Why are hand tools "the dark side?"

Re: Because....

Darin in Victoria

>Any particular location in mind Santa? Oh, and I have been a good boy all year. Really!!!

Re: Why are hand tools "the dark side?"

Tom Price

>Your elders on the OldTools list have always referred to the dark side as the Normite side. You confused souls over here are attempting to reverse the metaphor. Have you no respect for tradition? Apparently not, or you wouldn't spend so much time gushing over the latest new-fangled LN or LV gizmo ;-)

- Tom

Hear, hear! Why, it makes my flesh crawl.

David Barnett - Venice, Florida

>

Re: Of fids

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Fascinating! Much inspirational material here, David.

A dogwood fid-o, perhaps? Even Chief of Security groans about that one. In this case, I would really feel bad about buying one of the patented ABS wonders, just to study it and reproduce it in wood, which I would have to do, since the website does not give dimensions. Further, there's no way I could make one at that price.

And, surprisingly perhaps, I have already made a fid but didn't know that's what it was, for a friend who canes chairs with threesquare cane, Schoenoplectus pungens, and whose arthritis has been making it very difficult for her to continue her craft without some help.

It's amazing the windows that one small clue and Google can open. The bone folders in the Indiana University collection are works of art. That is a tool I had never heard of. It sure would be fun to make some (even though I would have no idea how to use one), and Cornus florida would probably be a workable alternative to bone or ivory.

From fids to bonefolderol -- gotta have 'em!

David Barnett - Venice, Florida

>William, I'd be lost without my bone folders. These are made in Germany primarily for bookbinders who use them for creasing signatures, sticking leather to boards, defining cords on spines, rolling heads, creasing in endpapers and defining joints, pretty much everything, actually. They're cheap enough to own several, although they're made in far fewer styles than even a couple decades ago. The two in that collection photo on the upper right are the commercially made ones, and the smaller is one of my favorites. As you might imagine, I also have a passel, perhaps even a panoply of homemade ones in materials ranging from horn, ivory, MOP and bone to stone, micarta and cast glass. I use them for gilding, goldsmithing, modeling in wax and clay, cordwaining and in woodworking, too, especially to rub down marquetry and inlays, but they're always at hand for anything fiddly.

A bit more on using bone folders

David Barnett - Venice, Florida

>You wondered how to use them. Well, you can think of it as armor for your thumb, zooming and zipping along seams and creases that'd take off all but the most calloused skin, applying considerable pressure on paper, cloth, leather, and so on. You can grip it in your fist sticking out to either or both sides and aligning something stiff or thick that needs creasing or smoothing with the edge of a table or litho stone apply amazing pressure with surprising ease. You can hold it lightly between thumb and forefinger to finesse the pointed end, pushing a thread into a drilled hole. Gripped more tightly between the same digits and held as a knife edge you can score paper, leather, cardboard, wood, and who knows what else. Held daggerlike, you can make even deeper dents into such things as nonferrous foils and sheet metal. Held with the point upwards, you can index a your fingers alongside a freshly glued veneer edge and 'slick' it down fast. Or use a thin one like a blunt knife for lifting veneer from substrates. Or pop lenses into eyeglass frames or optical mounts. Burnish paper surfaces to give an smoother tooth for cut quill pens. Pull stitches from fine leather goods or book signatures with little risk of damage. Set cabachons in bezels. Open stuck ziplock bags. Score sandpaper. And on and on. Oh so endlessly useful are these little wonders.

Re: A bit more on using bone folders

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>OK, I'm convinced. These sound like the sorts of applications where I've tried to use carving knives, dental picks, thumbnail (of course), chisels, case cutters, scrapers, chop sticks, palate knives, pointed sticks, credit cards, AOL CDs, etc., with less than satisfactory results. And to think, I was already considering making something like these, but trying to market them as lowly spatulas and butter spreaders.

Re: A bit more on using bone folders

Dan Donaldson

>Boy, am I glad that you guys cleared these things up! When "bone folders" were mentioned, I had the vision of someone trying to fold my bones over. I have enough trouble with my bones from old age without having someone try to fold them ;-))