(2) The question of sharpening the tool is soon disposed of.
If the tool is to be sharpened, the jaws must be ground down, whether the maker grinds them down originally or whether we do it. Is sharpening worth while, since the tool only costs a few pence?
Well, it's a question each must decide for himself; but I will just answer two small difficulties which affect the matter.
If grinding the jaws loosens the pivot, it can be hammered tight again with a punch. If sharpening wears out the oil-stone (as it undoubtedly does, and oil-stones are expensive things), a piece of fine polished Westmoreland slate will do as well, and there is no need to be chary of it. Even a piece of ground-glass with oil will do.
(3) But now as to the handle. I am first to explain the amusing "mystery" why the old pattern shown in fig. 1 still sells.
It is because the British working-man is convinced that the wheels in this handle are better quality than any others.
Is he right, or is it only an instance of his love for and faith in the thing he has got used to?
Or can it be that all workmen do not know of the existence of the other types of handle? In case this is so, I figure some (fig. 17). Or is it that the wheel for some reason runs less truly in the malleable iron than in the cast iron?
Fig. 17.