So yesterday I received a set of top tool from GS Tongs . Glen is a maker of very beautiful and functional tools. These are tools that I could have made myself, but I love his clean lines and functional design. Plus my wife needed something to give me for our anniversary. I posted them on Facebook and someone asked me what they were for. I did not feel there was enough room in a Facebook response to adequately answer that, so here you go:
This is a set of 4 top tools:
Top tools are designed to be placed against your heated work and then hammered to get different effects. The different shapes are each designed to create a different result. The 4 tools are :
round punch
cutter
slot drift
slitter
The use of each is explained below:
Round punch
The first tool (and the one I will probably use the most) is the round punch. This tool is used to drive a hole into a piece of metal. It creates a round hole through the metal with less loss of material then drilling a hole would. It pushes the metal to the edges instead of cutting it out the way a drill bit would.
As you can see from the example above, this saves the loss of metal, but also can create a flare on the edges of the metal. This look can be either eliminated, on enhanced through the use of drifts to expand or reshape the hole.
The Cutter & Slitter
As its name implies these tools are used to cut or drive a slit into the metal.With unlimited cheap iron to work with, saws are often used nowadays, but when these tools were invented, saw blades for metal where very difficult to make and very expensive. These tools allowed you to cut the metal without any loss of material. Below is an example of a viking griddle with a split handle. This was done while hot and then each end was shaped.
Slot Drift (punch)
This is the tool I am most excited to get because it is the tool I am the worst at using. Like the round punch, this tool is designed to punch out a slug of metal and leave a hole. In this case the hole will be a rounded rectangle and will be used to create a slot that will be expanded to a round or square hole that would be impossible with a drill. The rectangle is opened up by using round or square drifts to expand the hole and make it round or square. The hook below as well as the connection on a pair of andirons below are an example of this technique. The Mastermyr hammer reproduction shows the process of punching the hole and then drifting it to shape.
As you can tell, I have all of these tools in my shop. Most of the tools used for the examples above I made for myself. Making his own tools is a large part of the blacksmiths craft. I could have spent the rest of my life using my own tools and done just fine. However, the opportunity to use a tool made by a master craftsman is not something I want to give up for the silly pride of having used only my own tools. The next project for the forge will be making a set of hooks using all of these tools, to hang these tools on. Having these tools hanging on my wall will serve 2 purposes for me. One, it will give me a visual of what work by a master looks like and 2, it will be a constant reminder of the 29 plus years that I have spent falling more and more in love with my wife.