I am not a natural DIY person, these skills come to me with some difficulty but here in France, and faced with the prospect of doing without during the builders holidays, I am resussitating such skills as I possess.
Faced with the prospect of putting in screws and lacking what I would have called a bradawl, or sharply pointed tool to make the hole for the screw (a crude instrument rather like a screwdriver with a point) I repaired to Mr Bricolage.
There I explained to the man what I wanted and that I didn’t know the word in French.
He took me to this tool, a beautiful piece of design which works like a dream.
Do we have something similar (or as elegant) back home ?
When we got into the house this time the builder had (at our request) removed the false ceiling in the old kitchen.
These wonderful old beams had some great forged nails sticking out of them.
These I took a picture of with a 1 inch panel pin to show scale
Comments
padraic
on August 9, 2008Yes, I have a few rusty specimens of this tool
Clive
on August 10, 2008‘The tool’, in English, is called a gimlet. OED says’ small boring-tool usu. with a wooden crosspiece as a handle and a worm at its pointed end’.
What is it called in French?
You can tell me tomorrow!
martine
on August 10, 2008I would call it a “vrille”, but I’m no specialist…
Martin
on August 11, 2008Of course,you are all right,it is just my profound lack of information which lets me down. (I do have a feeling that by the spring, perforce, I will know a brad awl from a gimlet or a vrille)
padraic
on August 11, 2008Tugtar gimléad air seo as Gaeilge
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