Chapter V: Paper Cutter and Nut Set

Let's make a paper cutter like this sketch. We can draw the design on paper first and then cut it out. Here is what we need to make it.

PAPER CUTTER

_Material:_ Heavy copper, No. 8 gauge, 10 inches long by 1-1/4 inches wide.

_Tools:_ Drill press and drills, jewellers' saw frame, cold chisel, files, vise, emery cloth, few wire nails (1/2 in.) two blocks of hard wood, one, 10 × 1-1/4 × 1-1/4 ins., and the other, 6 × 2 × 1/2 ins.

Cut out the design and paste it on the copper plate. If our shears could cut copper as heavy as this we would have little trouble to cut our design out. But the shears can't do this work, so we have to put the copper into the vise and cut the design out with a cold chisel and hammer. Place the copper into the vise with the line of design to be cut flush with the top of the vise. With hammer and chisel, cut along this line. The back part of the vise will act as a shear and help in the cutting and will prevent the copper breaking away and leaving the edge rough. When this is done, place the paper knife in the vise and file all the edges smooth. Now that it's cut out and smoothed up we are ready to saw out the design in the handle. To do this drill holes in the design as a starting point for the sawing. Take the drill press and put a 1/16-in. drill into the chuck. Drill a hole in any part of the design. Take the jewellers' saw frame and fasten one end of the small saw into one of the legs of the frame; push the loose end through the hole made by the drill. Fasten the loose end to the other leg of the saw frame so the saw is fairly tight. In order to saw properly, we must have something to support the piece while we are working on it. This is best done by taking a block of wood 6 × 2 × 1/2 ins. and cutting out a V-shaped notch in one end. Place this in the vise, or nail one end of it to a bench so that the V-shaped end will extend over the bench or vise to be free to work upon. Put the handle to be sawed out on this block so that it will be supported on both sides of the parts to be sawed out (see sketch of work in vise). The saw will play freely up and down in the notch. All sawed work is done in the same way.

_To file the edges sharp:_ Take your hard wood block, 10 × 1-1/4 × 1-1/2 ins.; fasten the cutter down tight by driving two short wire nails half their length into the wood at each end of the cutter. Place the cutter between these nails, bend the ends over, and fasten down (see sketch). Place all into the vise jaw and tighten it up. With a rough flat file, file the edges down, working from the centre line both ways. When one side is filed about half the thickness of the copper, bend the nails, take off the cutter. Reverse it, put it back, and file as before. Do this until the edges become sharp.

To finish this piece of work as it should be done, we must do some draw filing. The draw filing is done in this way: Take hold of both ends of the flat file, the handle in one hand and the end of the file in the other. Stand lengthwise of the piece. Place the file flat down on the blade with the teeth of the file pointing in the same direction as the blade. Push it from you and pull it toward you, at the same time pressing down on the blade. This is draw filing and it is the only way to make a piece of metal true, and free from the marks of the cross filing which was done in the beginning. Repeat this on the other side until the whole paper cutter including the handle is smooth. Wrap a piece of emery cloth around a block and rub all over the surface. Polish and finish as before described.

NUT SET: BOWL, PLATES, AND SPOON

A very beautiful nut set consisting of a bowl, four plates, and a nut spoon or a shovel, can be made out of copper. One uses the same tools to make this set as were used for the copper bowl, and the work of making it is done in much the same way.

_Material:_ 9-in. disc of No. 20 copper (bowl). Four 5-in. discs (for plates). Piece of copper 2 × 3 ins. (No. 8).

Take the 9-in. disc and hammer it into the desired bowl shape, on the hard wood block. The plate should be hammered up in the same way, keeping the depression in the centre of the plates about 1/2 in. deep. A very beautiful finish can be made on these bowls and plates by the use of the round end of the raising hammer and a flat-iron. Place the handle of the iron between your knees, face up. Put the bowl or plate, face up on the flat-iron and go over every part with the rounded end of the hammer. This produces a surface covered with oval facets, giving a mottled effect. The edges of the bowl and plates may be left straight or they may be rounded, according to the design.

NUT SPOON

Draw the design on paper. Cut the design out and paste it on the copper. This piece of No. 8 copper is too heavy to be cut with the shears, so it must be placed in the vise. See that the outline is even with the top of the vise jaws. With the cold chisel and hammer cut along the top of the vise as you did when making the paper knife. Now you have a shovel-shaped metal of the same thickness all over. Where the handle joins the bowl the metal should be left thicker than in any other place, otherwise the spoon will bend in the using. To thin out the metal of the bowl, hammer it. Begin where the handle joins the bowl and thin out to the edge. The handle is shaped by working from the bowl out toward the handle end, constantly widening and flattening it. Cut off the surplus metal, keeping to the original design. The handle may be left plain or some simple sawed out design may be put on. File up, rounding the edges off so that the spoon feels smooth and is comfortable to handle. Place the whole on a hard wood block and beat the bowl and handle into shape. Many nut spoons have designs sawed out in the bowl to lighten the weight.