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Handle
detail.
As noted, no model was presented with the patent application.
The line drawings show a tool that is virtually the same in
form as the example shown here. The exception and change is
the choice of material for the handle.
Boufford's drawing shows a wedge-shaped piece of wood with a
turned handle and a normal wood screw holding the blade in position.
In practice, this arrangement would not have proved satisfactory
as the removal and reinsertion of the wood screw for blade adjustment
and sharpening would have caused splitting or weakening of the
wood frame.
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|
 |
| Blade
holding mechanism. |
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Scraper
disassembled. |
The screw was replaced by a knurled brass nut, which gave a
much better method for affixing the lever cap to the handle.
This, then, perhaps necessitated a change in the material for
the handle. The refinement of form and the use of cast iron
provided a more consistent and faster method of production.
Examples of this tool are found only in the form as shown and
it is doubtful whether the wood variant was ever manufactured.
As with the Davis level (see Volume 2, Issue 3) the complexity
and fine molding techniques left this tool prone to breakage.
D.S. Orr |
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