Chisel set up and aside for softwoods

[Tony Wilkins]

Do any of you have a chisel (chisels) set up with a lower bevel angle for use on pine and other soft woods? If so, what angle and chisel do you choose for this?

[Brian Holcombe]

Not usually, I find that if they’re very sharp the standard bevel angle is fine.

[Kevin Smira]

I have a 1/2 and a 1/4 both ground to 17degreea.

[Derek Cohen]

Not usually, I find that if they’re very sharp the standard bevel angle is fine.

Agree. My bench chisels are 30 degrees since they may be tapped with a hammer. My paring chisels (Japanese) are 25 degrees. No need to go lower.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Stewie Simpson]

Keep an open mind gents. 10 degree convex bevel (measured from the center point of the curve. W1 steel. Parring both Cypress Pine and Aust.Jarrah. The cutting edge did not fold or chip, but required a light work out on the loaded strop to complete the parring work on the Jarrah. Am I recommending we all ignore the western standard of 20 degrees for parring chisels. No. But don't expect a parring chisel that's been hollow ground at 20 degrees with a light micro bevel to hold its edge for too long.

http://i1009.photobucket.com/albums/af219/swagman001/convex%20bevel/DSC_0330_zpsbdznjb15.jpg (http://s1009.photobucket.com/user/swagman001/media/convex%20bevel/DSC_0330_zpsbdznjb15.jpg.html)

http://i1009.photobucket.com/albums/af219/swagman001/convex%20bevel/DSC_0331_zps0gfvafba.jpg (http://s1009.photobucket.com/user/swagman001/media/convex%20bevel/DSC_0331_zps0gfvafba.jpg.html)

[Patrick Chase]

Keep an open mind gents. 10 degree convex bevel (measured from the center point of the curve. W1 steel.

For edge life all that matters is the angle at the very tip (say, the last 1/100" or so). Do you happen to know how convex that bevel was?

[ernest dubois]

For edge life all that matters is the angle at the very tip (say, the last 1/100" or so). Do you happen to know how convex that bevel was?
And what lies behind this 1/100th has no relevance?

[Derek Cohen]

Stewie, I am curious to know why 10 degrees? I might add the same question for those who believe any especially low angle is beneficial - at what point is the apparent edge penetration more important than edge holding? How many strokes are acceptable before rehoning such low angles - 2, 3, 4?

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Patrick Chase]

And what lies behind this 1/100th has no relevance?

Not to edge wear, which is what Stewie was addressing. It obviously matters to strength and stiffness, but I'm not surprised that Stewie found 10 deg to be adequate in those respects.

[bridger berdel]

I have enough chisels that i have multiples of most common sizes. What I generally do when i acquire a new (rust hunt) chisel is flatten the back and grind the bevel to a little lower than i think reasonable for what i guess the chisel to be. Then in use i'll gradually increase the microbevel until i get reasonable edge life. All done freehand, so i don't know or care what the numbers are. In use i'll grab the chisel that looks best set up for the job at hand, so to answer the OP's question, sort of but not really.

[John C Cox]

It's pretty common with guitar work to have a couple chisels ground really low for fine work on spruce and cedar guitar top wood and brace shaving...

I have been trying to find a chisel or two for this duty.. Unfortunately - "any old chisel" won't do... They have to be pretty good steel properly hardened and tempered to hold up at these low angles. And it seems like this duty favors a good fine grained high carbon steel chisel...

I will say another alternative (which Brian and Derek kinda point towards) is a super hard chisel sharpened at a more conventional 25 degrees or so.. A chisel that's up at Rc 63+ has a very different feel on the wood than a conventionally prepared western chisel.. They feel "slick" and smooth in the wood.. And they do pare very well... Japanese chisels are the first obvious place to look - you can buy them like this, and they have already sorted it out.... But a re-hardened and minimally tempered new production Buck Bro's has a similar feel in hand and performance doing gentle paring (though the edge doesn't hold up as well.. Technique is critical - as the hard, chippy edge cannot withstand prying or impact.)

[Jim Koepke]

My paring chisels are my set of Buck Brothers chisels. All with a flat bevel at ~15-20º.

Most of my work is in soft woods like pine and firs.

jtk

[ernest dubois]

Not to edge wear, which is what Stewie was addressing. It obviously matters to strength and stiffness, but I'm not surprised that Stewie found 10 deg to be adequate in those respects.
And strength and stiffness have nothing to do with edge wear?

[Brian Holcombe]

Paring is pretty low impact Ernest, I've experienced it being more critical for chopping.

[Patrick Chase]

And strength and stiffness have nothing to do with edge wear?

They do, but bending moment in the blade increases linearly from edge to handle, so the loads out at the tip are smaller than a lot of people think (provided you don't apply high twisting loads, which you shouldn't). The tip is subject to compressive loads, but a 10 deg bevel would be able to withstand those for paring.

Also, if the bevel is continuously convex like Stewie's and if the first 1/100" is pitched at, say, 20 degrees, then we know that the next 1/100" isn't going to be much less than that, etc. If you honed a 10 deg primary bevel and then put a very thin higher-angle microbevel on that then you might have a problem with buckling/folding, but that's not what he did.

[Patrick Chase]

Paring is pretty low impact Ernest, I've experienced it being more critical for chopping.

Indeed. Chopping imposes high compressive load that might cause a low-bevel-angle blade to bevel, though even there I'd bet that the critical angle is a lot lower than most people think. You don't hear about people breaking the tips off of their 20 deg Ray Iles mortise chisels, after all.

[John C Cox]

And strength and stiffness have nothing to do with edge wear?

For most chisels - the thickness adds stiffness against prying and twisting and impact... If you have a very very sharp edge and a very careful technique - you can shave wood without the need for great thickness back in the body of the chisel.... For example - your sharp pocket knife shaves wood well - yet these are usually quite thin... Even a razor blade will work if you are careful....

As Brian notes - the additional thickness is very useful for chopping...

[ernest dubois]

For most chisels - the thickness adds stiffness against prying and twisting and impact... If you have a very very sharp edge and a very careful technique - you can shave wood without the need for great thickness back in the body of the chisel.... For example - your sharp pocket knife shaves wood well - yet these are usually quite thin... Even a razor blade will work if you are careful....

As Brian notes - the additional thickness is very useful for chopping...

Yes it adds this stiffness but the mass behind the cutting also is a buttress supporting and absorbing, and including another thing I just thought, dispersing not only pressure from impact but heat generated by friction, also a contributor to the break down at the edge, which is another way of saying wear. The mechanics of abrasion always involves stress on the steel structure and in not just some mysterious force working against the edge.

[Patrick Chase]

Yes it adds this stiffness but the mass behind the cutting also is a buttress supporting and absorbing, and including another thing I just thought, dispersing not only pressure from impact but heat generated by friction, also a contributor to the break down at the edge, which is another way of saying wear. The mechanics of abrasion always involves stress on the steel structure and in not just some mysterious force working against the edge.

Err, no.

Heat is simply energy, and energy is force times distance. The amount of heat that can be generated by cutting with a chisel is therefore strictly limited by how hard you push the chisel and how far it moves while being pushed (and in fact much of that energy input is absorbed by deformation of the wood rather than as frictional heating). There is no way that paring could possibly create enough heat to matter, particularly when you consider that steel is very conductive.

The part about "stress on the steel structure" seems to me to be hand-wavy pseudoscience. Tool steel at Rc60 has a compressive yield strength of about 300,000 pounds per square inch. It really doesn't take much cross-sectional area to resist the sorts of forces involved in paring. More practically and as somebody else pointed out, the fact that thin-bladed knives can be used for fairly hard work tells us a lot.

[Warren West]

For the very limited joinery I do, I use my carving chisels to pare. They tend to be thinner than bench chisels in the first place, plus they are around 20 degrees, so yeah, they cut clean. I can't imagine paring with 30 degrees. That's a wall of steel right there, that is.

If I did more joinery I'd have 3 complete sets for mortising, general chopping and paring.

[ernest dubois]

Lets just discount the stress on the steel's structure as pseudoscience and go with mysterious force working against the edge to explain wear then. I really cannot imagine the working circumstances you must be assuming when you write of pairing. I know one thing though it doesn't include, for example trimming a dowel flush or similar end grain work because such work does indeed involve a fair amount of pressure and heat build up.

[Pat Barry]

Err, no.

Heat is simply energy, and energy is force times distance. The amount of heat that can be generated by cutting with a chisel is therefore strictly limited by how hard you push the chisel and how far it moves while being pushed (and in fact much of that energy input is absorbed by deformation of the wood rather than as frictional heating). There is no way that paring could possibly create enough heat to matter, particularly when you consider that steel is very conductive.

The part about "stress on the steel structure" seems to me to be hand-wavy pseudoscience. Tool steel at Rc60 has a compressive yield strength of about 300,000 pounds per square inch. It really doesn't take much cross-sectional area to resist the sorts of forces involved in paring. More practically and as somebody else pointed out, the fact that thin-bladed knives can be used for fairly hard work tells us a lot.
300000 psi equates to a 1/2" wide chisel with a 1 mil thick crossectional edge being pushed with 150 lbs force. Maybe not so unreasonable?

[Robert Engel]

Yes, but only for paring/carving uses.

Keep stone handy :-)

[Patrick Chase]

For edge life all that matters is the angle at the very tip (say, the last 1/100" or so). Do you happen to know how convex that bevel was?


300000 psi equates to a 1/2" wide chisel with a 1 mil thick crossectional edge being pushed with 150 lbs force. Maybe not so unreasonable?

If the convex bevel flattened to 10 deg within the first mil then yes, that might be a limitation. That's why I said 1/100" and not 1/1000" :-).

[Pat Barry]

If the convex bevel flattened to 10 deg within the first mil then yes, that might be a limitation. That's why I said 1/100" and not 1/1000" :-).
Ya. Just trying to put 300,000 psi into some more practical terms.

[Patrick Chase]

Ya. Just trying to put 300,000 psi into some more practical terms.

Yes, thanks for doing that!

This goes back to a point that Warren has made many times: A lot of modern chisels seem to be drastically overbuilt in relation to the actual functional demands of the tool, and this seems particularly true out near the tip where the bending moments are low and the chisel is loaded mostly in pure compression and maybe shear. If you look at his 18th C chisels (he posted a picture in another thread recently) they're almost toothpick-like in comparison.

Nit-picking myself, compressive yield strength doesn't consider buckling, Obviously a long 1 mil by 1/2" cross-section isn't really going to be able to handle 150 lb in compression for that reasson (though a more optimal cross-section of the same area could), nor will a 10 mil by 1/2" cross-section handle 1500 lb. I threw out that number to give a sense of order of magnitude.

[John C Cox]

And yet as in Stewie's case and with so many low bevel angle paring chisels - it seems to work out just fine... Even on pretty darned hard woods.. Jarrah is nothing to sneeze at.. It's way up there past white oak... But the OP was talking about pine and soft woods....

Plenty of folks set up a couple dedicated paring chisels at 15-20 degrees... And given good quality steel with the proper hardness- they hold up with a careful hand and good technique...

And I have seen cautions about "no knots" on the super hard, low bevel, Japanese paring chisels.....

So... For the OP... Try it out and see how it goes. You may like it, you may not..

[steven c newman]

My problem would be confusing which chisel went to which type of wood....and I do not have all that many "users" for such a thing. I do have a set of Mortise chisels and a set of bench chisels....kind of hard to mistake one for the other....
381005
YMMV

[John C Cox]

My problem would be confusing which chisel went to which type of wood....and I do not have all that many "users" for such a thing. I do have a set of Mortise chisels and a set of bench chisels....kind of hard to mistake one for the other....
381005
YMMV

Yeah - but you can always buy another set of those Aldi chisels for $7.... Just chop off the hoop end on the "Low angle Aldi chisel"... ;);)

[Jim Koepke]

Yeah - but you can always buy another set of those Aldi chisels for $7.... Just chop off the hoop end on the "Low angle Aldi chisel"... ;);)

Buy multiple sets and grind a high bevel angle on ones for chopping harder woods. Maybe you could paint the rings red to keep your sets sorted.

jtk

[Mike Baker 2]

Buy multiple sets and grind a high bevel angle on ones for chopping harder woods. Maybe you could paint the rings red to keep your sets sorted.

jtk

I have two sets here, and I plan to do exactly that; a set at 25* and one at 30*. Will most likely cut the nubs with the little hoops off of one set.

[steven c newman]

Have better uses for my allowance....like buying the wood to use ONE set of chisels on...

[Derek Cohen]

Have better uses for my allowance....like buying the wood to use ONE set of chisels on...

... this coming from the guy who cannot wait to show us all his tools, constantly!

Steven, if you cannot be supportive, then stay out of the thread. I am tired of your frequent sniping.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[steven c newman]

I show what I use. I am not a salesperson. Did someone pass and make YOU the Moderator here?

I think not....I think I will just stay around here....may have to list you as a stalker, and place on the ignore list...

Now, I have a bit of woodworking to do today....might even show the tools I use....
381020381021

[John C Cox]

Ha! The real reason you don't want to buy another set of Aldi chisels is that you already have 13 sets stashed away... Just in case... On top of the 5 sets prepped for regular use... And ran out of drawer space...

So now you have to build some more Aldi chisel drawers....

[steven c newman]

Ah....nope. Only have two sets....one an older set, one a new set. Should be plenty. The rest of the chisels are mainly older than I am....witherby, Butchers, Buck Brothers ( from BEFORE HD time) and even a few from Germany. Welcome to stop by and do an inventory, any time.
381027
Shouldn't take too long...

[James Waldron]

[snip] ... And ran out of drawer space...

So now you have to build some more Aldi chisel drawers....

Would that be Ikea flat pack drawers?

Geez, you guys are sure getting snippy. It's all a matter of choosing priorities. A lot of guys make do with one set of bench chisels; others may want several for differing purposes. Like the old cliche says, "You pays yr money and you takes yr chances."

[steven c newman]

Well....never have bought anything from Ikea....haven't even been in one of their stores.....

I think I'll just go to the shop, and build one the "Olde School" way.....
381034
have fun with them chisels....I have work to do...

[Patrick Chase]

Heat is simply energy, and energy is force times distance. The amount of heat that can be generated by cutting with a chisel is therefore strictly limited by how hard you push the chisel and how far it moves while being pushed (and in fact much of that energy input is absorbed by deformation of the wood rather than as frictional heating). There is no way that paring could possibly create enough heat to matter, particularly when you consider that steel is very conductive.

One other remark: Thinking of this as an energy problem illustrates clearly how/why mallets work. Humans can't apply much force, which means that we can't directly supply much energy over the length of a typical chisel cut. When we use a mallet we apply that relatively low force over a much longer distance (the "windup", for lack of a better word) and then release it all into a short cut. I've also seen people try to look at it as a momentum problem, but that isn't really appropriate since the bottom line objective is deformation of the wood and that requires energy.

[Dave Anderson NH]

I realize that cabin fever has captured a lot of folks as it does this time of year but back off the snide and snarky stuff folks. I try really hard not to edit posts or delete threads but if people persist in sniping at each other I will step in and issue "time outs".