E.A. Berg 1/16 chisel?

[Lasse Hilbrandt]

I just saw in an old Swedish tool catalogue that Berg made a 1/16" bench chisel. That's just 1,5 mm wide. I have never seen one and in my local woodworking community the smallest they have seen is 1/8"
I'm starting to think that perhaps they were never made in reality. Unless some of you guys have seen one ???

[Mel Fulks]

I think they were made for line inlay (stringing).

[Bill Houghton]

I've got a chisel with no visible maker's mark that measures a touch wider than 1/16" - nearly but not quite 3/32". I guess I figured it was made for string inlay, too. It's yet to find a job to do in my shop, but it's ready, if ever I need it.

It's quite thick, about a mortise chisel pattern, which I guess you'd need; a 1/16" chisel with bench chisel thickness would be pretty weak. So if I ever decide to get into modelmaking, I'll be able to cut my own 1/16" mortises!

[Jim Koepke]

I've got a chisel with no visible maker's mark that measures a touch wider than 1/16" - nearly but not quite 3/32".

Same here, mine has a handle that looks like a typical Berg handle.

jtk

[Frederick Skelly]

I havent seen any 1/16" chisel in my rust hunts. I have one of these 1/16" chisels on my list of future buys. Veritas Detail Chisel (http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?p=46035&cat=1,41504,46035) (Item "E")

I have a NAREX 1/8" and as folks noted, its profiled like a mortise chisel.

[Bruce Haugen]

I have a 1/8” Berg chisel, but I’ve never seen or heard about a smaller one.

[Warren Lake]

never seen 1/16 but made my own. Have Berg 1/4. 5/16 few more and one 1/4 I ground to 3/16". They are nice hard steel.

Needed a 1/16 for Fiche hinges. Have the proper Fiche Chisel from Germany, find it annoying maybe didnt give it enough if a chance instead ground a 1/8 mortise chisel to 1/16". Have some 1/8" Narrex and will grind one of them, they are so thick will be stronger than the one I modfied. Thanks for posting the Lee thing I didnt find that last time I used the hinges but maybe it wasnt in the catalogue then.

[david charlesworth]

UK certainly has 1/16" chisels as do the Japanese, 1.5 mm.

David

[Edwin Santos]

UK certainly has 1/16" chisels as do the Japanese, 1.5 mm.

David

Yes, Ashley Iles in the UK makes a 1/16" chisel, 1.5mm from the Dovetail chisel line. I have one and it's very fine indeed.
Their line of dovetail chisels are for cleaning and paring only, you should not strike them with anything other than perhaps the heel of your hand. They have some flex to the chisel body by design. They're intended to be used in conjunction with the bench chisels.
I can't say enough good about the AI steel quality.
Edwin

[lowell holmes]

I have this set of chisels. They are sweet to use.

http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?p=46035&cat=1,41504,46035

[Thomas Laursen]

I just saw in an old Swedish tool catalogue that Berg made a 1/16" bench chisel. That's just 1,5 mm wide. I have never seen one and in my local woodworking community the smallest they have seen is 1/8"
I'm starting to think that perhaps they were never made in reality. Unless some of you guys have seen one ???

I've got one at 1,8mm. Hard to tell whether they aimed at 1/16" or 2mm. Maybe they tried to satisfy both Metric and Imperial markets at the same time?
Either way, Berg did make chisels smaller than 1/8"

[Lasse Hilbrandt]

its very confusing, reading the Jernbolaget catalog they compare sizes and claim that 2mm is equal to 1/8 wich is 1mm or 33% off ???

[John C Cox]

Lol....

Remember these are Swedish... They used their own system for a long time... Neither British Imperial nor Metric (French)... And change happens slowly when you are out away from the capital city... So while Stockholm was probably using metric just before WWI - likely they weren't doing that out in the country...

Most likely - it was a dimension of 1 Swedish "Line" .. The "new" Swedish line was a smidge less than 3mm or 1/8"... But the old pre-1855 Swedish "line" was closer to 2mm...

Then - to make matters worse, they probably ground out whatever warp wouldn't straighten out from heat treatment... And it came out the size it came out... ;) ;)

Then - to make matters even worse on top of that... Sales literature is written by salesmen... And they may not have any actual knowledge of the product or how it's dimensions translate into American sales copy - and whether 1 line was 2mm or 3mm or 1/16" or 1/8" or whatever...

In reality they were the "Small" size... If it really matters what size they actually are - then you probably need to measure it to find out.... 2mm makes the most sense to me... But it would not surprise me one bit to find them ranging from 1/16" to 1/8".....

[Mel Fulks]

John, thanks. I had forgotten that. Many years ago I bought an ivory 3 piece ....3 inch total folding rule that was Swedish.
The dealer didn't know anything about it. But a little research informed me about their "big for it's size" inch.

[lowell holmes]

The Lee Valley set has a 1/16" chisel.