What are These Chisels?

[Rich Riddle]

What is the purpose of these three chisels? They are wrapped up in brown paper in the chisel drawer. They might have been purchased to cut a mortise in the front door, but the Porter Cable door lock mortiser did that instead. Anyway the top line says W.Butcher; the second line says "cas" steel, the symbols on the third are a circled b, an arrow with a few feathers, and the Maltese cross, and the bottom line says Sheffield. Though the hand planes all found new homes, the hand saws and chisels still have a home. These sure feel beefy. My great-uncle used to call chisels like this, "pig stickers."

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[steven c newman]

Yep, "pig Sticker" Mortise chisels.....usually it is an English style of chisel. These are made to be WHACKED, and whacked hard. One of the "Isles" makers made a lot of these......Ray, I think it was.

[Nick Sandberg]

Those my friend are indeed mortise chisels. The oval shaped handles make it easier to feel when they are twisted off the line and the thickness is for prying support. Those are really nice looking and a set like that is something I would be happy to own at some point (lee valley has done that look to be pretty nice).

[Mel Fulks]

Nice. Butcher is considered one of the premium cast steel tool makers.

[Mike Henderson]

Yep, they're pig stickers. The second line on the Butcher is "Cast Steel". The cast steel mark would tend to date the chisels to the 1800's or very early 1900's. After early 1900 it probably would have said "tool steel".

Most pigsticker are not hooped on the handle. Someone probably added that. And the handles were not round - they were wider front to back than side-to-side - oval shaped. I think this was so that the chisel could be oriented by feel when in use.

Mike

[I've owned pigstickers of many makers but now I only have a set of Ward pigstickers. Took me a long time to put the full set together.]

[ken hatch]

Rich,

The polite name is "English Oval Bolster Chisel". I prefer the more common "pig sticker" as others have stated. I expect Mike is correct, these have been re-handled with the hoops added and the handles appear round instead of oval, more in the German style of mortise chisel. A beautiful set of chisels, someone cared for them well, I hope you put them to good use or sell to someone that will.

ken

[Rich Riddle]

I took a few pictures to clear up any confusion. The handles are oval and if changed someone did a bang up job of cutting and adding the hoops. Here are a few better pictures that show the handles.

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