Grinding Wheel Dressers

A small group of grinding wheel dressers is arranged across one of my dad’s wooden workbenches. I was drawn to their repeating circular shapes, the sharp teeth around their edges, and the contrast between the worn metal and the softer grain of the wood.

These were the kinds of specialized tools that filled his garage—objects I saw all the time without really understanding what they were for. My dad knew exactly how they worked. Photographing them gave me time to slow down and really look at the shapes, textures, and surfaces that had always been part of his working world.

Part of Donna Dufault’s Tool Project, a collection of 19 black-and-white still life photographs created in 2002 using tools from her late father’s garage.