Many of my chisels are not my go to chisels. Some are actually of good quality. Many of them were acquired when buying groups of chisels with a few other of my preferred chisels.

They mostly stay in a drawer until there is a need for their particular features.

My calling them beaters has some equating them to junkers. A few might be junk. Most of them are decent chisels. Some do not have handles to my liking, like plastic, broken or missing.

Here are a couple of images of "chisels from the beater drawer:"

Chisel Group 1.jpg

The first two from the left are actually used occasionally in the shop. Mostly when doing a lot of chisel work and a group of similar size chisels is used so there isn't a halt in the work when an edge gets dull. The next three are Buck Brothers shallow gouges. They either need a bit of rehab work or they are redundant. Moving right, the following three are redundant. The half inch with a reddish handle is a Stanley #750. The one with the rounded end was from a group of chisels. Since it is a redundant one inch it wasn't needed enough to be ground to a new bevel. Now it is used whenever something calls for a finger catch. The shiny one, a Craftsman is occasionally called to duty like the first two on the left. The next two are Stanley Handyman chisels, often used for out of the shop work. Next is an unmarked socket chisel without a handle. The metal handled chisel is a Crescent. That one is made to be used with a steel hammer. The next five do not see much use. The first two of these are not that great. Besides the handles, they do not seem to have a specific purpose. The Marples, Buck Brothers and Stanley Everlasting do not appeal to me due to the plastic handles.

Here is some old copy on the Crescent chisels:

Crescent Chisel.png

Second batch of chisels:

Chisel Group 2.jpg

First from the bottom is a gouge that doesn't fit in my current holders for gouges and carving tools. The second is pretty much junk. Next is another Craftsman, used occasionally. The fourth is a 3mm chisel that is used when something smaller than 1/8" is needed. It is followed by another Sandvik chisel. The first new chisels purchased for my shop were Sandvik chisels. They were being purchase one at a time since that is all my budget would allow. When it came time to purchase a 1/4" chisel the brand had changed to Bocho and the handles were not the same. The Sandviks are fine chisels for the price, at least what they sold for back then. The three chisels with black plastic handles are by Stanley. They were purchased at ACE Hardware on sale, with a coupon. The price was ~$3 for the set. Those handles can be beaten with a hammer and survive. The piece with a large black handle was a bad deal on ebay. The little tool with a black handle looks to possibly be a broken spoon gouge. The last three are another 1/4" Buck Brothers with a plastic handle, a 1/2" Craftsman and old Stanley #60 that had a plastic handle that was falling apart.

So, only a few of these would fall into the junk category. If you were a neighbor needing to borrow a chisel from me you would likely be handed one of these, most likely with a plastic handle. Most of these are kept sharp.

So, is there a better name for this eclectic accumulation of chisels?

There are likely a few more in a box somewhere.

jtk