Tool History - Left-handed tools.

[Cheshirechappie]

Over the last few months, I've been trying to fill some gaps in the toolkit following a growing interest in vintage tools and wooden planes. Now, I'm right-handed, so don't have any difficulty finding tools that suit my way of working, but how did the south-paws of old go on? I know there are some left-handed modern tools (Veritas rebate plane, for example), and some examples of 'handed' tools such as side rebates, snipe bills and the like, but has anybody ever come across a left-handed wooden plough, or moving fillester, or skew rebate?

No cracks about left-handed hammers, please!

 

[richarnold]

As a lefty, and a lover of vintage tools, this has been a constant struggle over the years, but basically I have just learnt to adapt and use moulding planes and anything handed in the convetional manner with my right hand. The early bench planes had an offset handle and I made a big mistake a year or so ago when I made some copies of an early 18th century design. I forgot to reverse the offset!!. I just couldn't use them at all. I ended up selling them to an American tool dealer.

When I get more time I will make some more with the offset to the left this time!! I have often wondered wether handles became central to accommodate left handed workers. This transition happened around 1800, but I'm not sure if this coincides with it becoming acceptable to be a left handed woodworker.

 

[János]

Hello,

Craft, and the standard system of apprenticeship was not especially flexible. In many of hand crafts "handedness" is not a real issue: in embroidery, shoemaking, fleece making, silversmithing etc. work could be done either way. Some works, like blacksmithing, joinery and cabinetmaking, tailoring and sewing are more sensitive, and lefthanders could run into difficulties, as the common tools and infrastructure are intended for majority righthanders: I have never seen lefthanded sewing machines, only occasionally a few lefthanded tailors' scissors, and at a price premium, and never seen a commercially made cabinetmaker's bench for lefthanders. In the time of widespread qualified handwork, the workforce changed frequently, journeymen travelled far and wide, and carried their own basic toolsets, but larger and more specialised tools and equipment was provided by the employer. One such piece of equipment was/is the workbench. On a righthanded workbench a lefhander should adopt, and use the standard equipment.
The side rebate planes, skewed rebate planes, and a few other tools (some moulding planes etc.) were/are offered in pairs to cope with accessibility problems and other similar issues.

The approach of tool manufacturers is the same even today: lefthanded circular handsaws and belt sanders are a rarity, handheld power tools with lefthanded or universal switch locking buttons too. Lefthanders are a minority, amounting for a few percent of the full population, serving their needs is not economically viable.

I am a lefthander, and not really happy about this situation: I do work on a standard righthanded wood lathe, but after a few years of practice I still feel myself quite uncomfortably.

And Th-th-th-that's all folks!

János

 

[RB61]

Over the last few months, I've been trying to fill some gaps in the toolkit following a growing interest in vintage tools and wooden planes. Now, I'm right-handed, so don't have any difficulty finding tools that suit my way of working, but how did the south-paws of old go on? I know there are some left-handed modern tools (Veritas rebate plane, for example), and some examples of 'handed' tools such as side rebates, snipe bills and the like, but has anybody ever come across a left-handed wooden plough, or moving fillester, or skew rebate?

No cracks about left-handed hammers, please![/quote

GLEN DRAKE offers left handed chisel hammers

 

[bugbear]

No cracks about left-handed hammers, please!

If the handle has sufficient shaping, even a hammer can be handled.

c.f. a longbow isn't "handed" but a modern target bow is.

I have a Preston jack plane which on first glance is symmetric, but where the handle is ever so slightly assymetric, in a way that is beneficial to a right hander.

BugBear

 

[Corneel]

Richard, I really like the planes you made! They are beautifull. What model did you copy, old English ones? They have something Dutch, with the sloping topdeck, but also something French in the handle design.

And did you use beech? How did you get that beautifyull color?

My wife is lefthanded, and even in the 1960's she was seriously discouraged on school to write lefthanded. I guess a lefthanded carpenter in the 19th century had no other choice then to pretend he was righthanded.

 

[Scouse]

Saws can be handed too; I was looking over the handle of my Disston D8 thumbhole rip saw a week or two ago thinking what a great piece of design the handle is, almost sculptural in the early versions. It is very right handed though, excuse the rubbish pre-cleaning picture

 

[Vann]

Liogier make left-handed rasps.

No cracks about left-handed hammers, please!

It was the left-handed screwdriver I was thinking of. I suppose I can't mention the long weight, or striped paint either? :mrgreen:

Cheers, Vann.

 

[richarnold]

Richard, I really like the planes you made! They are beautifull. What model did you copy, old English ones? They have something Dutch, with the sloping topdeck, but also something French in the handle design.

And did you use beech? How did you get that beautifyull color?

My wife is lefthanded, and even in the 1960's she was seriously discouraged on school to write lefthanded. I guess a lefthanded carpenter in the 19th century had no other choice then to pretend he was righthanded.

Hi there. The planes were based on the examples that appear on a trade card by John Jennion which dates from around 1730, but the image was proberbly taken from the shop sign of "the three planes" which had been used by Robert Wooding, and Thomas Granford. So the planes pictured are proberbly more in the style of the 1680's.

I'm sure english planes of this period would have been heavily influenced by continental styles. The planes were fumed with nitric acid, then neutralized with ammonia. Linseed oil was then applied, and at the same time earth pigments were rubbed in with the oil.
Cheers, and thanks for the interest, Richard

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Thanks for the replies, chaps!

Richard - interesting to hear how a 'lefty' is affected. Many years ago (before computers were all-pervasive), I worked alongside a young engineer writing commissioning documentation on a large chemical plant - under huge programme pressure. He broke his (dominant) right arm, but after about two weeks practice, his writing was nearly as fast with his left hand as he normally was with his right. It was almost legible, as well. Adaption is possible, but not comfortable.

Those planes are gorgeous. The one upside of the mistake first time round is that the mark 2 versions will be even better, and it will be a fascinating thread when you describe the lessons you've learned in using them - genuine historical research. The making of the new pair would make a cracking WIP, too.(Hint! Hint!)

Janos - I'd completely forgotten about hand-held power tools and machines, but you're right! There are no left-handed lathes! I did know about left-handed scissors - when we cleared my grandmother's possessions after she died, we found a pair of left-handers. Why she had them, Lord knows - she was right-handed! However, in trying to use them, I did start to appreciate how uncomfortable using 'wrong-hand' tools can be, so I do have considerable sympathy with lefties.

RB61 - I don't suppose he makes left-handed chisels to go with it?

BB - That rather fits in with Richard's comments. Perhaps some craftsmen altered (or made) simpler tools to suit themselves?

Corneel - it's not that long ago in the UK that schoolchildren where 'actively discouraged' from writing left-handed, to the point of being beaten if they were found doing so. Fortunately, we're a little more enlightened, now. However, it does follow that if in the 19th and early 20th century, children were forced to be right-handed, the attitudes of toolmakers, employers and craft masters would follow suit. One wonders how many potential craftsmen were hindered for life by not being as fluent in their craft as they could have been had they been allowed to use their naturally dominant hand.

Scouse - good point! I'd assumed saws were 'neutral' - I'd forgotten the thumbhole rip!

Vann - Good point about the rasps - I wonder when they introduced left-handers? Are they a fairly recent innovation? I suppose a ratchet screwdriver can be both right and left handed - a universal ambidextrous screwdriver! No you can't mention the striped paint - but there is the young apprentice sent off to the stores by his craftsman for a box of 1/2" holes!

 

[Vann]

No you can't mention the striped paint - but there is the young apprentice sent off to the stores by his craftsman for a box of 1/2" holes!

Ahh. I remember being told by a tradesman that we needed to clean up a job, and being sent to get a tin of "vacuum". I got half way to the store before the penny dropped (well, in my defence "vacuum cleaner" had a certain familiarity to it... )

Cheers, Vann.

 

[Corneel]

Thanks for the information Richard. I had heard about that "Sign of the three plains" but never seen it before.

I had a plane with a tote a little bit like that, much newer though. The body of the plane was mostly worm eaten, but I have saved the tote somewhere.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

Hi there. The planes were based on the examples that appear on a trade card by John Jennion...

Is that a bevel edged chisel I see near the top right hand side of that trade card? If it is, perhaps it's of relevance to the recent thread on that subject. Slainte.

 

[Tony Spear]

Corneel - it's not that long ago in the UK that schoolchildren where 'actively discouraged' from writing left-handed, to the point of being beaten if they were found doing so. Fortunately, we're a little more enlightened, now.

In fact left-handedness was regarded as an abnormality and that attitude carried on pretty much up to the Second World War - hence the fact that my Father was pretty much ambidextrous.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Yes, it was all very sinister!

 

[heimlaga]

I have seen a few old left handed workbenches and also a few old left handed wooden planes but it seems like most lefthanders had to learn using right handed tools. It's a shame that this still continues in the tools of our time.

 

[imageel]

I too am a lefty and at school was admonished for not writing right handedly, and we were forced to use fountain pens which with the old style sloping writing desks - the type that have the seat connected to the desk via miniature rail track, meant you had to hook your hand at an infeasible angle to prevent your palm smudging what you had just written... -or as I resorted to, sloping the writing book so you wrote vertically downwards!
I now have got used to using hand tools in either hand with almost equal dexterity - a distinct advantage e.g. when rough planing and one arm gets tired , however there are a few things that still present difficulties - scissors are probably the worse followed by can openers. Power tools too present difficulties more-so from the locking buttons on the on/off switch rather than the actual operation of the tool itself.
I now find being almost ambidextrous an advantage however it has led to me adopting some strange habits, not least relating to ironing (daytime job is office bound IT so have to wear smart 'uniform' ) in that I iron from the side a right handed person would, but preferentially use my left hand to control the iron. This used to drive my sister nuts!

 

[János]

Hello,

Forcing a lefthander to use his/her right is not sinister, just very, very stupid thing. But understandable... There are widespread and still living taboos about the use of hands. These taboos are rooted/based on religious superstitions.

Just enter "taboos about the left hand" into a search engine, and will see a long list of all kinds of taboos, mostly from Asia and Africa. And Europe has been just as bad till the middle of the XIXth century. Then rationality has began to take over :wink:

Have a nice day,

János

 

[Tony Spear]

Hello,
Forcing a lefthander to use his/her right is not sinister, just very, very stupid thing. János

Janos, as you're not a native English speaker, you can be forgiven for missing the joke! :wink:

One of the main definitions of "sinister" in English, apart from the more usual uses is "left sided"!

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Hi there. The planes were based on the examples that appear on a trade card by John Jennion...

Is that a bevel edged chisel I see near the top right hand side of that trade card? If it is, perhaps it's of relevance to the recent thread on that subject. Slainte.

Well, it may be. On the other hand, the little object just below it is either a spokeshave iron with the blade in the same plane as the tangs, or a herb-chopper with no handles, and the 'three plains' in the middle of the engraving are clearly shown with quite aggressively skewed irons; maybe the engraver used a little licence here and there, and the details should not be interpreted too literally!