I would like to get a couple of draw knives, I see several types and brands
on eBay.
Which are recommended, is Greenleaf a good style or brand?
Thanks.
Walter Slocombe

Walt,

“Greenleaf?” or “Greenlee?”

Greenlee is a long-time brand in the USA.  I have several antique Greenlee edge
tools which are of good quality.
I do not have any recent Greenlee products.

If “Greenleaf” is not a typo, it’s unfamiliar to me. Hope it’s not an attempt to
piggyback on the good reputation of Greenlee.

John Ruth
Metuchen NJ

Hey Walt,
What are you planning on using a drawknife for?  There are many good old
brands and look around your area flea markets.  Every farm had at least
one.  They vary by shape and size.  Bevel up, bevel down, and so on. Check
the archives.
Claudio

> I would like to get a couple of draw knives, I see several types and brands
on eBay.  Which are recommended, is Greenleaf a good style or brand? 

What do you want to do with them?  There are a lot of different sorts of
drawknives.  My smallest knives have 4 inch blades, the largest has a 22
inch blade.  There are different angles of blade to handle.  There are
light drawknives, heavily built drawknives, and more or less common,
medium weight drawknives.  Two of my favorites are carriage makers, very
lightly built, narrow blades for working inside curves.  My favorite
general use drawknives are mostly D.R. Barton made.  Hefty construction
and dependable steel. 

You want to make sure there's plenty of steel left, as most of the older
ones are laminates.  I've been very disappointed in recently made
drawknives -- poor angles, poor steel, and too steep a bevel on the
cutting edge.  These just don't work like the older tools at all. 

It's been my experience that most of the older knives are well made,
good tools.  Old Greenlee tools are good -- most drawknives made before
WW II work nicely, take and keep a good edge, and they have good handle
to blade angles.  These were the first I bought and used.  The bulk of
mine, however, are 19th Century drawknives -- I like them best.  L&IJ
White, D.R. Barton, Buck Brothers, Swan, W. Butcher. -- all these are
very good. 

Mike in Woodland

A quick word about Greenlee- in the early 80’s or thereabouts,  Greenlee
re-introduced hand tools (not sure if these were the same people doing the
big iron machines from the 1800’s ?…but anyway, I have one of those newer
tools, a chisel with a plastic handle, stamped with that name somewhere in
one of my stashes).
I don’t think these newer Greenlee are as good as the old ones (gummy steel
that doesn’t really hold an edge well), or maybe it’s a different maker
altogether.  Maybe someone here knows?  I have some hardware store branded
draw knives which are pretty good.  Many of these off-brand tools were
manufactured by the big name guys, so you can often find these tools at a
good price and they’re every bit as good.
Claudio

my favorite small drawknife is the bulb-handled jennings' 4" blade
drawknife.  assuming the handles are tight, which can be a problem (i have
a couple three of these), the steel is excellent, holds an edge, and the
handles allow for really exquisite control (almost like a spokeshave) or
for power hogging on smaller stock.

an example:
https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0408/21/c-e-jennings-4
-inch-draw-knife-drawknife_1_2bf0f40514c5e675d85339695b91a5be.jpg">https://thumb
s.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0408/21/c-e-jennings-4-inch-draw-knife-
drawknife_1_2bf0f40514c5e675d85339695b91a5be.jpg

best,
bill
felton, ca

On Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 7:18 AM, Claudio DeLorenzi 
wrote:

On Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 9:35 AM, Dragon List  wrote:

> my favorite small drawknife is the bulb-handled jennings' 4" blade
> drawknife.
> https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0408/21/c-e-
> jennings-4-inch-draw-knife-drawknife_1_2bf0f40514c5e675d85339695b91a5
> be.jpg
>
>
These are cute little devils, great for small work.  They are also
available from Pexto or PS&W, and others.  They seem to be made by the same
manufacturer, and just relabeled.

I have a pair of North Bay Forge micro drawknives, which are even tinier.
Great for the inside curve of a saw handle.

http://www.northbayforge.com/dk.htm


As Mike in Woodland said, almost anything old will be great if not worn
out.  I have Swan, Greenlee, Pexto, Cantelo, Riverside, Shapleigh, and all
are excellent.  Make sure the handles are on well, and no huge dings in the
blade, and you should be good to go.  Get more as you figure out what you
like

-- 
Kirk Eppler in Half Moon Bay, who got over an hour of garage cleanup time
last night. Took pictures for Bill too.

I'll second Bill's recommendation of these small, bulb-handled drawknives.
I have two, but as Bill notes is likely, they both suffer from at least one
seriously (and dangerously) loose handle. One even slides completely off.
What to do here? My inclination is to file a few notches in the tang and
fill the old handle with epoxy and go on with my life. But I've never done
this, and so I don't know if it's a good idea. By the way, these are
quality tools, but they are unlabeled, common examples. Nothing especially
valuable.

All input welcome here!

Thanks, GI

Greg Isola
Alameda, CA

Yep, I Second that.
C

My recommendation is simply .......lots!

  Drawknives are one of the last "undiscovered" treasures of the 
woodworking world. People are paying through the nose when they are 
addicted to new retail goods, but hardly anyone is going after the great 
old ones. So its easy pickings!
  There are literally thousands available for very little money.  But 
you better scoop them up now.

   You want some huge ones. And some tiny ones. You want plenty of 
middle sized too, especially in case you get help peeling poles or 
something. ;) heeheeh


  My recommendation is to try to look for at least one original handle 
when picking up an old knife to restore.  Knives with no handle trace 
left are often survivors of a barn fire.
  While you can reharden and temper them to perform like new again, this 
is much more difficult for a newbie.
And there are so many great ones still available, why bother.

Making new handles is hardly any harder than making chisel or file 
handles. And you are going to work with tools for long, you are going to 
be making plenty of those in your lifetime anyway.

http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/dknife1.jpg
http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/dknife2.jpg
http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/dknife3.jpg
http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/dknife4.jpg
http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/carriagek
nife18.jpg">http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/carria
geknife18.jpg
yours Scott

-- 
*******************************
    Scott Grandstaff
    Box 409 Happy Camp, Ca  96039
    scottg@s...
    http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/
    http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/hpages/index.html

Snip

  My recommendation is to try to look for at least one original handle when
picking up an old knife to restore.  Knives with no handle trace left are often
survivors of a barn fire.
  While you can reharden and temper them to perform like new again, this is much
more difficult for a newbie.
And there are so many great ones still available, why bother.

END snip

What an interesting point about the barn fires, Scott, and one that had never
occurred to me.

As to pole-peeling which you also mentioned in your post, that is a great job
for children.  Drawknives are about the safest of edged tools for kids.  After
all, they have both hands out of the way of the blade, and it is just not that
easy to slip and cut themselves with one.  A few years back I was working on my
cabin and needed a couple of peeled birch poles.  I put my least mechanically
adept children to work with a big drawknife.  They had great fun and the real
sense of contributing to the job, and I had them productively occupied for an
hour or two

j

> Drawknives are about the safest of edged tools for kids.  After all,
> they have both hands out of the way of the blade, and it is just
> not that easy to slip and cut themselves with one.

Sort of, yes, and certainly fun.  Schwarz, a few years back, blogged about
some accounts he'd found of drawknife injuries. Some folks cut their knees
while on a shave horse, and things went downhill from there. So some
discipline is still needed.

I'm really enjoying this exchange about drawknives, I've got an old planer
blade that I've been intending on turning into a bulb-handled drawknife for
some years now. Carry on, all.

I have a bunch of them and tend to like them larger, 8-9” for what I use them
for.

Have never found a bulb handled one I could justify the price of....but love how
they feel....considering converting one of my nappier ones to bulbs.

Have also considered making some kind of “T” handle because I use them with a
fair amount of force, which requires a lot of grip, which results in hand
fatigue.

Sent from my iPhone

curt, that's a great idea.  i can picture just what to do with it, too.
i've a variety of blades i've not got a plane for, and a couple of tapered
ones might just be perfect for this.

thanks,
bill
felton, ca

On Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 12:21 PM, curt seeliger  wrote
[snipped per FAQ, unlike my last one]:

>> I've got an old planer blade that I've been intending on turning into a
bulb-handled drawknife
> curt, that's a great idea.  i can picture just what to do with it, too.
 i've a variety of blades i've not
> got a plane for, and a couple of tapered ones might just be perfect for
this.

That's a cool idea, Bill, but not what I meant. I meant one one of those
electric rotary planer thingy knives, probably HSS. Something I expect some
day to grind down the ends and bend 'em before putting handles on.  But
show us what you have in mind when you do yours. I won't be the only one
interested.

Drawknives.  You suckered me out from under the porch again.  Thanks!

Ahh, thinking back.  Way back to when I saw my first drawknife and peeled
my first lodgepole pine.  I think it was a Greenlee, and I think that they
were available new in the lumber store at the time and place (Laramie,
Wyoming in the early '80's.)  Peeling logs is a noble use for a drawknife,
and for decades, I thought that's what they were for.  Peeling calls for
about a straight 10" blade or more, depending on the size for the sticks
you are working on.  It's what you resort to when the logs have dried a bit
and the bark is too hard to strip easily with a barking spud.  At the time,
I recall that it seemed very important to have *two* drawknives, so that
SWMBO and I could work together.   I bought one of them new, and the other
may have been my first OT.
For peeling, the handles are turned back toward you, and they are pretty
substantial, which makes for a pretty powerful tool.  I bought my son a
pretty nice (Oh, damn, I can't remember the brand!) one with folding
handles at an oldtools sale in Missouri.  The older drawknives had a series
of profiles for their specialty--thick or thin at the edge, usually thicker
along the back.

Another essential but overlooked tool for peeling logs is a set of log
dogs, to keep the stick from rolling on the log rack.

During a house project her a few years ago, a friend bought a new
drawknife, imported and cheap.  It was hard to use, but even more so when
he tried to peel a log with the bevel up.  I pulled out one of my old ones
(like most edge tools, I kinda favor TH Weatherby), and demo'd how to use
it--worlds of difference.  It's hard to say what was wrong with the new
one, but you could tell instantly that it was an awkward tool.

Smaller drawknives for carving can have smaller, sometimes spherical
handles at various angles, and sometimes curved blades.

I see that our local hardware store has curved whatchacallits--scorps.  I
haven't seen anybody actually use one around here yet, but they look nice
for doing the longitudinal cut on house logs.
So, I guess my only message is that one tool isn't enough.  It's never
enough.

PK
It's -40-some today and our sewer is frozen, so I guess it's back to the
honey bucket for a few days.

your comment made me think to hot cut the tangs from the body of the blade,
and forge them so they're on the correct angle, from an old tapered blade
i've got.  you said planer, and i thought handplane.

comme ça:

|                                   |
|*                                *|
|  *                            *  |
|   *                          *   |
|    *                        *    |
|    *                        *    |
|    *                        *    |
|    *                        *    |
|    *******************    |
|_________________|

where the tapered end of the blade is the bottom straight line, and the hot
cuts are the asterisk path, becomes:


      /****************************************\
     /    /-----|_________________|-----\    \
    /    /                                                  \    \
   /    /                                                    \    \
   /   /                                                      \   \
   /  /                                                        \  \
   / /                                                          \ \
   //                                                            \\

though i would expect the tangs to be splayed wider (my ASCII-fu isn't up
to snuff).

best,
bill
felton, ca

Thanks so much for all your great advice and stories! A few years ago I
switched from power planes to hand planes, Baileys mainly, and have really
enjoyed them!
 A friend asked me if I had a drawknife he could borrow, hence my question.
But now I think I want to get a small, medium and large drawknife and have
some fun!
I can’t thank you all enough, I’ll let you know how it works out.

Kirk,

You mentioned

==snip==
I have a pair of North Bay Forge micro drawknives, which are even tinier.
Great for the inside curve of a saw handle.

http://www.northbayforge.com/dk.htm

==end snip==

Interesting place, that. It is located on Waldron Island, up near the Canadian
border. The whole island is "off the grid." No ferry service either.


Chuck Taylor
north of Seattle USA

walt, clearly you've missed an important part of our discussion:  not "i
want to get [A] small, medium, and large drawknife", but "i want to get
[MANY] small, medium, and large drawkni[ves]".

best,
bill
felton, ca
just say i feel like tossing another gallon of duck fat underfoot of walt's
slope.

Hi Walt:

  Don't forget that some are bevel up and some work best bevel down. So that's
at least one more than you've planned on, so far.
                    gluck widdat---gam in OlyWA                          
   

How horrible it is to have so many people killed!---And what a blessing one
cares for none of them!
Jane Austen

      From: Walt Slocombe 
 To: Phil Koontz  
Cc: OldTools List 
 Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2018 2:39 PM
 Subject: Re: [OldTools] Drawknife recommendations
   
Thanks so much for all your great advice and stories! A few years ago I
switched from power planes to hand planes, Baileys mainly, and have really
enjoyed them!
 A friend asked me if I had a drawknife he could borrow, hence my question.
But now I think I want to get a small, medium and large drawknife and have
some fun!
I can’t thank you all enough, I’ll let you know how it works out.

On Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 4:28 PM Phil Koontz  wrote:

> Drawknives.  You suckered me out from under the porch again.  Thanks!
>
> Ahh, thinking back.  Way back to when I saw my first drawknife and peeled
> my first lodgepole pine.  I think it was a Greenlee, and I think that they
> were available new in the lumber store at the time and place (Laramie,
> Wyoming in the early '80's.)  Peeling logs is a noble use for a drawknife,
> and for decades, I thought that's what they were for.  Peeling calls for
> about a straight 10" blade or more, depending on the size for the sticks
> you are working on.  It's what you resort to when the logs have dried a bit
> and the bark is too hard to strip easily with a barking spud.  At the time,
> I recall that it seemed very important to have *two* drawknives, so that
> SWMBO and I could work together.  I bought one of them new, and the other
> may have been my first OT.
> For peeling, the handles are turned back toward you, and they are pretty
> substantial, which makes for a pretty powerful tool.  I bought my son a
> pretty nice (Oh, damn, I can't remember the brand!) one with folding
> handles at an oldtools sale in Missouri.  The older drawknives had a series
> of profiles for their specialty--thick or thin at the edge, usually thicker
> along the back.
>
> Another essential but overlooked tool for peeling logs is a set of log
> dogs, to keep the stick from rolling on the log rack.
>
> During a house project her a few years ago, a friend bought a new
> drawknife, imported and cheap.  It was hard to use, but even more so when
> he tried to peel a log with the bevel up.  I pulled out one of my old ones
> (like most edge tools, I kinda favor TH Weatherby), and demo'd how to use
> it--worlds of difference.  It's hard to say what was wrong with the new
> one, but you could tell instantly that it was an awkward tool.
>
> Smaller drawknives for carving can have smaller, sometimes spherical
> handles at various angles, and sometimes curved blades.
>
> I see that our local hardware store has curved whatchacallits--scorps.  I
> haven't seen anybody actually use one around here yet, but they look nice
> for doing the longitudinal cut on house logs.
> So, I guess my only message is that one tool isn't enough.  It's never
> enough.
>
> PK
> It's -40-some today and our sewer is frozen, so I guess it's back to the
> honey bucket for a few days.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> aficionados, both collectors and users, to discuss the history, usage,
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OldTools is a mailing list catering to the interests of hand tool
aficionados, both collectors and users, to discuss the history, usage,
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traditional handtools, especially woodworking tools.

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OldTools@s...

On 2018-01-25 2:35 PM, Mark Pfeifer wrote:
> Have also considered making some kind of “T” handle because I use them with a
fair amount of force, which requires a lot of grip, which results in hand
fatigue.

I think this is the reason some drawknives have grips at a low angle to 
the blade, far less than 90deg.  The ones shown here are in line with 
the blade, and on a pretty spendy tool, but illustrate the point. 
They're for heavy work.

http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=64755&cat=1,130,43332

I wouldn't want handles that could slip between my fingers.  For heavy 
work, that would be a sure way to get nasty blisters and maybe internal 
injuries to ligaments, tendons and tiny muscles between the fingers.

Your hands are your 2nd most important tools, after your head.

FWIW

Don

-- 
"You can tell a man that boozes by the company he chooses"
The Famous Pig Song, Clarke Van Ness

The harder they come, the bigger they fall." Ry Cooder

Hey Scottie:
Re:barn fires suggested as a reason for “drawknives without handles”....
Since I have several of these with only one handle, then obviously the
firemen arrived before the second side burned off?
Or maybe... Anyway in answer to the question about handles: most of these
handles have a type of rounded washer ( at the end furthest away from the
pointy bit) where the tang has been peened over.
The tang was ‘burned in’ on at least some of mine (drilled the wood handle
blank undersize, heat tang, push tang through).
These rounded washer bits are hard to replace with store bought
replacements, but you can adapt a fender washer -burn off the shiny zinc
plate, heat to cherry red, then hammer it on your swage block or dapping
block at your forge.  Or you can use a bit of pipe and the peen end of a
ball pein (ball-peen?) blah blah make a rounded washer to fit over the ends
of the tangs, then tappity-tap-tap to rivet it in place to prevent the
handle from pulling out while working at the shavehorse ...
Mind you, if they had epoxy or JB Weld in the olden days, they might of
used that instead (they weren’t dumb, you know).
BTW, I noticed Scottie has blinged up his drawknife with a pile of fancy
shiny buffed and polished brass bits on his ‘Sunday drawknife’, what with
the fancy grained handles, acorn nuts, pearls, and whatnot.  Must of hard
silver soldered a bit of brass bolt on those tangs too.  What will he think
of next?
City-folk and their jewellery, what can you do?  8>}}
Claudio

Wow, great thread on a fantastic tool.  I tell you though, Kasper's ASCII
art did hit a bit of a nostalgic cord with me - taking me back to a time
when I first discovered this great List.  Nicely done sir! (dabbing eye
corner with shop rag)

-Paul in SF, who by sheer happenstance recently use his much adored green
handled, 4" version to shape a handle for the froe iron he picked up
at the "Miracle
in Menlo" <https://swingleydev.com/ot/get/262213/single/>
https://photos.app.goo.gl/bIf180PiN5nCdf8k1
https://photos.app.goo.gl/5M3WwAggdpucV7Ng2

What’s this?  A 4” drawknife with handles painted British Racing Green?
It’s too dark to be British Locomotive Green, innit?  Those must me
aftermarket?
Claudio

There was some discussion of planer (power) blades making a homemade 
drawknife.

     Really old planer blades are fantastic. Newer ones, not so much.
  All the newer ones are M2 high speed steel. Not very useful for the 
home cobbler. HS won't forge. You can heat it to white hot and crumbly, 
and it still won't forge. Once you harden M2, it sets and that's it.
  But the older high carbon knives? You can forge and weld and do 
whatever you like with these.
     Several of the small knives I showed were once old planer blades.

  For end washers, I must admit to keeping small stacks of coins at my 
metal (tool) bench. A dapping block will dome them out lickety split, 
with little trouble. You have a selection of sizes built in too.
(shhhhhhhh, don't tell Uncle Sam)

   Or, a holesaw or flycutter will drill you out perfect washers from 
even thick brass.
   Hammered into the block cold, to dome them up, is just ducky.

  http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/carriag
eknife5.jpg">http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/carri
ageknife5.jpg
http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/carriageknife2.jpg
http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/carriageknife6.jpg
http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/carriageknife7.jpg

   If you want to bolt on your handles, weld threaded bolts onto the 
ends of your tangs.
Hard solder would work too but, steel welded on is the stronger.
http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/carriageknife8.jpg
http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/carriagek
nife16.jpg">http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/carria
geknife16.jpg
http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/carriagek
nife10.jpg">http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/carria
geknife10.jpg

   By all means burn your handles in!  I always do. Drill a pilot hole 
and heat the tang up cherry red. (use a soft metal padded vise to not 
only hold the tang aloft, but as a heat sink so the heat doesn't creep 
into the blade)
     Open the window first. Billows of smoke accompany the proceedings. ;)
  Its stinky work, but its cool, as you push the handle onto the hot 
tang and it sizzles its way in most amazingly. It seems like cheating 
physics, a big tapered tang falling through wood so nice.

http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/carriagek
nife12.jpg">http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/carria
geknife12.jpg

http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/carriagek
nife17.jpg">http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/hometools/carria
geknife17.jpg
      yours Scott

-- 
*******************************
    Scott Grandstaff
    Box 409 Happy Camp, Ca  96039
    scottg@s...
    http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/
    http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/hpages/index.html

>A 4” drawknife with handles painted British Racing Green?

Round these parts we call it "Isola" green.

-Paul

On Fri, Jan 26, 2018 at 9:20 AM, Claudio DeLorenzi 
wrote:

Dear Mr Scottie:
 You can definitely hard silver solder high speed steel or carbide to mild
steel or even tool steel if you wanted to  (I put a nice bit of old broken
endmill and a square section of  lathe bit on some mild steel bar of
unknown origin not too long ago- which reminds me, I need to pick up more
acetylene)   It's moderately easy  to make your own special purpose lathe
tools,  boring bars, or even a special purpose wood lathe tool (instead of,
you know,  the usual Canadian custom of gently tying up a big male beaver
to a stick).

    HSS as well as carbide bits are not affected by getting them glowing
hot.  Within reason, of course, fire will destroy absolutely everything if
it's hot enough for long enough (which is why I have indicated cremation as
an appropriate course of action for yours truly).  Hard silver solder -the
good 45% stuff is what I have- and with the proper flux  - that's important
too, solder and welding stuff is no time for cheapskate bargain hunting.
As with abrasives, if you really need them, you should buy the best there
is, otherwise it will just end up costing you more money buying junk when
you have to go out and buy the good stuff you should have purchased in the
first place.

  Hard silver solder is almost as strong as a proper weld for properly
fitted parts, as far as I know, it's almost as strong as the parent parts.
Even the "soft" silver solder, Certainium (I think its called, the one I
have, I mean) and other brands are also pretty strong if your project isn't
going to be near heat over 500°.   It's not manganese bronze, but it's
pretty good for the home gamer.  I did a cast iron vice part with a couple
1/8" dowel pins and hard silver solder, and it was very good repair-it's
held up for years- ditto with a broken saw vice casting.  Like all metal
magic, it's all about the prep work. The prep work,  and the amulets.  And
maybe also the small mammal  sacrifices.

  Maybe some proper welder fabricator welding magician type people on this
list can chime in with the correct info-( I only do this stuff when I
absolutely have to, and never just for fun, so I probably don't know what
I'm doing and I'm only accidentally getting good results).

  So Scottie, unless you are pulling a wagon with a team of horses with
your drawknife, a hard silver solder joint will be just fine, and it's
much, much easier than hot forge welding anything.

 Although, it's only soldering, Or maybe brazing? Not sure.  It's certainly
not as dramatic (no showers of manly sparks flying off the hard face of
your five pound hammer, as you pound down. Hard.  Hard, on the glowing tool
steel at white welding heat on the shiny surface of your 500 pound anvil,
the beads of  sweat washing tracks of coal dust off your brow, as your
glistening muscled torso is silhouetted on the far wall of your shop by the
flickering forge light,  while passing women swoon at the window of your
shop- Well, that's how I sort of imagine it might be at 'Happy Camp' in
California....).  In Canada, you would see an old fat guy in sandals with
thick wool socks and his old bathrobe on with an ancient oxy-acetylene
torch working on a brick.  Not the same thing at all. But, I digress...
 Sharpening HSS can be an issue though if you don't have a good set up for
it.  In the Colonies though, we have to make do with what we have, so I get
some , yup, beavers again,  to sharpen mine up (Beavers, what can't they
do?).

By the way, very nice job on that drawknife!
Cheers from Waterloo, with a bunch of deer munching on my (expensive,
recently replaced) landscaping bushes in my backyard as I write this.
Ivory soap does not seem to discourage these guys.  Sigh.  Time to send out
my trusty sidekick to chase them away...
Claudio

On Fri, Jan 26, 2018 at 12:39 PM, scott grandstaff 
wrote:

> On Jan 25, 2018, at 10:01 , Greg Isola  wrote:
> 
> I'll second Bill's recommendation of these small, bulb-handled drawknives.

Thirded. This is the one I use the most (a PEXTO branded
knife), and it's a lot handier for furniture-sized work
or tool handles.

> I have two, but as Bill notes is likely, they both suffer from at least one
> seriously (and dangerously) loose handle. One even slides completely off.
> What to do here? My inclination is to file a few notches in the tang and
> fill the old handle with epoxy and go on with my life. But I've never done
> this, and so I don't know if it's a good idea. By the way, these are
> quality tools, but they are unlabeled, common examples. Nothing especially
> valuable.

I had the same problem, and really didn't want to use epoxy,
since it always gets me in trouble down the road when it needs
further repair. Some cheap b*stard in the porch archives
suggested using steel wool to shim the tangs and tighten
them up in the wood bulbs, before tapping the ferrules
back on. That or newspaper worked for me; blue painter
tape did not.

ymmv,
Adam

On 2018-01-27 11:58 AM, Adam R. Maxwell wrote:
> Some cheap b*stard in the porch archives
> suggested using steel wool to shim the tangs and tighten
> them up in the wood bulbs, before tapping the ferrules
> back on. That or newspaper worked for me

Are there any more ways for re-using used-up steel wool?

Don, on occasion known as 'cheap bastard', but not usually...

-- 
"You can tell a man that boozes by the company he chooses"
The Famous Pig Song, Clarke Van Ness

The harder they come, the bigger they fall." Ry Cooder

> On Jan 27, 2018, at 16:23 , Don Schwartz  wrote:
> 
> Are there any more ways for re-using used-up steel wool?

Well, there's always dissolving it in vinegar to make
ebonizing!

Pass some over here and I'll polish the spittoon again.

-- 
adam

On 2018-01-27 7:55 PM, Adam R. Maxwell wrote:
> Well, there's always dissolving it in vinegar to make
> ebonizing!
>
> Pass some over here and I'll polish the spittoon again.

But then what will I do with the rusty nails?

Don

-- 
"You can tell a man that boozes by the company he chooses"
The Famous Pig Song, Clarke Van Ness

The harder they come, the bigger they fall." Ry Cooder

>
>> Well, there's always dissolving it in vinegar to make
>> ebonizing!
>>
> But then what will I do with the rusty nails?

Ahh it all goes into the soup
   I will even take grinder dust and add some of that, whether it has 
grindstone swarf of not.
Or filing dust from around the vise.
   Any old iron
     yours Scott


*****************************

    Scott Grandstaff
    Box 409 Happy Camp, Ca  96039
    scottg@s...
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