Steel Needle: Pointed, Eyed, Hardened in Oil and Tempered

Needles are made from good steel wire: cut, straightened, pointed, flattened and pierced for the eye, hardened by heating and plunging into oil, then tempered back to a springy hardness, scoured and polished (Bucknall Smith, A Treatise upon Wire, 1891). This is the same sequence by hand, one heavy needle at a time from piano wire; the hand methods and sizes are ours. The picture: steel sewing needles (Wikimedia Commons).