I have a set of cheap, chinese-made gimlets I picked up at the local flea market. I also have a couple of originals. Even after studying these examples, I just can't figure out how these were made. Have any of you guys made gimlets (no mixed drink jokes, please:p)? How did you do it, materials, etc. Thanks for allowing me to pick your collective brains...bart

Gimlet???

Gimlet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gimlet may refer to:

* Gimlet (cocktail), a cocktail typically made of gin or vodka and lime juice - Easy
* Gimlet, Kentucky, an unincorporated town in the United States - not sure how to forge a town...
* SA-16 Gimlet, a surface-to-air missile - Good luck forging that
* Captain Lorrington "Gimlet" King, a fictional character - No comment
* Silver-topped Gimlet, a gum tree -Frankenstein anybody?
* Gimlet (Transformers) - a fictional character. - again, no comment
* Gimlet (tool), a hand tool for drilling small holes - Well that doesn't help any does it?

Gimlet also known as screw starter. As for making? The gimlet that I have was made in the 1950's in North america and was ground out is in spiral pattern on a tapered shaft.
Gimlet's were used extensively in wood working until the reciprocating Stanley drill became widely available. There are just a few old farts like me that use them on a regular basis. These days a screw mate does the job in a flash.

I made a set of twist gimlets for my dad a while back. Used re-bar, which I first tested a sample to see if it was hardinable.

I bent and forge-welded an eye for the handle.
I drew the blade down to a flat taper.
I ground the sides of this till parallel, and the width matched the diameter I wanted.
I then twisted this tip – make sure you go the proper way; I screwed this up on two out of five IIRC.
I then ground the tip to a point; you are grinding away the portion that didn’t get twisted – where I held the tip in the vise while turning the handle to form the twist.
I filed the tip with a chainsaw file to get a cutting edge on both flutes.
I hardened and tempered the tip, and did any final sharpening with said file.

Obviously, I didn’t make them rock-hard; I didn’t want them to break in use, and I wanted them to be sharpenable with a file, like an axe.
I had to experiment to get the tip geometry correct for cutting a hole into wood. Try starting with a standard twist drill. I have a piece of oak that I keep my files on, and this now looks like Swiss cheese, from testing.

Mine worked, but there may be a better way to make a more effective tool. I don’t know if there was any historical accuracy to my method, other than that I was able to do it, so someone else probably has done it before.

Shown is a set of four, graded in millimeters, and a countersink.

Hope this helps.

Edited June 2, 200917 yr by GOATMAN

Goatman certainly explains it well.

I add two thoughts:

1) If you want a traditional gimlet then make a round handle, drill a hole through the handle, push the tang through and peen the end onto the wood handle. A nice wooden handle makes it easier and more comfortable to use, you can buy dowels at the hardware store if woodworking is a challenge.

2) You might also try either fullering or grinding grooves along the sides that you are twisting prior to twisting.

Thanks Goatman...yours are beautiful! And Charlotte, I too am an old fart that actually uses (and prefers) old tools and technologies. Woodworking skills would probably be rated as medium-advanced, Unicornforge.

By the way the new China-made ones have the twisted self-handle. The old ones have a wooden handle as you describe. I also have a couple that have a square-tapered shank for use in a bit-brace.

Thanks again, guys...I knew you would point me in the right direction!

bart

Well, one of the other ways to forge a gimlet would be to forge your taper on the end, then "hollow" one side. Kind of like making a Spoon Drill Bit, but with more taper on the end. Spread the sides out to the size hole you want to end up with. Then ... twist ... that tapered point in a slow twist. Those sharp edges on the hollowed section do the cutting.

One version on an original I have left the end as a round tapered lump, with that hollow above it. They then carefully filed that tapered lump into a normal woodscrew. That wood screw end helps "pull" the gimlet into the wood, and then the share edges on that hollow forged section starts cutting the wood out.

Yes, for use with a wood handle, you need the other end flattened - kind of like the end of a screwdriver.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

p.s. Spoon Drill Bits do work very well for drilling hols in wood - as long as you keep them sharp. To get some idea of them, take a standard round-nosed wood chisel/gouge. Press it down onto your piece of wood, and start rotating it. The real trick is to make sure you have the edges sharp up the sides as well as around the nose of it.

Here's a pic of several original gimlets I have - plus one Pod Auger.

The one with the flat wood handle looks like it was forged as a tapered flat on the end. Then twisted, rounded up a bit, then ground/sanded on the outside to smooth it up and sharpen the edges of those twisted flats. The end does not have a classic wood screw point on it. The sharpened flat end just starts digging into the wood, and the twist then works to "pull" it in.

The one with the round handle is kind of similar on the end, just much shorter in the twist and cutting edges.

The one with the torpedo shaped handle has that tapered "lump" on the end that was filed into a classic wood screw. The flattened twisted section then does the cutting after that screw pulls it into the wood.



The bottom is a Pod Auger. It is for making a tapered hole in a wooden barrel - where the tapered tap is put in. It is a classic Arrow shape, formed into that half-cone shape, and then filed flat/true on the one side - which also sharpens it. A slight bend in the shank then aligns the handle directly over the point of it to center the force in use.

Just some other options for gimlets.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

Hi,
I found an old gimlet which I could use but it needs some edging. It isn't as sharp as it should be. But I have no clue how to do it so please help me.

It looks like that:

In general, you would sharpen the outside edge(s) with a file. This becomes more complicated if the inside edge is damaged.

thanks I will try it!

For small screw holes I have found that a simple square tipped awl of the proper taper will work well. Mostly this kind of tool is used for starting small screws anyway so this solution is pretty effective and makes resharpening fairly easy. Good hard steel and a taper filed to good sharp corners makes a quick solution that is elegant and works well. Something like a spear point drill would work for larger holes but it gets tiresome making those by hand... so the power drill usually goes to work on those.