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View Full Version : A set of small carving tools I made. G.Wilson



george wilson
09-23-2010, 9:58 AM
These are small carving tools I made a set of. They are made of 01.

I know the handles are not great,but at the time I was very tired of making handles,having re-handled 75 old Addis carving tools I had bought sight unseen. I had no wood lathe at that time,either. These are strictly push type tools anyway,and no force is required to use them.

The widest fishtail gouge is about 1/2" wide. The narrowest gouge is 1/32". I think I ground its little groove with a Dremel cut off wheel.

They have no bolsters. As mentioned,only for pushing. They are hand made from 1/4" 01 steel. Their shafts are necked down in their centers on the fishtail gouges to add interest. The shafts could have been left straight,but they look nicer being "swamped."

The close up shows my old brand applied to the ends of the walnut handles,which are finished with Tru Oil gunstock finish.

I need to re grind one of the skew chisels. The point has broken off.

These are the type of small carving tools you could easily make for yourself.

The little box they are in has little ivory handles to lift it out. These,and the rifflers,are all in a little chest which is very full of nesting,lift out boxes. It is really very efficiently full of small tools.

Willard Foster
09-23-2010, 12:52 PM
Hi George,

Thanks for your post. Your tools look great. I have been toying with the idea of making some of my own carving tools.

Could you give a brief description of your tool making process?

I am interested in how you shape the tools, polish them and what you use to heat the steel. No need to explain the heat treating process itself.

Where do you buy your O1?

Thanks,

Bill

george wilson
09-23-2010, 1:05 PM
These tools were made with the simplest equipment. A few bricks to make a "corner" to retain the heat,and a Mapp gas torch. You don't heat the whole tool. Just the last few inches. If it's a fishtail gouge,no point in heating the whole thing,anyway.

I just filed the swamped shape into the shanks,and filed the tangs to a spike shape.

01 is sold by any supply house,like McMaster. I bought mine from MSC. google it. Victor machinery exchange in New York might be the cheapest place. I have done a lot of business with them. They are good folks.

I heated up the last inch of the steel,and flattened and spread it out on a block of steel on my bench. No room for an anvil back then,and not necessary for these.

At the time,I just quenched the tools in a jar full of vegetable oil. Heat to orange,quench,polish up,heat to medium or dark straw,quench again.

David Weaver
09-23-2010, 1:19 PM
Really really nice looking tools, george.

I like the plain handles, especially on tools that don't need turned handles with a tang. It makes them look more classic than a turned handle (which you probably had no intention of putting on them, anyway), and It also makes the rest of us more likely to try to make something like them.

I didn't comment on the riffler post, but I looked at it at least three times to eyeball the tools and think about how difficult it would be to make them cleanly with the tools I have. They are fantastic looking, and including the multi-purpose file that you use to sharpen them is a really nice touch.

george wilson
09-23-2010, 1:37 PM
The rifflers were made with simple tools too. Just filed into shape. The tooth cutting file,of course,made all the difference.

I got the idea from a well known gunsmith friend years ago. He used to make his own checkering tools by filing a "V" on 1/8" square 01 steel bars. He filed teeth on them with a checkering file. Didn't even harden them. When they got dull,he took a swipe at them with the checkering file to sharpen them up. They worked fine on wood. I really made these for metal,though,and needed a correctly formed file tooth.

You could make some wood rifflers with the checkering file technique.

Matt Evans
09-24-2010, 1:32 AM
George,

Very nice. . .between you and Harry, I have developed a keen interest in smithing, though I may never get much of a chance to do any.

I know these have no bolster, but am wondering how I would go about making a bolster on something like this. I think I have an idea of how it was done, but please correct me if I am wrong. . .

Heat up the where you want the bolster, set in hardy hole (Maybe a jig rather than a hardy hole), hammer end of steel to make heated portion mushroom out.

You do that first, then finish the rest of the chisel.

Dan Andrews
09-24-2010, 5:58 AM
George, the handles are not great huh? If you ever plan to drop by my shop please call ahead so I can hide my homemade tools:o.

george wilson
09-24-2010, 7:39 AM
You could make simple but effective bolsters by making thick steel washers about the size of a dime and filing a square hole in them that fits over the tapered tangs. The hole would jam just where the tapered tang reaches full diameter and becomes the shank of the chisel or gouge. If the square hole was filed taper to fit over the tangs,it would be best.

The washers should be about 1/8" thick,or a little less. After they have been jammed over the tapered tangs,they would be filed down to a thin edge,leaving the usual tapered octagonal bolster.

You could silver solder them to the tangs,or just leave them them jammed on if they were properly and closely fitted to the tapered tangs.

Once the tangs are seated into the handles,right up to the bolsters,they can't go into the handles any further due to the jammed on bolster.

If the bolster were made of 01,and hardened,then drawn to dark straw color,there is no way the chisel tangs could ever spread the bolsters open to go further into the handles.

This is the easy way to make a bolster. To make real,forged solid bolsters would take special swages,and blacksmithing skills.

seth lowden
09-27-2010, 6:17 PM
Hello Mr. Wilson;

Those are great looking tools. How did you establish the sweep of the gouges? Any kind of swage block?

Thanks!

Johnny Kleso
09-27-2010, 9:29 PM
Looks like your middle name could be Addis...
As in the fine chisel maker J.B. Addis..

Very nice job shaping the tools..

george wilson
09-28-2010, 11:28 AM
I hammered the fishtail gouges out flat and thin. They were annealed,and I laid a piece of round bar stock of whatever diameter for the curve I wanted over them and hammered the fishtails into the end grain of a block of hard wood to bend them into the sweeps that all the fishtails have.

I think I filed the grooves of the smaller gouges in. The 1/32" gouge I ground with the cut off wheels you can get for Dremel tools.

Everything on these tools was done with simple means. I have posted them because most anyone can make them for themselves without metal working machinery,or even a wood lathe.

The groove in the one in the 2:30 position in the round picture wasn't even filed very far with a needle file. It was made more quickly for a carving I was doing. The groove in a gouge doesn't have to be made full length in order for it to work just fine.

Grinling Gibbons often made up quick carving tools for special needs. They were not finished except at their cutting edges. The rest was just left rough in some of his old tools.