1) A device used by Sheffield cutlers, possible for boring out knife handles or making rivets.
Sheffield cutlers’ inventories include references to this implement from the late seventeenth century. In 1694, Charles Stewardson had in his Smithy Chamber 7 Vices a Glasier 6 pair of Boring Stoopes . In 1697 Edward Creswick had boreing stoops in his Work Chamber and other examples have been noted in 1724 and 1730. Unfortunately the word is missing from the OED and its precise meaning remains uncertain although the repeated references to ‘pairs’ of boring stoops and the fact that one cutler had six pairs may rule out the possibility that the ‘stoop’ was a substantial block of wood or stone. Since the use of the ‘device’ coincides with the emergence of hafting as a specialised craft it may have been an apparatus for boring out knife handles. Alternatively it may have been connected with the making of rivets since, in 1724, Samuel Taylor had in his Work Chamber 4 Visses 4 revitting Stithys 3 pair of booring Stoops 3 revitting hammers . Wright lists ‘bore’ as a word for an iron mould used in nail-making.