the small log of Elder. I left the piece with the worm in the kitchen over night and by morning the worm had turned around in his/her hole and burrowed into the wood. The next day I took the worm's small half log and left him/her in some undergrowth in the place where I think I got the elder many years ago.
Here I am starting to plane the piece of wood against a stop

The octagon has been roughly planed

The facets have now been planed just about equal, good enough for me.

Here I am drilling the hole for the gouge tang with a shell bit, turning the handle in my hand so I can see if the hole is lined up correctly with the handle. I used three sizes of shell bits (see below) to roughly accomodate the taper of the tang

I then use the tang itself to ream the hole to final shape, turning the handle on the tang, removing it occasionally to tap out the wood chippings. Some judgement is needed here to avoid splitting the handle or making it too loose and needing careful application of wood shavings wrapped around the tang

16th of july (After midnight)

I have fitted the gouge until its bolster is nearly up to the handle and am marking where wood needs to be removed so the handle fits well against the bolster.

Trimming the handle with a knife

Here are the three shell bits used to make a hole to accomodate the taper of the tang

When shaping the handle I used a chisel or knife to round the end and make two opposite facets of the octagon meet as seen here

I then took pencil line around the end to mark out the angled curves of the facets which were to be taken around the handle's end

Chiseling the curves, taking care to keep an eye on the shape

Using a file to smooth things a bit and to soften the corners a bit

Not perfect but good enough for me

Getting ready to put the handle on. Notice the x on the handle, I put this on earlier when fitting the handle so that each time I took the tang out of the handle during fitting it could be returned to the handle in the same orientation - the x in theis case corresponded to the upper, hollow, surface of the gouge