O Galoots:
I have a couple of what the Buck Brothers 1890 Price List called a "Half Round
Reamer." These are rather like small bunghole taper borers or tapered
chairmakers' spoon bits, but with blades only 3" long and half-an-inch wide at
their widest. This seems to be a woodworking tool, not a metalworking or
machinist's tool. Buck also offered very similar reamers with flat, square, and
hexagon or octagon sections. No choice of sizes. One of mine is unhandled, with
a square three-quarter-inch long tang and the other has a handle along the axis
of the blade. Neither of mine are marked, and their tangs are just slightly
different from the Buck ones.
In one sense, of course, it is perfectly obvious what these are for: enlarging
and tapering holes. I have had the handled one among my benchtop tools on-and-
off for years, found it very useful when I had it out and never remembered about
it when it was in a drawer. However, I have no idea what they were originally
used for, and I would like to know.
Three specific questions:
1)what trades habitually used these little reamers, and for what?
2) What kind of handle would they have had? Mounted in a brace, cross-handle,
tap wrench, or handle along the axis like mine? Are there other possibilities?
3) How sharp should they be, and how are they sharpened? Mine are dull enough to
run a finger along the edges with a fair bit of pressure. There is no sign of a
bevel from sharpening with a stone resting edge-to-edge, and no sign of a bevel
running down into the hollow. No signs of sharpening at all, in fact.
I'm afraid I don't have facilities to photograph mine, and I didn't find a Buck
catalog on line, but the reamers are on p. 98 of my reprint. Rose Antique Tools'
(courtesy of the Wayback Machine) reproductions of L.& I.J. White, Swan,
Greenlee, and Starrett catalogues don't seem to have the half-round reamers, but
the Swan catalogue has a square reamer similar to Buck's:
https://web.archive.org/web/20110916105254/http://roseantiquetools.com/
sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/1911swan.pdf">https://web.archive.org/web/20
110916105254/http://roseantiquetools.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/191
1swan.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/kq996kg
and the Greenlee catalog has a slightly different square shape on p. 42:
https://web.archive.org/web/20111019181921/http://www.roseantiquetools.
com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/no.33greenlee6.64.pdf">https://web.archi
ve.org/web/20111019181921/http://www.roseantiquetools.com/sitebuildercontent/sit
ebuilderfiles/no.33greenlee6.64.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/mr4sw9g
I don't want to change the handled one I've had for years, but the unhandled one
of a relatively new acquisition and I'd like to mount and sharpen it correctly.
Tom Conroy
Berkeley
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