Category: Historical Images

The Basket of Tools; or, We Must All Do Our Part

A Joiner’s boy, going to his work, carried with him a basket of tools; and as he walked rather quick, it occasioned some little commotion among the sharp-edged instruments. The consequent accidental rubs which took place as they encountered each other at length excited an irritation of spirit, and the inconvenience of this unavoidable jostling soon proceeded to raise a voluntary purpose to injure one another, under the pretence of retaliation for the knocks, and scratches, and cuts which were inflicted from the deplorable circumstances in which they were placed.

“Pray, brother, keep your teeth to yourself,” said a Hatchet to a Saw. At the same time bouncing up, he gave him a pretty sharp cut on the handle, which making him strike a File with some violence that lay under him, forced its rough side against the point of a Gimblet; and whilst itself felt the hurt, it drove the handle into the box of a Plane, which it knocked out of its place and stuck fast therein.

“What are you all about?” said the Plane; “do you see what a situation you have put me into? What is to become now of your clumsy operations, if you are without the finishing touch of my ability? What sort of work will you look like, do you think?”

“I think,” said the Saw, ” that we can do perfectly well without your insignificant help. What do you do towards the forming of the things we are employed in? Whatever it be, I am the most important; the length and breadth of all things are determined by my power, and each part made to suit the other.”
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When I was laying the foundation of my mechanical fame and fortune running a bolt cutter in the Rock Island shops at Chicago a year or two ago, I boarded in a house filled with locomotive engineers and firemen. A practice prevailed there of enlivening the supper table with social conversation, and the locomotive being in the majority the leading theme of talk was stupendous feats performed in getting over certain hills without doubling.

This was occasionally varied by the record of minor incidents such as the exploit performed by Tom Jones when the 96 broke her rocker arm, how narrowly Dick Swiveller escaped from having his checks called in when the 124 broke her side rod running down Valley Hill, and how Harry Walbrandt whooped up the 92 to make a passing point, and just got clear into the side track when the Chicago limited showed up.

George Dorwart, who ran a lathe in the shop, sat opposite me at the table, and he got tired of being excluded from the conversation. He became ambitious to hear himself talk in that crowd. One evening catching on in a lull of the talk he called out loudly to me: “Well, I went over and saw that machine to-day, and it is astonishing the fine work it does.”

“How does it work?” I inquired.

“Well,” said he, “by means of a pedal attachment, a fulcrumed lever converts a vertical reciprocating motion into circular movement. The principal part of the machine is a disc which revolves rapidly on a vertical plane. Power is applied through the axis of the disc, and when the speed of the driving arbor is moderate, the periphery of the machine is traveling at great velocity. Work is done on this periphery. Pieces of the hardest steel are by mere impact reduced to any shape the skillful operator desires.”

“What in thunder is the machine any way?” demanded Tom Jones.

“Oh, it is a new grindstone,” replied George, and a silence that could be felt passed round the supper table.

The Old Man.

American Machinist – December 15, 1883

—Jeff Burks

The common file, as every workman knows, is an Implement, the flat or curved surfaces of which are notched or serrated in such a manner that, on being rubbed on the wood, ivory, metal, or other hard substance for which the tool is intended, a surface of more or less smoothness is obtained.

Files are made of bars of steel prepared in a peculiar manner, it being necessary that the file should be formed of the hardest possible metal, or else its working surface would be speedily worn away. The steel is therefore rendered harder than usual by means of a process known as double conversion, the metal thus prepared being said to be doubly converted.
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SIR,

In your laſt acceptable Letter dated from Weſtminſter the 2d. of Auguſt, I obſerve that you deſire me to turn my Speculations, and to give you my Thoughts upon ſeveral Appearances relating to a Razor; particularly to ſay ſomething concerning its Edge and Sharpneſs, which in a good Razor is ſo fine and ſo nice, that it is ſubject to the leaſt Change and Alteration in the Weather; and particularly that Cold has ſuch an Influence upon it, as to ſpoil and blunt its Edge, inſomuch that it will hardly cut a Hair aſunder.

In anſwer to your ſaid Letter, I muſt acquaint you, Sir, that I ſhave my ſelf, and that my Razor, which I always uſe twice a Week, and which I have had above Thirty Six Years, was never Ground but twice, and yet it cuts very well; but I ſet it ſometimes upon an Oyl-ſtone or Hone, yet not as I obſerve ſome Barbers do, who ſtroke it above Twenty five Times on one ſide, and then again as many on the other; whereas I on the contrary paſs my Razor once only on one ſide, and that very gently with the Edge againſt the Stone, and then on the other ſide in the ſame manner; and ſo continue about ten or twelve Times; after that I paſs the Razor, with the Back of it downwards, upon a Leather prepar’d with Tripoly [which the Silver-ſmiths uſe, to Poliſh or Clean their Plate with.]

When I look upon ſuch a Razor thro’ my Microſcope, I ſtand amazed at the great number of Gaps and Notches that I ſee in the Edge thereof, and wonder how one can ſhave ones ſelf ſo ſoftly therewith; nor does my Razor refuſe to do me Service even in Winter and cold Weather, tho’ I muſt own at ſuch times the Shaving is a little more painful, but that I have hitherto thought, was only occaſion’d by the Hair of the Beard being harder in Winter than Summer, when ’tis cold Weather I always keep my Razor in a Room that has Fire in it.
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