Looking to the Past
Great craftsmen built tools to meet a need

The morning of January 15th my wife and I loaded our traveling belongings into our automobile and left Lexington, heading south for our first winter vacation. By the next afternoon we were experiencing 75 degree weather in sunny Sarasota.

One day, while wandering around St. Armands Circle (where the Ringling Brothers began their circus), we ended up in a small cigar store where I found a canister loaded with an assortment of “walking sticks.” That is what we had called my Grandpa Turner’s cane when I was a boy. I had never seen canes in variety for sale before. I picked up a number and tried them out, yet most were too heavy, too bulky, or did not have a crook as a handle to suite me.

The next afternoon we drove to Arcadia to visit with my brother, Herbert, and my older sister, Malvery. As we drove into Herbert’s driveway, his garage door was open and there, to my amazement, was my Grandfather Turner’s old walking cane! My grandfather had cut a hickory tree and whittled his cane, making its crooked handle just right for his big hands and its length to fit his six-foot stature. As I picked up my grandfather’s old cane I thought, “This cane is much more functional than those I saw yesterday.” Grandfather’s cane was light-weight, it was the right length for his size, it was strong, and it was straight and expertly tapered to a point at the bottom.

Grandfather’s old cane was not the only tool that Herbert had on display in his garage. All three walls were lined with tools, many of which I recognized as those that had been made by our father or our two grandfathers or other relatives over the past hundred years.

I had not thought much about the old broad ax, froe, cross cut saw, wagon wheel rim pullers, black smith shop bellows, and the like for many years. As I looked at all these tools, I remembered how both of my grandfathers and my father had made their own wagon wheels. Their hand-made tools had been essential to their craft.

The very first manufacturing operation I can remember was that of my father building a wagon wheel. I will never forget watching as he and two other men picked up a red-hot 360-degree circular band of iron from a bed of hot wood coals and stretched it over his wooden wheel structure as a rim for his wheel. Just as quickly as it could be pulled into place, cold water was poured over the iron rim to cool and quench it in place. This was done with three hand tools he had made in his blacksmith shop.

I thought about all the hundreds and even thousands of hours our ancestors had dedicated to inventing the many special tools needed to meet their particular needs. It was a rare thing for these inventors to develop a drawing or even file a patent application. These inventors were not concerned about making a name for themselves. All they were concerned about was how to invent a tool to help them solve a special need.

Neither of my grandfathers could read or write, but each could build a wagon wheel that could stand up under a ton of coal as their wagons rolled over the roughest of creek bed roads in Eastern Kentucky. Each of these men could build a set of gate hinges from a piece of scrap iron; they could create a drawing knife from an old file; and they could build a classic walking cane from a piece of green hickory lumber.

As I thought about the subject of tools, I realized that tools were just an extension of man’s hands. The greatest tool ever invented was a pair of hands.

Did you realize that the word “manufacturing” means “hand made?” The Latin word manus means hand, and fiacre means carry or convey. All my ancestors did was hand make their tools. After all, all the things we have are really an extension of our hands. So, in the words of the Psalmist, “Lord, bless the work of our hands.”

Dr. Arlie Hall is an adjunct professor for the Center for Robotics and Manufacturing at the University of Kentucky's College of Engineering.
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