Heel Tools

A heel tool is used for roughly turning iron and steel, and is a tool having a curved cutting edge. The tool is held in a wood handle, and moved to the right and to the left by the workman while in use. This movement is a sort of swinging motion on the tool bottom, which is termed the heel; this heel is smaller than the cutting part, and is a pivot which sticks tight in some part of the tool supporter, which is of soft steel, to allow the heel, which is hard, to cut a hollow into the supporter named a tee-piece. Heel tools are represented by Fig. 392, and are the tools first used when a large amount of reducing by hand-turning is necessary.

Gravers

A graver is a tool with a rhomboidal extremity, and is shown by Fig. 393 ; such a tool is used for smoothing iron and steel, and also for roughly reducing them, if only a small quantity is to be cut off. The cutting capabilities of gravers are very inferior to heel tools, but for smoothing cylindrical work and also flat surfaces, gravers are necessary, and are sometimes required for squaring inner corners.

End Tools

An end tool for hand use is made of a three-cornered file, and the cutting part also is of a three-cornered form, being ground to such a shape when intended for lathe-turning. A tool of this class is employed for bevelling work, and also for turning the ends of pieces of work, and for making short cones. Such tools are never required for the cylindrical sides of any rod or bolt, but are always employed for squaring, bevelling, or other shaping of ends. Tools of this class are denoted by Fig. 394.

Corner Tools

One of these is employed for squaring inner corners, and for such purposes is superior to a graver, because the acute angle of the graver's end renders it more liable to break, while in a corner, than a proper corner tool. The angle of a corner tool is nearly aright angle with the length of the tool; such a form belongs to the tool shown by Fig. 395. Corner tools are not adapted to cut quickly or in large quantities, but are specially suited to finish the corners of work which has been properly reduced with other tools.

Groovers - Groovers possess curved ends of various widths according to the widths of the groovers required in the work, and every groover is narrower than the groove to be made by the tool, in order that the tool may not cut both sides of the groove at one time, and the larger the tool the greater is the necessity of preventing it cutting in this manner. The groover shown by Fig. 396 is a tool for finishing broad grooves after they are roughly formed with another tool, or with a narrower groover shown by Fig. 397. This narrow tool is also useful to reduce general brass and gun-metal work when a considerable quantity is to be turned off.

Parters

A parter is a thin groover, and is employed to separate a piece of work into two lengths by means of a narrow groove which is formed around the work with the parter. Fig. 398 represents a tool of this class having a thin cutting end that will cut a piece into two lengths without much waste, the waste being unavoidable if the cutting end is too thick. Parters are useful also for making small grooves around various sorts of work during progress.

Planishers

Planishers are tools for flattening ends of brass work, and also for smoothing the sides, which are the cylindrical portions. This class of smoothing tools is denoted by Fig. 399, and they are occasionally employed to smooth iron and steel, in addition to general brass work.