L'Art du Coutelier  by Jean Jacques Perret of Paris (1771). 

  Still the best knifemaking how-to ever published. Incredible 
folio-sized plates. Perret said that the real test of a 
master cutler was to be able to draw a steel billet out into a 
wire 6 inches long and 1/6 inch in diameter, then using a 
breast drill to make a 1/12 inch diameter hole through it -- 
the long way. 
  In French. 


Volume I, Cutlery; abridged outline of chapters:

1. Selection and preparation of products used for polishing 
   handle materials, and those used for polishing blades.
2. Selecting and cutting handle materials for different purposes.
3. Selection and use of metals: lead, copper alloys (red and 
   yellow), iron, steel, silver, gold.
4. Construction and use of forge, bellows, anvil, hammers.
5. Grindstones: selection, shaping, dressing, mounting, bearings, 
   operation, safety, maintenance; making endless drive belts. 
6. Sharpening stones (always mounted on wood, with handles). 
7. Making and using miscellaneous small tools: drills, files, 
   punches, taps and dies, stamping dies, mandrels, burnisher. 
8. Arrangement of the retail cutlery shop, and of the workshop; 
   also various useful recipes, such as for cutler's cement.
9. How to work different types of animal horn. 
10. How to work exotic hardwoods.
11. How to work baleen, ivory, tortoise shell, mother of pearl.
12. Forge work.
13. Making and using files; use of large and small vises.
14. Hardening and tempering blades. 
15. Making and using patterns for efficiency and uniformity, also 
    to insure the proper functioning of folding knives.
16. Glazing and polishing the five classes of blades, viz: knife, 
    scissor, ink eraser, pen knife, razor.
17. Mounting/setting scissors; whetting the five classes of blades.
18. Soldering, forging, and drawing decorative wire out of 
    copper, silver, and gold. 
19. Soldering and brazing compounds.
20. Soldering and brazing methods.
21. Making specialized cutlery and tools, viz: punches, awls, 
    sharpening steels, erasers, pen knives, quill cutters, pen 
    machines, button hooks, etc.
22. Folding knives with springs: standard, double-ended, double-
    sided, multibladed, military, invisible joint, double-jointed; 
    also lockbacks, many with secret or invisible locks. 
23. Fixed blade knives: cook's, butcher's, table, sheath, 
    artisan's; rat-tail tangs, flat tangs. 
24. Incrustation and inlay work. 
25. Forging scissors.
26. Making scissors with gold or silver handles.
27. Razors.
28. Farrier's knives and veterinary instruments.
29. Making damascus steel for table knives, hunting swords, and 
    executioner's swords; making artificial damascus.
30. Making miscellaneous small implements, viz: corkscrews, 
    cellarman's knives and drills, needles, sugar snips, tin 
    snips, leather punches and dies, scribing tools, engraving 
    tools, nutcrackers and lime squeezers, earspoons, nail clips, 
    an inertial dart cane, embroidery needles, etc. 
31. Making steel buckles, wick trimmers, and watch chatelaines.
32. Perfect polishing of steel implements. 
33. Repair and restoration of customers' cutlery.


Volume I includes 70 full-page engraved plates, 
               and 2 double-page engraved plates.


Volumes II and III of Perret's work are entirely devoted to 
   surgical instruments. 


  A companion volume to Perret is L'Art du Coutelier en Ouvrages 
Communs by Fougeroux de Bondaroy, on the "mass-production" of 
low-cost knives, much like today's bladesmithing. 
  Includes folding knives without springs ("penny knives"), 
butcher knives and trade knives, plain table knives. 

____________________________________________


  In 1993 I translated six chapters from Perret's volume I for 
the National Knife Magazine: 

  January '93: Forging damascus steel. 

  March '93: Making and using hand tools. 

  May '93: Designing, making and using pocketknife patterns. 

  July '93: Workshop and store. 

  September '93: Making veterinary instruments. 

  November '93: Making and using sharpening equipment. 


Let me know if you would like me to post these translations.

brlevine@ix.netcom.com    <email

http://www.knife-expert.com/