Auger Gimlets

  When I started buying tools for my shop from Lee Valley, back before the internet I had to decide on the tools quality and use based on reading their catalogue and occasionally finding a reference to the tool in a magazine or book.

 One such set of tools was Auger Gimlets.  I bet most shops not longer have a set of gimlets, and in truth you will get along fine without them. However I like my set:

auger gimlets

  My set is now 20ish years old and has been ignored for months at a time. But....when I use them they are really the only tool available to do what I want.

                                              

  These are a pocket truck and a larger wooden toy being held up for spraying with arousal varnish.If you look under many of my smaller carvings you will find the tell tale hole left in the bottom.

  I have used various gimlets for creating pilot holes in many projects where I was driving a small/short screw or a screw eye.  The gimlet gives the screw thread on the screw eye enough to get started.

  Today I used my gimlets to drill a hole in a material I have never worked with before.

 

  A number of years ago a friend, Karen, gave me two deer antlers that she found while out walking in the forest near her old house.  Needless to say I was happy to receive this thoughtful gift, I had no immediate plan for the horn but I was sure that one day I would make appropriate use of it.  That day was today.

  The gimlet connection is the fact that I used a gimlet to drill the hole in the antler in which I set knife blades. I began the process with an electric  drill and bit but almost immediately decided that drilling was too aggressive for what I was doing. The gimlet allowed me total control and to taper the hole by using different sized gimlets as I augered out the centre of the horn.  By the way the antler smells "funny" when it is sanded.

  These knives are antler handles with custom blades made by Stefan Heldt of Sweden.  I was told by the clerk in Pasadena AB in Stockholm where I bought the blades three years ago that Mr. Heldt was a blade maker of high distinction in Sweden and had recently won an international competition.  I don't imagine that these two tiny blades are his very finest work, but they are spectacularly fine/sharp blades.  If I ever decide to take up doing eye surgery as a hobby I think these blades will be up to the task.

  I encourage you to check out his web site. 

             http://www.stefanheldt.n.nu/

  It is my plan to try to write an entry in this blog once a week or so.  I don't plan for it to always be wood working, because I many loves, food, baking bread, riding anything with two wheels,and family. We'll just see how it goes.

cheers, Ian W