Nifty site this!

[CedarSlayer]

Hello my name is Bob, and I am a maker of tools. Just for fun really, but I have made tools using only tools I have made in order to make a tool that would then allow me to make the needed tool to make a tool!

Most of my tools are woodworking hand tools. My ideal tool is a tool that is very useful, never existed before and could have existed for a hundred years. If I can have it look like it could have been made a hundred years ago, all the better.


This is a tiny spill plane made to test the concept. It's entire purpose is to make spiral shavings. In olden days one would light one of these to move a flame from one location to another. Lighting a pipe with a spill was a classic application.

Bob

[DIYer]

Nice intro, CedarSlayer! I didn't know about spill planes and their use for lighting pipes.

[kbalch]

Hi Bob,

Welcome! I love the idea of making tools only with tools you've made. Very meta. Did you begin the cycle with store-bought tools, or with tools you built by hand?

When you're ready to share some of your own homemade tools, we'd love to see them. Please post them directly in the Homemade Tools, subforum. We'll add each one to the database, as well as to your builder page on the site.

Non-tool items should be shared in the Not a Tool, but Homemade subforum.

Ken

[CedarSlayer]

In days of old, it was common enough that an apprentice had to make a tool box and fill it with tools that he had made. This makes good sense in a lot of ways. If you are an apprentice and you are making a tool box you can carry handily, the amount of wood used might be in the 20 pounds range and the steel used would be half that or less. A lot of tools could be made from better scraps. After making a tool, an apprentice might care for it better and will probably understand it better. The shaping of a tool would give good training and be an example of workmanship.

So to teach myself woodworking, I took up the hobby of making tools. Then I became addicted to tool making. I still use a lot of purchased tools in my processes. I like to replace them with homemade versions, but only if I think I can improve on them.

As an example, the Gyokucho 650 is a nearly perfect saw. I suppose I could put an octagonal handle on it and pretend to myself that I had made the saw, but I don't know how I could improve on it. I do know how to tune it up to be even better than new, but as long as they make such an amazing hand saw, I will use it at one point or another while making most of my tools.

Bob

[Jon]

Welcome CedarSlayer . I honestly had never heard of a spill plane! What's interesting is that it's a tool used to make another tool. We'll get it indexed and added to the site along with your other postings.

[kbalch]

Thanks Bob! I've added your Spill Plane to our Woodworking category, as well as to your builder page: CedarSlayer's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Spill Plane by CedarSlayer

tags: hand tools, plane

[CedarSlayer]

No sadly this was not a tool to make another tool, it was more of a model to test angles. This is the final tool:



For more details, check out the blog entry!

[DIYer]

Wow, that's great work, just to check out angles!

[CedarSlayer]

Wow, that's great work, just to check out angles!

Thanks, but then this is the one that worked. As I recall there were three others where the angle was wrong.

As far a tool recursion goes, I used only tools I had made to make a guide to help me make a shell auger correctly.

Some of those tools had been made using tools I had made. One of the chisels I used was made on a homemade forge that was made with several hand made tools. As I shaped the hot plain blade I gripped it with tongs I had made. The shell auger was made in order to make a handles. I made a handle for a bit holder. This bit holder let me remove bits I had made to cut a hexagonal hole in a bronze rod. The hexagonal hole became a collet in a bit holder made from scratch.


Since then that tool has helped me to make other tools that I have used to make tools. The recursion is endless!

As meta as that sounds, I would bet that any serious machinist could come up with much longer lines of recursion than I have. Tool makers use tools and make tools. Chains of causality ensue. The more tools you have and make the deeper intertwined the layers of tool dependency will be.

Bob














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[kbalch]

Hi Bob,

An interesting and useful homemade tool! Your Spill Plane is the 'Tool of the Week'!

You'll be receiving one of our official HomemadeTools.net T-shirts:



Let me know (via PM) your size, color choice, and mailing address. We'll get the shirt in the mail to you directly.

Congrats!

Ken