Object number
55/159
Description
A gimlet is a tool used to bore small holes in wood as pilot holes for nails and screws. This gimlet is one of several used by the donor's father, John Francis, a carpenter of Stoke Row, Oxfordshire. It belonged to William George Cook, a Master Carpenter of Swallowfield, Berkshire. It has a lathe turned handle and is very small, with a close spiral at the tip which continues in broad sharpened spirals up the rest of the blade.
Physical description
1 gimlet: wood; metal
Archival history
MERL ‘Associated information’ form – [55/156] – ‘A gimlet may be described as a small auger, but it differs from the auger in that it only requires a hand to turn it. These small tools are of great antiquity, being known to the Romans – terebra antiqua. The gimlet differs from the bradawl in that it cuts a hole in wood rather than squeezing the fibres of the wood as the bradawl does. Generally the blade of the gimlet like the shell auger is concave with sharpened edges, and in addition to the down piercing of the lower part of the tool, its sides also widen the boring. More recent gimlets generally factory made ones show blades conspicuously twisted into sharpened spirals, while unlike the unsharpened spirals of the spiral auger, some cut the hole to its full diameter after where they stop cutting.’
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