Fork (tool)

“ No. 333, page 72, represents one of these useful implements, designed and made expressly for those who have been deprived of the use of one hand, and no such person can afford to be without one for a day. The blade is thin steel, ground to a sharp edge and terminating in a fork. A rolling motion will cut the food, and a twist of the hand will bring the fork into position for use. No. 334 represents a leather sheath into which the knife can be inserted. ”

“ For the person who must economize on the number of utensils, a knife about 8′′ or 9′′ long with rather wide blade can be bought which can very comfortably be used for cold meat slicing as well as bread and cake. A set of six knives, two spatulas and two forks, will fill most kitchens’ needs. Other knives and forks can be added as specials. Here is the 2′′ paring knife, 3′′ for splitting. The general household keeps a fork with the French pattern blade for general work and the heavy 6′′ blade for cutting vegetables such as turnips, pumpkins, squashes, etc., where a thin blade would snap ”

“ The knife is held in his right hand exactly as the fork is held in his left, firmly and at the end of the handle, with the index finger pointing down the back of the blade. In cutting he should learn not to scrape the back of the fork prongs with the cutting edge of the knife. Having cut off a mouthful, he thrusts the fork through it, with prongs pointed downward and conveys it to his mouth with his left hand. He must learn to cut off and eat one mouthful at a time. ”

“ This fork mounted on the axle of two cast-iron wheels, extends at its other end into two branches terminated by handles, by which the workmen move the fork, lift out the tile stopper, and set it down against the outer wall of the furnace.
The instant these men retire, two others push forward into the opening the extremity of the tongs-carriage, so as to seize the bucket by the girdle, or rather to clamp it. At the same time, a third workman is busy with an iron pinch or long chisel, detaching the bucket from its seat, to which it often adheres by some spilt glass ”

“ Forks, though not employed by the community, became part of the effects of royal and great personages, and in the inventory of Charles V. of France appear the spoon, knife, and fork. In another of the Duke of Burgundy, sixty years later (1420) , knives and other implements occur, but no fork. The cutlery is described here as of German make. Brathwaite, in his "Rules for the Government of the House of an Earl," probably written about 1617, mentions knives and spoons, but not forks. ”

“ As we set the bankings the pallets are all right; but to test matters, let us remove the hairspring and put the balance in place. Now, if the jewel pin passes in and out of the fork, it is to be supposed the fork and roller action is all right. To test the fork and roller action we close the banking a little on one side. If the fork and jewel pin are related to each other as they should be, the jewel pin will not pass out of the fork, nor will the engaged tooth drop from that pallet. ”

“ The stock used can be spring steel. A disadvantage in using this steel is that it is too hard to work out a design on the handle. If one can weld quite well, the fork should have the handle made of soft steel and the balance of carbon steel. In doing this, the weld is the first thing to do while the stock is straight and full size. If one without much welding experience is to make the fork, it should be made of soft steel, and when finished the prongs should be case hardened. In making a fork of this kind, a piece of soft steel as shown in the drawing in Figure 60 is used. ”

“ The knife should only be used for cutting meats and hard substances, while the fork, held in the left hand, is used in carrying food into the mouth. A knife must never, on any account, be put into the mouth. When you send your plate to be refilled, do not send your knife and fork, but put them upon a piece of bread, or hold them in your hand. ”

“ Dinner is announced and you take your seats. With regard to the mode of eating, it may be roughly laid down that a knife is not to be used when spoon and fork will do, and a spoon should not be employed if a fork alone is sufficient. In the case of fish, silver knives are usually provided, and when they are not it is advisable to use two forks if one will not quite answer the purpose. Curry, properly cooked, requires no knife, only spoon and fork. Quails and cutlets, of course, must have a knife, but many entrées can be perfectly well managed with a fork alone. ”

“ We had not proper toasting forks, but pieces of stick, called “Long Forks,” on which it was difficult [81] to keep the toast, especially as it was always necessary to have at least one eye fixed on the batch already done, or awaiting the operation,—in either case generally placed against the edge of the fender; if your eye wandered for a minute, a dexterous lunge from some predacious long-fork transfixed the fruit of all your toil. ”

“ Along each side of a long, narrow table, runs a wooden bench of rough construction, which is the only seat the place affords. The knives and forks are chained to the table. Strange implements they are, and a thief, one would think, must be reduced to shifts indeed if they could offer him a temptation. Almost every fork has lost one of its prongs, and every knife has been notched or otherwise abused. ”

“ At all tables where four-tined forks are provided, the knife should be used only to divide the food, never to convey it to the mouth. For this purpose, we use either the fork, a spoon, or the fingers. ”

“ The strong double-bladed pocket knife is the best model I have yet found, and, in connection with the sheath knife, is all sufficient for camp use. It is not necessary to take table cutlery into the woods. A good fork may be improvised from a beech or birch stick; and the half of a fresh-water mussel shell, with a split stick by way of handle, makes an excellent spoon. ”

“ Page 181 For built-up and bent tools special care should be taken that the forging heat does not go below a bright cherry. For tools 3⁄4 by 11⁄2 or larger where there is a big strain in forging, such as bending at angles of about 45 deg. and building the tools up, they should be heated to at least 1,700°F. Slowly and without much blast. For a 3⁄4 by 11⁄2 tool it should take about 10 min. with the correct blast in a coke fire. Larger tools in proportion. They can then be bent readily, but no attempt should be made to forge the steel further without reheating to maintain the bright cherry red. ”

“ It is this process of fork grinding which has so often been made a subject for comment; the fork is ground dry upon a stone wheel, and the particles of steel and grit are constantly entering the lungs of the workmen, thereby ruining the health and shortening the duration of life. ”

“ Later on, when the coaches began to throng the road, gentlemen were in the habit of carrying with them their own knife and fork for use, so seldom were the latter articles to be found at the country inns, and the use of forks cannot be said to have become general more than a hundred years ago. ”

“ White poi eaters now usually employ a fork or spoon in lieu of fingers, although it is still common even in the highest families to give native dinners or "luaus" at which knives and forks are taboo and fingers only used. ”

“ Let us, as a practical example, take up the consideration of a short fork. To represent this in our model we take a lever as shown at Fig. 99, with the elongated slot for the pallet staff at g. To facilitate the description we reproduce at Fig. 102 the figure just mentioned, and also employ the same letters of reference. We fancy everybody who has any knowledge of the lever escapement has an idea of exactly what a "short fork" is, and at the same time it would perhaps puzzle them a good deal to explain the difference between a short fork and a roller too small. ”

“ As regards the length of the outer face of the prong of the fork, a good rule is to make it one and a half times the diameter of the jewel pin. The depth of the slot need be no more than to free the jewel in its passage across the ten degrees of fork action. A convenient rule as to the depth of the slot in a fork is to draw the line k, which, it will be seen, coincides with the circle which defines the jewel pin.
HOW TO DELINEATE THE SAFETY ACTION.
We will next consider a safety action of the single roller type. ”

“ Cups or plates should be of tin or granite ware. The fork and knife have their sheaths of leather inside the box cover. The plates should nest in the frying pan, which should have no handle, and is fastened inside the chest cover by two buttons, so that it may be readily released. Next the knife and fork have a sheath for a pair of small blacksmith's pliers. ”

“ The blooms from either the open-hearth or puddling process are treated similarly in what is termed the forge; this includes hammering, rolling, and shingling.
Fig. 151.—Rolling Tool Steel.
Squeezers or hammers are used for forming the bloom and expelling the inclosed slag. The bloom is then put through the largest groove of the roughing rolls and passed back through the next smaller, and so on until it is rolled down to the desired size. Figure 151 shows 14-inch rolls in use which, although somewhat similar to those employed for rolling iron, are larger and generally made with more rolls. ”

“ Instance the absurdity of taking the fork under the thumb with the forefinger pressing along the back of the wobbly instrument, when any one could see that the proper, natural way of using a fork was to grasp it daggerwise and drive it firmly through that skidding piece of meat. ”

“ The steering post and fork sides especially should be thus strengthened at their junction with the crown. Some of the best makers use sheet steel stampings instead of cast lugs, greater lightness and strength being secured, and in some cases the sheet steel lugs are inside the tubes, so that the joints are all flush on the outside. The front fork blades are best made of sheet steel stamped to shape and with the edges brazed together to form a hollow tube. The sheet steel that can be thus employed has a much higher elastic limit than a weldless steel tube. ”

“ The knife and fork should have the steel of their blades carried through the handles in a flat plate, to which the cheeks of the haft are riveted; those made with tangs are always shifting round or coming out from being washed in hot water or placed in the sun ”

“ By taking a piece of sharpened pegwood and placing the point in the slot of the fork, we can test the fork to see if the drop takes place much before the lever rests against the opposite bank. As we have previously stated, the drop from the pallet should not take place until the lever almost rests on the banking pin. What the reader should impress on his mind is that the lever should pass through about one and a half degrees arc to unlock, and the remainder (eight and a half degrees) of the ten degrees are to be devoted to impulse. ”

“ The steel is heated to a bright red heat, holding the steel at this heat as nearly as possible when hammering. Forging at a low heat is liable to cause the steel to burst. When the tool is forged, it is laid in a dry place on the forge to cool. When hardening, the point of the tool is brought to a white welding heat, about 2,100° Fahr., and this is noticeable by the appearance of melted borax, forming on the nose. The tool is now held in a compressed air blast, or dipped into sperm, linseed or lard oil until cool. ”

“ The weight of the hammer and the hammer blows in forging of steel is vastly of more importance than in forging iron. If the blow or the hammer is not heavy enough to exert its force throughout the thickness of the steel it will probably crack in the process of hardening or tempering. If steel be properly forged it [60] will harden easily and naturally, but if improperly forged the tempering will be very difficult—probably a failure. The quality of a finished tool depends greatly upon the correct heat and proper method used in forging and hardening it. ”

“ Flatter.—Fig. 94. Upsetting, forging, and punching. Material: 43⁄4 inches of 11⁄2-inch square tool steel.
In forming the face of a flatter, the metal should be upset. This may be accomplished by ramming, but when so done, excess metal is formed just above the wide portion, causing considerable fullering and forging. If a piece of steel 43⁄4 inches long and 11⁄2 inches square is cut off, and one end is drawn slightly tapering, it may, when heated, be placed in a square hole of the right size in the swage block, with the drawn end supported on something solid, leaving 11⁄2 inches projecting. ”

“ It is a heavy two-pronged steel or iron fork, with prongs one and a half to two feet long. A strong man will work two of them at once, one in each hand, driving them into the ground to their full depth, then with a backward strain turning up the deep soil. ”

“ The rear, or guiding, runner is fastened between two pieces of wood, so that its edge projects; then it is clamped in a bicycle fork, which should be cut down so that about 3 in. of the forks remain. A hole is bored through the rear end of the long pole to receive the fork head, the upper end of which is supplied with a lever. The lever is attached to the fork head by [29] boring a hole through the lever end at a slight angle to fit the head, allowing sufficient end to be slotted, whereupon a hole is bored through the width of the handle, and a bolt inserted, to act as a clamp. ”