stock knife...

I have a new tool set up for my students to try. It is a classic stock knife made for me by Arkansas Blacksmith, Bob Patrick. He made it early last summer but I finally got around to setting it up on a stump at school and found that the design works. I had sent Bob a sketchup illustration of what I had in mind and that I hoped to learn to make for myself. He improved it with a hand forged "T" handle that gives greater directional control, allowing you to take either a deep cut or a fine shaving from a piece of wood.

Stock knives have been farm tools for centuries. They have been used by craftsmen to make handles for various tools, but have also been used in the making of wooden shoes.  My sincere thanks to Bob Patrick for this fine tool and the chance of learning from it at the Clear Spring School. I need to raise the block on this one to a more useful height.

The stock knife can do many of the things you can do with an axe but with greater control. I am uncertain whether it was ever considered as a tool suitable for Sloyd. It provides a great deal of leverage when compared to a knife, but is used primarily at the end of the stock. Students today at Clear Spring School will work on their guitars, and my upper elementary school students are finishing projects related to their school travel next week.

If you want to know what high school students were supposed to know and figure out in 1912, go here: Bullitt County History Museum. Take the test and compare what kids were expected to know then with what kids know today.

Make, fix, create, and extend to others the joy of learning likewise.