You will need all the standard rock digging tools. Good pry bars, especially large ones, will be used a lot. Shovels, hoes, 3 or 4 pound crack hammers, 10 or 12 pound sledge hammers, etc., all are needed.

To cut slots you will only need a good crack hammer, a pointing towel to clean out dust and debris, and a good caping chisel. Hammers and trowels are found at any hardware store. Caping chisels are a different story. They differ from regular stone or masonry chisels in that the cutting edge is longer than the chisel is thick. This allows a slot to be cut several inches deep without the body of the chisel binding in the slot. I use caping chisels that cut a 5/8" slot, but the chisel body is less than a half inch thick. I've searched high and low, and I've not found an adequate caping chisel anywhere. So, I make my own.

I start by buying a leaf spring. Leaf springs are the long, usually curved, springs on the rear axle of cars and trucks, and can be found under "springs", or "leaf springs" in your yellow pages. The company where I bought mine was able to get one that had no curve to it, and the steel had not been hardened. It is .447 inches thick, 3 1/2 inches wide, and 22 feet long. I sawed it into pieces 12 to 18 inches long, and then I sawed each piece in half length-wise using a band saw. I cut a point on one end, and the caper is taking shape.

The next step is to flair out the cutting edge to at least an eighth inch more than the thickness of the chisel. This is done simply by heating the tip of the chisel until it's bright yellowish orange using an acetylene torch, and immediately pounding the edges of the tip with a hammer while it's on an anvil. You may need to apply more heat and pound the tip some more before it's right. Once you're satisfied, don't put it in water to cool it, as that would harden the steel. Rather, let it air cool.

After a while you'll be able to handle your future caper. It needs to be cleaned up, smoothed, sharpened, etc. I use an 8 inch bench grinder for removing most metal, but I smooth it out with a belt sander. Make it sharp on the cutting edge, but round all other edges. It should look finished at this point, but it still needs to find a heat treater.

Once again, use the yellow pages to find a heat treater. Take two or three to the one you select, and explain what it is used for. I've found that heat treaters are experts, but that they are unwilling to share their expertise. If you don't have confidence that your treater will do a good job, go somewhere else. You have, after all, made a considerable investment of money and time, and there is only this one last step to go, and a heat treater can ruin your capers, or make them great!

A leaf spring is high carbon steel, alloy number 6150. It can be hardened to 58 on the Rockwell scale (RC), but it would be too brittle. My experience is that 54 is the max., 52 is fine. Any heat treater will have a hardness tester. Harden the entire striking end too, and then have the striking end of the caper backed off to 38 - 40 RC. In fact, the entire chisel except for just 2 or 3 inches should be backed off to 38-40. The photo at the beginning of this article of my bloody hand shows why it is important to soften the striking end back down to less than 40. Too hard, and it's too brittle, and shrapnel flies off.

I have recently added another item to my tool box; a hockey glove! Whacking your hand with a 4 pound hammer hurts (believe me, I know) and I think this glove will at least lessen the damage.

The other thing you need in Herkimer are lots of flat feather and wedges. These are made from leaf springs too, but the thickness must taper. Junk yards, the spring store, even along the road, are all places to find them. A typical leaf spring assembly is made up of several leafs bundled together, and one thicker leaf below. This is the overload leaf, and it's usually straight, and it's often the thickest leaf in the spring assembly. A bolt hold all the leaves together. I use mostly the overload leafs when I'm going to be driving them with a 12 lb sledge, but the thinner leaves are good for driving into cracks or to make the feathers out of. The straighter your spring, the better it will work, but you will need many springs of all sizes in Herkimer. I usually have about a hundred on hand, so that just the right one is there.

So, find some spring assemblies. To separate the leaves, simply smack the nut with a sledge hammer, not the head of the bolt. Wear glasses during this. Once they are apart, cut them to the length you want. Thin leaves are cut shorter; straight springs longer. I try to cut them to eliminate the bolt hole. A cutting torch will work OK, but I use a chop saw with a 14" abrasive blade. They cost about $200 at any of the large home centers, and a blade is about $8.

Now that you have a pile of leaf spring wedges (simply called steel), it all needs to be sharpened. Once again, I use an 8" bench grinder and a belt sander, and ear plugs and a good dust mask. Now, some steel does not need to be sharp if it's only going to be driven into capes. Others do need to be sharp because they will be driven into small cracks in the rock, or they will be driven between two pieces of steel that have been driven into a cape and are really tight together. All steel, however, should have it's striking end beveled to avoid chips of steel from coming off.

I do all the rough grinding on my bench grinder, and the smoothing with a belt sander. Care must be taken not to heat up the cutting edge too much, or that will soften the steel. Dip them in water often. I'll have a bucket of water with 8 or 10 pieces of steel in it, and I'll grind one for maybe 5 seconds, put it back in the bucket, and grab the next one, etc. I'll go around the bucket as many times as required, replacing the finished ones with new ones. After the pile is all ground, I put a spring in my vise and belt sand the cutting edge and some of the face. I sand one side of each, then go back and sand the other side.

As you can guess, getting a good set of tools for collecting Herks is a lot of work. I devote about 5 days each winter to it, and a few hours after each trip. The payoff, however, is that only the rock frustrates me, not my tools!