Lie-Nielsen Butt Chisels???

[Malcolm Schweizer]

On page 20 of the latest Fine Woodworking (Mar/Apr 2014), is that a Lie-Nielsen Butt chisel, or is it camera foreshortening? Perhaps another brand with a LN hornbeam handle?

[Chris Griggs]

Looks to me like an LN chisel that just been ground back a lot....perhaps due to really heavy use or damage. Jeff Miller runs a school so they could have uncharacteristic use/wear.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I thought perhaps that was the case but maybe a prototype got slipped in there. I am traveling so I don't have my LN chisels to compare to the photo.

[Mike Brady]

It's just shortened from lots of sharpening and the compression by the camera lens used for that shot. Jeff has a pretty lean collection of tools and he us them daily for his studio furniture business. He is a fantastic sharpener and keeps his tools work-ready. In his classes the students use their own tools.

I did see some prototypes of some long paring chisels from L-N a long time ago. Obviously, those have not made it to production, nor the 1"+ chisels.

[David Weaver]

I wonder how many chisels warren's been through and how long they last. Even for someone working with their tools for a large part of each day, to sharpen most of a chisel away - especially a chisel as hard as an LN chisel, would seem like aggressive sharpening.

His tools, his business, though, and they're income producing so he can write off any new ones.

[Matthew Kenney]

That's foreshortening from the camera angle. Although this might be too much of peek behind the curtain, I can confirm that it's not Jeff's chisel in the photo. It's mine, as is the plane and dovetail saw. And that chisel is just a bit shorter than it was when new. Although we travel to shops for the action shots, beauty shots like the one on p. 20 are often done in house, where we can take the photo, test it on the page, tweak the photo, test it again, etc.

--Matt

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Thanks all, and especially Matt. This is exactly why I love this forum- ask a silly question, get a great answer straight from the source.