How to Make an Engraving Tool

This instructible will show how to turn things you probably have around your house into a metal, wood or wax working tool.This tool costs almost nothing to make and is very effective at cutting all types of materials.
The materials you will need are
A torch (or another heat source)
A spring or another high carbon steel piece.
A wooden dowel (handle)
A drill
A few files
This instructible will be entered into the make a tool contest so if you would like to vote for me that would rule!

Step 2 the Forging and Shaping

What you do in this step is find a spring heat the coil and straighten it.I do this by heating the coil and pulling it apart with channel locks.Heat a small section and flatten it.Let it cool then start to file it to a rectangular shape then file one side of the bar to about a 60° angle on the bar for the cutting edge.After its filed to the desired shape heat the entire blade up to a glowing orange temperature with the torch then quench into water,when cooled heat in the oven for 30 min at 250°.

Step 2 the Handle

For this step you will need a wooden dowel and a drill with an appropriately sized drill bit.Cut the dowel down to your desired size (I recomend 4-7 inches). Grab the dowel and drill a hole in the middle of the handle and press the tool into the handle.If you have epoxy use it, however I used super glue. With the handle you can do a lot you can apply a stain or file it to a specific shape to fit your hand,however i just hit it with the torch to blacken the handle.

Step 3 Finishing

This step is purely optional however Idid it.The blade of the tool can be taken up to as high of a polish as you like but I like the way it looks.I also got some fine grit sand paper and sharpened the blade to make it as sharp as possible.

Uses for the Tool

Like I said at the beginning this tool can be used on a variety of materials (wood metal and plastics).This specific tool I designed to work with metal because the ones you can buy online are really expensive!After finishing the engraver I made a small hammer to go along with it so I wouldn't have to use a big hammer on it.Then i used the engraver to engrave the hemmer with my initials (Fletcher Lowe so it was F L) and it preformed extremely well and the edge wasnt damaged at all. I hope you enjoyed the instructible and I hope you will vote for me in the make a tool contest!