720 Handles

[George Clark]

These are my first attempt at making socket chisel handles. The blanks were stablized big leaf maple. Finished with the Beall buffing system.

George

[John Beaver]

Those are beautiful. Nice job.

[Ben Gastfriend]

Diddo. The finish looks great, and the form looks comfortable.

[Ron Lynch]

See, the problem is, they look so good you'll never be able to bring yourself to whack them with a mallet.

[alex carey]

Those are simply beautiful. Ditto what Ron said, I can't imagine hitting a these things with a mallet. It would be a damn shame to ruin them in anyway.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Wow - that's the first time I've seen socket chisels elevated to art! Beautiful work! Now find some way to secure them to the wall so everyone can admire them - and go buy some other chisels to work with!

Seriously - very nice work!

[David Christopher]

George, those are ver nice handles......like the others said I wouldnt want to whack them

[Steve Clardy]

Very nice George ;)

[Bernie Weishapl]

Great job on some good looking handles.

[Jeff Nicol]

George, Those are almost to beautiful to use! I love the grain and color of the big leaf maple blanks. You did yourself proud!

Great job!

Jeff

[Bruce Smith]

George they look just great, like others have said its a shame to put them to use with a mallet. I tried making handles for a couple of mine but could never seem to get the correct angle on the tendon and naturally the handles would not jam into the chisel and stay there. How did you measure the inside angle on the chisel? I wonder now if it is a standard angle, the two chisels that I tried it on were old Stanley Chisels that originally belonged to my grandfather.

[George Clark]

Thanks to everyone for the kind words. :D

Bruce, I used an old handle to get the major and minor diameters of the tenon. This got me close. From there on it was trial and error, a little at a time. Once you're close, jam the handle in the chisel and twist it to burnish the high spots, remove them and repeat. A little machinist's high spot blue marking paste or soot inside the socket will help highlight the high spots. Leave a bit of a gap between the end of the socket and the shoulder of the tenon so if the wood compresses or shrinks a bit the handle doesn't bottom out on the shoulder. I use a Stebcenter drive as it makes it easy to remove and replace the the handle while fitting. Patience helps. Each of these chisels had a different size socket but the angle seemed to be consistent. I hope this helps a bit.

George

[Paul Atkins]

Where are the other 717 handles? Kidding. What is a 720 handle? Also how was the maple 'stablized'? A friend of mine showed me a way to measure the inside of sockets by filling up with hot glue and screwing in a lag bolt before cool. You then have a perfect model of the socket.

[George Clark]

Paul,

720 is Stanley's model number for the old chisels for which I made the handles. I don't know how the wood was stabilized as I purchased the blanks already stabilized. I do know that the process adds a great deal of strength to the wood and is somewhat expensive. A Google search on stabilized wood will provide a lot of information.

George