A few years ago I made my own Awl based off of an awl that's always been in my dad's toolbox. Recently I've been thinking of things I could sell at craft markets to use up some of my old scrap wood and pay for new wood!
The last few time's I've been at markets I found a few people would admire what I have made but tell me that they or their partner/friend/relative does woodwork and makes similar products. So I thought I would like to make something that perhaps those people would buy for themselves or a woodworker or craftsperson in their life and making a batch of Awls seemed like a good idea!
I made my awl from an old drill bit and a brass plumbing fitting but for this big batch of awls I didn't want to use drill bits and found silver steel rod would be easy to heat treat and strong enough to stand up to lots of use.
I could shape the rod in a drill against my belt grinder then heat treat with a garden blowtorch and quench in water before tempering in the oven. Out of the ten pieces I cut I had 3 that were too wonky to straighten after tempering but the silver steel rod was so cheap I didn't worry about them.
I turned the handles on the lathe and this was a nice job to do on the lathe, I had to make the tenons for the plumbing fittings accurate to fit them well with no gaps and then I could turn the rest of the handles by eye.
I sold all of my first batch at a little pop up store I put on and had to make a second batch!
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davidbrynparker