So what are these things?

[twstoerzinger]

I suspect some of you professional guys will know this right away - but it has me stumped.
Back in December I bought a Clausing lathe. It came with two bushel sized boxes full of cutters, boring bars chucks and the like.
Included were a set of 10 manual tools that look like miniature scrapers to me. See the photo.
The wooden handles (one is cast aluminum) all have a flat side. Not sure if this is for tool functionality, or just to keep them from rolling off a flat surface.
The tool portion is hard steel. Each one has a slightly different end. Some have been ground into interesting shapes.
Are these for deburring, for mico hand machining or what?
Thanks,
Terry S.

 

[GaryK]

They're palm chisels for wood. I have some exactly like them.

They could have been ground for a special purpose though. You never know what was in the mind of the person that ground them though to know what that was.

 

[Tom Griffin]

Terry,

They are gravers, used to do hand engraving in metal. You've probably seen the fancy engraving on guns, these are some of the tools used to do it.

Tom

 

[Tony Wells]

I know a guy that inherited a nice Gerstner box full of them. The previous owner worked for the Bureau of Engraving. He made printing plates in the "old days" for Uncle Sam. Nice looking set of tools, that was. Full set would be pretty valuable, I'd imagine.

 

[Bill Gruby]

Correct Tom, I have a bunch of them in every shape you could imagine. Some sre straight some sngled or curver but all have the Mushroom handles.

"Billy G" )

 

[Tom Griffin]

When I was in college, I took my tools to an guy who did hand engraving and he engraved my name on them. The guy was amazing. He was probably in his late 70's at the the time, but had amazing hand/eye coordination. He dusted the tools with some kind of powder, hand sketched the layout in the powder and cut in the letters. A lot of the tools were hardened steel, like the base of my depth mic, but it didn't seem to matter. He even engraved my full name on the depth mic rods. I'll take a couple of pics when I get home and post them. I wish I had that skill.

Tom

 

[DMS]

You can purchase them new through Jewelery suppliers like Rio Grande. They are not super expensive, bot not "cheap" either. Good ones seem to be about $15 for the graver, and $5-10 for the handle.

http://www.riogrande.com/Search/graver

 

[KySawdust]

I used to know a very old gentleman that actually had the skill to engrave currency printing plates. It was said that his whereabouts were a matter of gov't record as he was 1 of 7 people in the late 70's that had that skill.

His grip was like a vise - he used to wrestle in his younger days and pushing those tools into guns all day must have given him that vise-like grip.

Mr. Prudholm was probably 70 at the time and played "golf" on the snooker table with us at lunch every day in Shreveport, La. down at Guys & Dolls Pool Hall. Large stakes! $2 a game + $0.25 per "hickey". Those were good times. :thumbsup:

 

[Tom Griffin]

Here are pics of some of the tools I had engraved:

 

[Grahammon]

You can see the flattened part of the handle allows the tool to get close to the surface.
Wonderful skill.