Humpday Triviola
In the early 20th century butchers were sometimes called upon to be woodworkers. When they were, they sometimes reached for this hand tool. What is it and what was it used for?
Tom
Humpday Triviola
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Re: Humpday Triviola
#2Re: Humpday Triviola
My grandfather was a butcher for a good part of the 20th century. Several times a day, he would put away the knives and reach for a wooden handled tool, fitted with several hundred cutting edges.
Re: Humpday Triviola
#3Re: Humpday Triviola
A Scraper to clean the blood and gore off the chopping or cutting block in the shop.I remember watching them do it in the local butcher shop when I was growing up.
Re: Humpday Triviola
#4I can't think of a snappy responce...
I have a feeling it involved a #64.
Re: Humpday Triviola
#5;-)
Re: Humpday Triviola
#6Answer
Ken was dangerously close but Scott wins today's Golden Uni. The answer is the Stanley #64...often referred to as the "Butcher's Block Plane" It was used to renew the surface of butcher blocks. However in the general woodworking world the plane was not very useful and not highly regarded and so its production life was short.
Tom
Re: Humpday Triviola
#7Re: Answer
As a tool, it kinda misses the point - which probably accounts for its lack of success in the market.
There is no real requirement for the top of a butcher-block to be co-planar. In fact, most are pretty far from it after a few months of hard use.
The real purpose of re-surfacing a butcher-block is for sanitary reasons. My grandfather, and most other butchers of the time, used scrapers and/or wire-brushes to remove the blood-saturated end-grain and expose a fresh, sanitary surface.
But thanks for the question. It brings back memories of summers working in my grandfather's butcher shop.