Birdcage awl, blade length

[Scott H]

I'm making some birdcage awls. I currently have blades (or shafts or whatever they are called in an awl, the pointy steel part) that will be 2" long outside the handle once everything is done, but they're not epoxied into the handle yet. I came up with this by just prototyping a bunch and seeing what felt good. The handle I have made is about 2-7/8" and is a shape that lets me hold onto either just the handle, or choke up and hold the handle higher up in my hand and have my index finger and thumb on the blade, which felt like it would let you really put the point where you want it easily with one hand.

I'm having some second thoughts on the length now. It's much easier to make longer blades now since nothing is epoxied in. Paul Sellers' video and article on the subject shows blades about the length of mine, or shorter. But now I am noticing a lot of commercially available birdcage awls like the Narex, Czeck Edge and Shenandoah Toolworks blades are around 3.5" long.

Does anyone have any thoughts about what an ideal length is?

(Attached picture is one of the awls. The the front end of the handle still needs trimming to be flush with the ferrule.)

 

[creasman]

I'd have to measure, but I'm guessing the blade in the Stanley awl I keep on my workbench is in the 3.5" range. I also have a shorter one (2"-ish). I find I frequently use the awl by palming the handle while placing my index finger on the blade. This works fine for the longer awl, but not for the shorter one. Hope this helps.

 

[mdbuntyn]

The Crown birdcage awl that I use is 1½" long at a little under ⅛" square. I don't remember a situation where I wished that it was larger.

 

[Chris C]

Is not a bird cage, my vintage Miller Falls is 6" overall length with a blade length of approximately 3". I can't say I've ever thought it was too long but a shorter one would be nice.

 

[Scott H]

Thank you for the suggestions everyone. I ended up deciding to keep the shafts the same length because I can do the grip @creasman suggested with it, just barely. I may make larger ones with 1/4" shafts at some point.

Epoxy is still curing so I cannot test them yet, but they turned out decent looking I think!

I still need to figure out a better order of operations, having a polished ferrule may be more complication than it's worth.

 

[pop-pop]

How did you make the tapers?

 

[Scott H]

How did you make the tapers?

@pop-pop I have a little 1x30 belt sander and I made a block to hold the shaft, square cross section, with a hole down the center, and set screws to hold the shaft in place. I 3D printed this one but you could easily make it with wood, wood would actually be better because you wouldn't have to worry about heat during grinding as much. I marked roughly 5 degrees on the sander table with sharpie as a visual guide. (Total included angle is 10 degrees.) I put the shaft in the block until just the tip was showing and used the block as a guide to trace a ring around the shaft with a sharpie where the taper ends should land. That gives me a goal line so they should be roughly at the same depth. Then I pulled more of the shaft out of the block, tightened the set screws, and ground the flats on, using the angle mark on the sander table and the ring mark on the shaft as guides, dipping in water and rotating 90 degrees for each flat. The idea was sort of like using a square collet block I have seen machinists use on YouTube.

Once they're done though you can just use a file or a stone, it's 3/16" music wire from K&S metals I got in an assortment. It is something like rockwell C45. I am sure they are going to drift and get out of square eventually but it seemed good to get them square to start.

Attached is a picture of a similar block for a different project, not the exact same one, but same basic idea.

 

[pop-pop]

Thanks! I asked because you have a precision way of doing things that I can always learn from.

 

[Scott H]

That's very kind of you to say, thank you.