A Gift of a Drawknife

[Mike Henderson]

A friend whose husband used to be a woodworker gave me a drawknife a few days ago. It was pretty cruddy - looked like it had been sitting for a long time. Had rust all over it. There were hammer marks on the top of the drawknife. I used a Dremel with a sanding disk to remove most of the marks.

I cleaned it up and sharpened it, which was a challenge. It's not easy to sharpen a drawknife. I tried Derek's technique of sharpening it on a 1725 RPM grinder but I didn't have as good of success as Derek did. I tried using a file but the steel was too hard and the file wouldn't cut very well. I finally used my DMT diamond plates, sort of like files and worked the edge. Once I went from Extra Coarse, to Coarse, to Fine, I switched to my water stones and used them just like the diamond plates. That is, I held the drawknife still and rubbed the plates and stones against the edge.

Holding the drawknife while you're doing that is a challenge but I worked out a good technique.

Anyway, here's a few "after" pictures. I should have taken a "before" picture but didn't.
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The edge had some dings in it. I would have had to take a lot of metal off to get past the dings so I left them. Over time, they'll disappear as the edge is sharpened.

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There's a logo on the drawknife but I couldn't figure out the name. Can anyone identify it?

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I did some cutting with it - just as a test - and it works well, even with the dings.

Mike

[Mel Fulks]

Mike, I think it’s a Tillotson.

[Stephen Rosenthal]

Could it be D.R. Barton? I watched Curtis Buchanan sharpen a drawknife using a grinder and stones. I like his method.

[Phil Mueller]

Nice job Mike bringing it to a mirror finish. I enjoy taking an old tool from forgotten rust to shining use. Putting some effort into it makes it a bit more enjoyable to use.

[Jim Ritter]

Try putting the sharpening stone in a machinist vise if you have one then you just work the drawknife over the stone. That is the safest way I have found to do it.
Jim

[Mel Fulks]

Those things usually have an extremely hard edge welded onto softer stuff. I’ve seen new modern ones that could be filed at edge.

[Richard Line]

About a year back I rehabbed a drawknife that was in worst condition (no handles, lots of pitting except near cutting edge, some bending). For sharpening 2 things worked well for me. 1st to get close to descent surface in the working part of the blade, I used a belt sander clamped down on a work stand with 80 grit belt. That was a lot easier than it sounds the handles out on the side really help control the blade alignment with the belt. 2nd, I put my diamond stones on a piece of 4x4 to raise them up off the work surface and clamped on end down, using the rest of the stone's length was easy with that narrow blade width. Able to work the whole length and width of both sides of the blade area. Again the handle horns(?) allowed good control of the blade on the stones. To a great degree worked the blade along its length rather than in the cutting direction of blade.

[lowell holmes]

It looks like a keeper to me.

[Mike Henderson]

About a year back I rehabbed a drawknife that was in worst condition (no handles, lots of pitting except near cutting edge, some bending). For sharpening 2 things worked well for me. 1st to get close to descent surface in the working part of the blade, I used a belt sander clamped down on a work stand with 80 grit belt. That was a lot easier than it sounds the handles out on the side really help control the blade alignment with the belt. 2nd, I put my diamond stones on a piece of 4x4 to raise them up off the work surface and clamped one end down, using the rest of the stone's length was easy with that narrow blade width. Able to work the whole length and width of both sides of the blade area. Again the handle horns(?) allowed good control of the blade on the stones. To a great degree worked the blade along its length rather than in the cutting direction of blade.

Those are some good ideas. I especially like the belt sander idea to get the edge shaped.

Mike

[Mike Henderson]

Could it be D.R. Barton? I watched Curtis Buchanan sharpen a drawknife using a grinder and stones. I like his method.

Good suggestion. I can see "RTON" at the end and the number of letters is the same as D. R. Barton. Thanks.

Mike

[I did some research. The logo says D R Barton along the top of the oval, and Rochester NY along the bottom of the oval. In the center is "1832". Tools with that logo were made from about 1865 to 1923. Here's an example of a readable logo.]

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[Rick Whitehead]

The logo should read "D.R. BARTON / 1832 / ROCHESTER" in an oval. Sometimes "N.Y." was added after "Rochester", but since the entire lower part of the logo is missing, I can't tell if it was there or not..
The David R.Barton Company made high quality tools in Rochester, N.Y. from 1849-1874. David Barton was involved with other tool-making companies starting in 1832, so the date on the logo probably refers to the date that he got started in the tool-making business.
It should be a really good tool. All the Barton tools I've had have been very good.
Rick