Tool? Or Not-a-tool?

So, I was thinking.... If I am more interested in trying to show the tool, the whole tool and nothing but the tool then perhaps I should be going for a little more realism and a different kind of attention to detail and sensitivity that I hadn't used before on my own prints. I really do like some of my prints but I think they show a different kind of sincerity that is more about my feelings and expression than about the tools themselves. I don't want to eliminate myself completely from my work, and couldn't do entirely even if I tried, but I think I could find a middle ground of looking at the tools in a closer way than I have before. IE. instead of just looking at the outline and shape of the tools can I look more at the weight, history, texture, patina of the tools? More importantly can I combine this with my own drawing style and love of paint and print to produce something that visually works?! There in lies the challenge.... I started photocopying some tools, like so, and found it humbling if not also slightly annoying that it takes a machine seconds to replicate and pick out the detail that took the owner of that tool years, if not a lifetime, of work to have produced those kind of marks and wear on that tool. A fitting contradiction and something I think would be good to exploit to further my work in this project. I proceeded to photocopy the tools up until the largest size they could go which is 400x. I was left with a massive jigsaw of grainy black and white pieces that somehow would fit together to make a tool. Some of the marks picked out from the 'made in England' text on the saw to the dents, splashes of paint, rust and more look incredibly interesting on a larger scale and make you notice the tool as an object of use and work much more obviously than I had achieved in my prints. I aim to develop this further into my work.

I think it is also appropriate that it somehow echos Brian's black and white semacodes that could almost seem to appear in amongst the graininess of the rust on the tools. Perhaps there is also potential here for something to develop as well?