The Scenic Route with Toolmaking

When designing tools, aesthetics are always a tricky tightrope for me. I love good-looking tools with traditional touches and materials, but I also want to make them as accessible as possible.

Our engraving tools (back in stock now), are a vivid illustration of the problem. When I began developing them, blacksmith Peter Ross hammered out some prototypes for me so I could grind the cutters to find the best edge geometry. These prototypes cost about $60 each to make, if I remember correctly. So making them one by one by hand wasn’t going to open up the world of engraving for lots of people. (The retail price would have to be higher than $60.)

I also asked blacksmith Tom Latane to make some working prototypes that looked historical. He did a stunning job (of course) making the cutting dividers and a hand-held cutter for straight lines. Price: About $…