Interesting woodworking nugget!!

When my Grandmother passed earlier this year, my parents asked me if there was anything from my Grandmother's old house that I wanted. I told them if she had any old tools that I wanted them. I believe the language that I used was "anything that looks like it was from before WW2".

There was not a lot. A few old hand drills, a couple of braces. My favorite thing are these old scissors that had to have been made early 1900's, they are still sharp and work incredibly well.

In addition to those items I also got this thing:

https://i.redd.it/6omz3spw2bc31.jpg

I asked around and no one knew what it was. Lots of people said it is a cork screw but there is no way that this thing is going to pull a cork. Then I kind of forgot about it and moved on with my life.

Well not long ago I was reading "The Joiner and the Cabinet Maker". That book was originally written in the 1830's. Lost Art Press released a re-production of this book but with LOTS of added commentary. The book is extremely interesting and I recommend it.

One of the things that Lost Art Press added was a page out of a tool catalog. The catalog was from 1912. And right there on the page was that strange tool. See:

https://i.redd.it/ntjxwxn53bc31.jpg

So apparently that thing is called a Gimlet. So I did a little bit of googleing.

Gimlets were used by woodworkers to drill holes. Hand crank drills were much more expensive and I do not even think that they existed in the 1830's (they may have existed, I just don't want to pretend to know). So what were these holes for? Nails!

You see, back then nails were different than they are now. Nails were square and were called cut nails. and they used to split the wood something fierce! And before that, nails were made by blacksmiths and were wrought iron. So you would need to drill a pilot hole whenever you wanted to hammer in a nail.

Then the French figured out how to make "wire" nails and that is the kind of nail that we are all familiar with today. Wire nails are made and sold at a fraction of the cost of cut nails. Cut nails have a lot more holding strength though. A lot more. There are still places you can buy them but be prepared to pay a lot more.

Hope you guys found this as interesting as I did.

Submitted July 24, 2019 at 10:55PM by WhiteOakMountain https://ift.tt/2YpSa99