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View Full Version : Chisel Camber!?


Tim Put
05-28-2009, 2:40 PM
I have an idea. I want to see if it's terribly foolish, amazing and novel, or old hat.

Take a relatively wide, 1"ish, inexpensive chisel and grind a large camber on it, to be used for light paring cuts especially bevel down on concave surfaces. Probably with a convex bevel just like a gouge.

I've seen reference to cambered paring chisels, but I'd like something more like a shallow sweep gouge. I find that in the same price range chisels tend to be made of better materials than gouges.
Jim Koepke
05-28-2009, 3:04 PM
It sounds like you would be making a gouge out of a chisel, should work.

If you buy lots of old chisels, you will often find ones with "custom" grinds. I have some flat chisels that have a round grind. Have gotten some gouges with funny edges. When they were tried out on some wood, they cut profiles more like a molding plane.

This is just one reason it is fun to buy lots of old used tools.

jim
Robert Rozaieski
05-28-2009, 3:06 PM
Take a relatively wide, 1"ish, inexpensive chisel and grind a large camber on it, to be used for light paring cuts especially bevel down on concave surfaces. Probably with a convex bevel just like a gouge.

Actually, more like the iron in the round plane of a hollow & round pair. The gouge would be ground straight across like a regular chisel grind, unless you are talking about a spindle gouge for turning.

Honestly, not a bad idea for concave stuff, like a curved molding. Try it and let us know how it works ;).
John Schreiber
05-28-2009, 4:29 PM
I did that with an old plastic handled Stanley chisel. Before I got any carving tools, it did a decent job of cutting depressions. Now I use it to clean up spots of glue.
Bill Houghton
05-29-2009, 9:29 PM
Back in the black and white photo days, FWW did an article on exactly that idea - claimed all kinds of good virtues from it (cost being one of them!).

I think there are some Japanese chisels that use the same concept.
Jim Koepke
05-31-2009, 12:15 AM
Back in the black and white photo days, FWW did an article on exactly that idea - claimed all kinds of good virtues from it (cost being one of them!).

I think there are some Japanese chisels that use the same concept.

Just found it, Issue 30 page 67.

If you have the DVD, search on > chisel sweep <

jim