Source: Wikimedia Commons
There is a complaint that gets made constantly and is usually dismissed as nostalgia: nobody can sharpen anything any more.
It happens to be true, and the reason…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1960 a hand-cut file was made by laying a soft steel blank on a block of lead, setting a broad chisel across it, and striking it once…
The Thing Everybody Has Experienced
Everybody who has ever assembled flat-pack furniture or taken the back off an appliance knows the sensation. You lean on the screwdriver, the screw is…
The Snap-Off Knife Blade Was Invented by Someone Watching How People Broke Glass to Get a Sharp Edge
A Knife Designed to Be Broken
The snap-off blade is one of the few tools designed on the assumption that you will deliberately destroy part of it, repeatedly, as the…
The flat metal arm that swings out of the top of a pair of nail clippers does two jobs, and most people only ever use one of them.
It is…
Turn a padlock over and there is a small hole in the bottom of the body, separate from the keyway.
It has two purposes and they are both important: water…