How to remove varnish from new chisels

[Osvaldo Cristo]

I made some research on the theme.

There is very different approaches to remove varnish that came protecting new chisels.

Today I prepared a set of four chisels purchased new... with a thick layer of some kind of varnish over all the blade. I was worried if it could the surface from my diamond sharpening plates so I tried to remove that varnish. I used paint remover I had a 20 years old unopened can. It worked fast and efficiently. I used plenty of baking soda solution to be sure to neutralize any acid remaining.

I was wondering how do you take off a such varnish.

Your input is very welcome. Thanks in advance.

[Mike Baker 2]

Acetone should do it right up. Never done anything to new chisels except sharpen them up, but my chisels are cheap. Maybe they did not have a finish on the blades, or maybe I just never noticed.

[John C Cox]

Most yield to lacquer thinner...

New Stanley on the other hand do not.. They must be some sort of modern catalyzed varnish.... The only effective solution I have found for these is the wire wheel.. So that's what they get.

[steven c newman]

aka: Clearcoat......hate that stuff. Have a tool vender that loves to coat ALL of his vintage tools with the stuff.....yuck.

[Patrick Chase]

For the most part I use NMP (N-methyl 2-pyrollidone) stripper. It takes a few hours to work on really thick/tough varnish, but it works consistently on just about everything including conversion varnishes. I haven't tried it on 2K poly, though I doubt anybody is coating chisels with that.

Some austempered chisels (most notably Narex and now Bahco) have information printed on the blade instead of etched, so you have to decide whether to try to preserve that. I mostly don't bother.

In the past I've softened the varnish with lacquer thinner and then scraped it while soft with a utility knife blade, but NMP is a lot easier and involves less exposure to fumes and sharp edges.

[Warren West]

Acetone should do it right up. Never done anything to new chisels except sharpen them up, but my chisels are cheap. Maybe they did not have a finish on the blades, or maybe I just never noticed.

Yup, acetone.

Most new tools have lacquer on the handles and some on the whole tool. Acetone will zip right through it. I put the acetone in a tall narrow container and dunk the handle give it a couple minutes, pull it off and wipe the lacquer off with a paper towel Repeat about once more and it will be gone.

[Charles Guest]

Yup, acetone.

Most new tools have lacquer on the handles and some on the whole tool. Acetone will zip right through it. I put the acetone in a tall narrow container and dunk the handle give it a couple minutes, pull it off and wipe the lacquer off with a paper towel Repeat about once more and it will be gone.

Don't remove it. Your honing stones will remove it where it needs to be removed. The rest of it provides rust protection.

[Pat Barry]

Could scrape it off with a razor blade if it bothers you.

[Chet R Parks]

Charles
If you don't remove it from the back won't it gum up your stones when you flatten them? Unless you meant to just leave it on the top?

[Patrick Chase]

Charles
If you don't remove it from the back won't it gum up your stones when you flatten them? Unless you meant to just leave it on the top?

You have to remove it from the back and bevel at a minimum, and ideally the side edges.

[lowell holmes]

Fine sandpaper?

[Chris Parks]

Brakleen, spray on wipe off.

[John C Cox]

On printed chisels - I would wire wheel it off the back and bevel.. That way you don't remove the printed labels...

[Charles Guest]

Charles
If you don't remove it from the back won't it gum up your stones when you flatten them? Unless you meant to just leave it on the top?

I use oilstones and have never had a problem. It's a tiny amount of lacquer, really. You register about an inch of the back on the stone. Totally insignificant. Don't overthink it.

[glenn bradley]

Mineral spirits has worked for Marples, Lee Valley and Narex for me.

[Chet R Parks]

Charles, Thank you for the information.

[Warren West]

Don't remove it. Your honing stones will remove it where it needs to be removed. The rest of it provides rust protection.

That may be, but I don't like it on my tools. I'll get rid of it an deal with the chance of rust on steel as humans have for millennia

Do Lee Valley and Lie Nielsen and other slather their goods with lacquer? It seems more prevalent on big box store tools and things made by Kirschen of Germany. They tend to love their buffing wheels and lacquer.

[Patrick Chase]

Do Lee Valley and Lie Nielsen and other slather their goods with lacquer? It seems more prevalent on big box store tools and things made by Kirschen of Germany. They tend to love their buffing wheels and lacquer.

Nope, LV/LN send pretty "clean" tools. LV's backs in particular appear to come straight off of the lapping machine, with at most a single coat of lacquer (if that).

As you say the phenomenon of varnish so thick that you can see visible globs/beads at the edges is mostly a low-end and/or Euro thing. At least Narex and the English makers don't go completely overboard with their buffers like Kirschen and Two Cherries. Restoring decent back and bevel geometries on recent German-made chisels is an exercise in frustration. It's like they've completely forgotten that they're supposed to be making tools.

I for one wouldn't dream of rubbing that much varnish into my sharpening stones. It comes out in a flattening or 3, but the sharpening will be pretty sticky in the meantime (I know this because I've forgotten to strip a chisel, once. Varnish tends to glob up with swarf, and that's not exactly what you want). Use finish removers to remove finish, and sharpening stones to remove metal. Simple enough...

[brian zawatsky]

I couldn’t possibly agree with you more, Patrick. On all counts.

[John C Cox]

As you say the phenomenon of varnish so thick that you can see visible globs/beads at the edges is mostly a low-end and/or Euro thing. At least Narex and the English makers don't go completely overboard with their buffers like Kirschen and Two Cherries. Restoring decent back and bevel geometries on recent German-made chisels is an exercise in frustration. It's like they've completely forgotten that they're supposed to be making tools.

I agree that I won't be allowing all that goop onto my stones again if I can help it... Royal PITA if you don't get the lacquer off first.

On the Two Cherries. Honestly - their problems with tool geometry are bigger than simply overzealous polishing. I got a set of the unpolished two cherries in hopes their bevel and back geometry would be better... It is not. It took a huge amount of work to flatten the backs well enough to sharpen them because their underlying grinding is all over the place... Once it's done it's done... Yes - I understand..

But it's a warning sign to me that perhaps they have rested on their laurels and are being overtaken without even knowing it.... Perhaps they need to create a "premium line" which receive some much needed tooling upgrades to improve the overall tool geometry as well as install more comfortable handles.. Pfeil's new line of bench chisels did just this and they are selling at approximately a 50% premium to Two Cherries and Ashley Iles....

It should also be a major warning sign that at current in-store prices - there are now Chinese made chisels which are more expensive than Two Cherries... And both their geometry and their steel is fantastic.....

No doubt the Chinese have a factory full of fresh new equipment while the Germans and British have factories which were rebuilt in the 1940's (or perhaps even older still)... Aging equipment likely in need of upgrade for many years now...

And so it goes...

[Todd Stock]

It's why we buy the 1970's Two Cherries blades, John...the buffing is not usually as awful and the octagonal handles are much better than the mid-80's Hirsch 'oval' handles. Still takes a fair amount of 80 grit to flatten things, but otherwise the tools are fine. Lately, Ebay has been a dry hole re: the Two Cherries/Ulmia stuff, but every once in a while, some stuff pops up at reasonable price.

[Peter Sebo]

Today I have removed the protective coat from new Narex cranked paring chisel with the alcohol (ethanol). Lacquer thinner and mineral spirit did not work for me. Ethanol did it quickly. I remove the coat for two reasons: from the back in order to lap it on fine water stones (up to 8000 JIS) and from the rest of the chisel for esthetic reason - the coat peels off in patches as the chisel is being used and it starts to look nasty. I only use the chisels for very fine paring in making the acoustic guitars. Therefore I want the tools to look nice. Of course the stamped black markings are removed as well. I prefer the look of Narex chisels without them.

[Jim Koepke]

Hi Peter and welcome to the Creek.

It would be nice if the makers of chisels would include a note to let us know what kind of coating they use.

Some of us might not have various kinds of thinners on hand.

jtk

[Peter Sebo]

Thank you Jim, I appreciate being the part of this community.
And by the way today I have continued with sharpening the new Narex chisels and had to use also acetone to remove the protective coat. It’s quite arduous process. For the guys planning to polish the back of their chisels and use it for delicate job I would recommend higher end brand.