THE CUTLER AND FILE-CUTTER.
GRINDING.
Amongst all the trades that occupy the attention of mankind, that of the Cutler, which also includes the tool maker, is certainly one of the most essential, since without tools no other manufactures could be carried on. Cutting instruments of various kinds have been in use from the earliest ages, if for no other purposes, for cutting food, slaughtering animals, and making war upon each other. In ancient times, as well as amongst some barbarous tribes at the present day, these implements were frequently made of shells, edged flints, or hardened wood, fashioned into sharp weapons; at a late period, cutting as well as warlike instruments were formed of brass or bronze; but at the present time, in all civilized nations they are formed exclusively of steel or iron.
Steel is formed from the purest bar iron—that which comes from the Swedish mines being preferred. This is buried in powdered charcoal and heated to whiteness for several days, without exposure to the air; during this time the metal becomes much harder, whiter in colour, crystalline in texture, and blistered on the surface. The blistered steel so produced is prepared for use, either by binding several bars together and hammering them into one, or by melting them in earthenware pots, called crucibles, and pouring the melted metal into moulds of the size required. In the latter state it is called cast steel.
Cutlery is generally understood to comprise all kinds of knives, razors, lancets, and edge tools, including scythes, saws, scissors, shears, spades, and many others; and the manufacture of forks, files, and some other instruments not possessing cutting edges, is frequently included in the business. It will be impossible to give a detailed description of how all these are made, so only two or three must be selected. In a Cutler’s factory knife blades are forged from steel bars in a number of small rooms, each containing a fireplace or hearth, a trough to hold water, and another trough for coke, which is specially prepared for this kind of work; there are also an anvil, hammers, and some other tools.
Cutler’s Hammers. Anvil.
Two persons are engaged in each room, one being called the maker or forger, the other the striker. The forger buries the end of the steel bar in the fire to the extent required; and to determine when it should be removed requires some judgment, since if it be overheated or “burnt,” it will be quite unfit for cutting purposes. On the other hand, it must be sufficiently heated to acquire the proper degree of softness for the operation of shaping the blade from it. When the end of the bar has been properly heated it is brought to the anvil, where it is fashioned by the striker into the required shape by means of a few blows of the hammer. This roughly shaped blade is then cut off from the end of the bar, which is again heated for forming the next shape, and so on to the end.
The cutting part of the blade thus rudely formed is next welded to a piece of iron, which forms the bolster, or shoulder, that is, the part that rises round the handle of the knife. To make the shoulder of the size and shape required, and to give it neatness and finish, it is introduced into a die by the side of the anvil, and a swage ([see Blacksmith]) placed upon it, to which a few smart blows in the proper direction are given by the striker.
Shoulder-iron.
The die and swage are called prints by the workpeople. Besides the bolster, the part which fastens into the handle, technically termed the tang, is also shaped from the piece of iron welded on to the cutting part of the blade. After the bolster and tang have been properly finished, the blade is heated again, and then well hammered on the anvil. This operation, which is termed smithing, requires particular care and attention. It is intended to consolidate the steel, and to render it brighter. The next process the blade has to undergo is that of marking. This is done with a broad punch made of the very best and hardest steel, and having the name and corporate or trade mark of the firm carved on the bottom end or point. The blade is heated to a dull red (worm-red, as it is termed by the workmen), and the mark cut in on one side of the blade with the punch by a single blow of the hammer. Now comes the most important process of all, viz. the hardening and tempering of the blades. Upon the effectual performance of these operations depends the practical value of the articles. The Sheffield workmen have justly and deservedly acquired the very highest reputation for peculiar skill in this most difficult department of the cutlery business. The hardening of the blade is effected by heating it to bright redness, then plunging it perpendicularly into cold water, which operation renders it extremely hard, but at the same time very brittle, which is an inconvenience, of course, requiring to be remedied. This is done by the process of tempering. To this end, the hardened blades are first rubbed with finely powdered sand, to remove scales, &c. from the surface; they are then placed on an oblong tray made of steel, and on this exposed to the fire until they acquire a bright blue tint. The workman judges of the proper degree of tempering entirely by the colour, and the utmost attention is bestowed upon this point to ensure the most perfect unanimity in this respect. The hardened and tempered blades are then submitted to the manager’s inspection, who applies various tests to them, and rejects any that may turn out imperfect in any one point.
The blades that have been examined and passed by the manager are next taken to the grinding mill, or, as it is technically termed, the wheel. Each separate shop in the building in which the grinders work is called a hull. The grinding is done on stones of various qualities and sizes, according to the kind of articles to be ground. The rough grit stones come mostly from Wickersley, near Rotherham; the finer and smoother grained stones, and the so-called whitning stones, come mostly from the more immediate neighbourhood of Sheffield. The blades of table-knives are ground on wet stones, the grinding stone being suspended, for that purpose, in an iron trough filled with water to a sufficient height to make the surface of the fluid just touch the face of the stone. The grinding stones, as well as the glazers and polishers, are turned by machinery worked by steam power. A flat stick is used by the grinder to keep the blade pressed to the surface of the stone. The ground blades are then glazed, which simply means that a higher degree of lustre and smoothness is given them by grinding on a tool termed a glazer. This consists of a wheel made of a number of pieces of wood, put together in such a manner that the edge or face always presents the end way of the wood, which is done to preserve the circular shape by preventing contraction of the parts. The grinding face of the wheel is covered with so-called emery cake, which consists of a composition of beeswax, tallow, and emery. The glazing wheels have a diameter of four feet. The tang of the blade is stuck into a temporary handle to facilitate the operation.
Grindstones. Chisel. Buskin. Flat File or Rasp. Gauge.
The last process to which the blades of table-knives are subjected in the grinding mill is that of polishing; this is done on circular pieces of wood covered with buff leather, with a coat of finer emery (flour emery) composition upon it, which are made to revolve with much less velocity than the grinding stones and the glazers. The ground blades are again taken to the manager, who applies several very severe tests to them, to try their temper and edge.
Shears. Flat Stick. Haft Moulds.
Knife-handles are made of horn, ivory, ebony, silver, German silver, mother of pearl, &c. Two sorts of ivory are principally used, the Egyptian and the African; the latter is the more beautiful and transparent of the two, the Egyptian looking more like horn. The tusks are sawn in appropriate lengths, which are then cut by a small circular saw into handles of the required size. The handles are properly filed, and occasionally also carved or fluted in different patterns. A variety of files are used for these purposes, such as flat files, threading files, hollow files, half round files, &c. The handle is then bored to receive the tang. The bolster of the blade having been properly filed, the tang is inserted into the bore, and fixed in by cement in the usual way. It is afterwards farther secured by a German silver pin passing through the handle and tang.
The silver and German silver handles are stamped in dies. The mother of pearl handles are carved or fluted in different patterns.
Fire-irons. Crooked Tongs. Tongs. Dies.
The knives thus finished by the hafter are now taken once more to the manager, to undergo a final examination preparatory to their removal to the warehouse.
The forging of razors is performed by a foreman and striker in the same manner as in making the blades of table-knives. The bars or rods as they come from the tilt and rolling mill are about half an inch broad, and no thicker than is sufficient for the back of the razor. The anvil on which the razor-blades are forged is rounded at the sides; by dexterously working the blade on the rounded edge of the anvil, a concave surface is given to the sides, and the edge part thus made thinner, which saves the grinder a deal of labour. The blade having been cut off the bar, the tang is formed by drawing out the steel. The blade is then properly hardened and tempered. The last and most important process which the razor-blade has to undergo is that of grinding.
The difference in the prices of blades, make all of them of the same material, is owing entirely to the circumstance that stones of much smaller diameter are used for grinding the higher priced blades, and much more time and labour are given to the operation than is the case with the cheaper sorts.
In making a fork, the end of a steel bar is first made red-hot; it is hammered so as to give a rough approximation to the shape of the shank or tang; it is again heated, and a blow from a die or stamp gives the proper contour; the prongs are cut out by a powerful blow from a stamp of peculiar form, and the fork is finally annealed, hardened, ground, and polished. It is this process of fork grinding which has so often been made a subject for comment; the fork is ground dry upon a stone wheel, and the particles of steel and grit are constantly entering the lungs of the workmen, thereby ruining the health and shortening the duration of life.
Many contrivances have been devised for obviating this evil, but the fork-grinders have not seconded these efforts so zealously as might have been expected.
In making pen and pocket-knives, a slender rod of steel is heated at the end, hammered to the form of a blade, and carried through many subsequent processes. But the putting together of these hinged knives requires more time than the making of the blades, and affords a curious example of minute detail. When the pieces of bone, ivory, pearl, tortoise-shell, horn, or other substances, which are to form the outer surface of the handle, are roughly cut to shape; when the blade has been forged and ground, and when the steel for the spring is procured, the whole are placed in the hand of a workman, who proceeds to build up a clasp-knife from the little fragments placed at his disposal. So many are the details to be attended to, that a common two-bladed knife has to pass through his hands seventy or eighty times before it is finished.
A file, as every one knows, is a steel instrument, having flat or curved surfaces so notched or serrated as to produce a series of fine teeth or cutting edges, which are employed for the abrasion of metal, ivory, wood, &c.
Steel for making files being required to be of unusual hardness, is more highly converted than for other purposes, and is sometimes said to be double converted. Small files are mostly made of cast steel. The very large files called smiths’ rubbers are generally forged immediately from the converted bars. Smaller files are forged from bars which are wrought to the required form and size by the action of tilt-hammers, either from blistered bars or from ingots of cast steel. These bars are cut into pieces suitable for making one file each, which are heated in a forge-fire, and then wrought to the required shape on an anvil by two men, one of whom superintends the work while the other acts as general assistant.
The next operation upon the blanks which are to be converted into files is that of softening or lightening, to render the steel capable of being cut with the toothing instruments. This is effected by a gradual heating and a gradual cooling. The surface is then rendered smooth, either by filing or grinding.
File Cutting. File Cutting.
The cutting of the teeth is usually performed by workmen sitting astride upon a board or saddle-shaped seat in front of a bench, upon which is fixed a kind of small anvil. Laying the blank file across the anvil, the Cutler secures it from moving by a strap which passes over each end and under his feet, like the stirrup of the shoemaker. He then takes in his left hand a very carefully ground chisel made of the best steel, and in his right a peculiarly shaped hammer. If the file be flat, or have one or more flat surfaces, the operator places the steel chisel upon it at a particular angle or inclination, and with one blow of the hammer cuts an indentation or furrow completely across its face from side to side, and then moves the chisel to the requisite positions for making similar and parallel cuts. If it be a half round file, as a straight-edged chisel is used, a number of small cuts are necessary to extend across the file from edge to edge. So minute are these cuts in some kinds of files, that in one specimen about ten inches long, flat on one side and round on the other, there are more than 20,000 cuts, each made with a separate blow from the hammer, and the cutting tool being shifted after each blow. The range of manufactures afford few more striking examples of the peculiar manual skill acquired by long practice.
Several highly ingenious machines have been contrived for superseding the tedious operation of file cutting by hand; but suited as the process may appear to be for the use of machinery, it has been found to present such great difficulties, that we believe no file-cutting engine has been brought successfully or extensively into operation. One very serious difficulty arises from the fact that, if one part of the file be either a little softer than the adjacent parts, or a little narrower, so as to present less resistance to the blow of the hammer, a machine would, owing to the perfect uniformity of its stroke, make a deeper cut there than elsewhere.
After the files have been cut, the steel is brought to a state of great hardness; this is effected in various ways, according to the purpose to which the file is to be applied; they are generally coated with a sort of temporary varnish, then heated in a stove, and then suddenly quenched. After hardening, the files are scoured, washed, dried, and tested.
It will be seen that the tools employed by the Cutler are few, and consist mostly of the hammers, moulds, dies, anvils, grinding stones, and others already mentioned.
