A Set of Wooden Shoe Tools

 

I had begun a set of tools for the wooden shoe workshop some months ago, but being caught up now with other projects, decided to make a few more and "age" the lot.  These are all various knives used in the shaping and hollowing out of the wooden shoes, and I don't actually know their names; they are collectively referred to as "knives". The blades were made from aluminum printing plates, which I begged from a local printing firms some years ago. The metal is thin, bare on one side and coated on the other. As the tools are meant to be hand-forged, they were eventually painted black (and gray and pewter!). 

The handles are cut from hardwood skewers, with holes carefully drilled in the shaped bottoms and through the tops, to run a piece of "rope" through to hang the tools up. The rope loops were made with natural linen thread that has been in my stash for years. It was  a bit of a production to get the loops through the wooden handles, requiring the aid of a needle threader and a crochet hook. I do like the looks of it.  The pencil sharpener is there because I cheated and used it to make the nice little pointed ends of the handles, much easier than carving! The ferrules (rings joining knife to handle) were made of thin strips of card, painted with black, grey and pewter, like the blades, to look like worn iron. The wood was dirtied up with dirty paint water, a small amount of water with a dollop of dark burnt umber paint. They were then finished with a coat of satin varnish.

The finished products are pretty good, I think. Two of the knives are in the little white wall rack, while the other five will hang on the boarded wall. Also in the photo is the little stove that warms the workshop in winter; it started life as a pencil sharpener in white or pot metal, but a few coats of a hammered metal spray paint made it look more "real". I touched up the raised surfaces on the ash and fuel doors with gold wax, as well as the knob on top, to add some dimension to the stove.