Almost any small scraps of hard wood work up well for the handle of a screwdriver, Plate VI. It will be found that many otherwise useless pieces of good wood can be utilized in this way.

The small end is again to be at the dead center, (a) Turn to the design, and before sandpapering, (b) locate and cut the fluting, (c) To lay out the work for fluting, step the radius six times around the handle, and mark half the width of each fluting on both sides of these points. Set the surface gage (see Mallet), and scribe the necessary line. By this method it is possible to mark any shaped piece of wood, whether straight, tapering, or curved, so that the fluting will be absolutely true and not wind around the cylinder.

Use a short gouge and (d) cut the grooves as smooth as possible. Break off a small piece of a suitable size rat-tail file and (e) clean up all rough places; (f) follow this by using sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel rod. After cleaning up the fluting, (g) lightly sandpaper the handle, (h) then fit the ferrule to the end, forcing it on rather tightly. Do not polish in the lathe.

The end of the shank of the screwdriver that is to be forced into the handle should be square; therefore only an approximate hole can be bored, after which it is best to heat the end and make the fitting in that way. To prevent the shank from working loose, it is best to drill thru the ferrule, wood and shank; then insert a pin.

Plate VI.

Plate VII.

For turning a large number of screwdriver handles see Fig. 16. The marker will indicate lengths and the calipering tool is used for obtaining the diameters.