Are PM-V11 handles fragile, am I a brute, or am I using the wrong tool?

[Mike King]

I've now split two handles on my Veritas PM-V11 1" bench chisel chopping pins in walnut. Extracting the split handle was a PITA as Lee Valley epoxies the handle to the chisel. After replacing the handle with another obtained from Lee Valley, I split the new handle on the 3rd pin board. I finished it off with the ¾ chisel.

I'm chopping these by hand setting in across the grain then chopping a river to the cross chop. I'm using a Blue Spruce round mallet. Usually, I would saw most of the waste out, but I cut these pins on my Bridge City JMP and the kerf on the pin cut is extremely thin. So, chopping it was.

So, do you think the handles are just fragile, the bench chisels are not really the tool for chopping in this fashion, or am I just hitting the chisels too hard?

Mike

[Mike Henderson]

Wow, I have a number of Verital PM-V11 chisels and never even thought I was going to split the handle. I think those handles are infused with something.

You must be really whacking the chisel.

Mike

[Jim Koepke]

So, do you think the handles are just fragile, the bench chisels are not really the tool for chopping in this fashion, or am I just hitting the chisels too hard?

To answer this one would have to know how deep your chisel penetrates when you whack it.

Do you hit the chisel multiple times in a cut?

Can you post images of the failure? This may give a clue to the cause.

It could be as simple as the tang being longer than it should be.

jtk

[Scott Winners]

I am with Jim wondering if your particular tang is perhaps a bit overlong. I only have two of the PMV-11 bench chisels, but they seem to be indestructible at my place. I just went and looked, my homestore mallet is 28 ounces. I usually only make one sinking swing, but not fooling around, then change my approach and pare out whatever I cut free before whacking again in a downward direction.

I do find I get much better results sawing most of the waste out so I am more or less paring the floor of each joint. Is there a compelling reason to not saw most of the waste out - making a new kerf beside your high precision kerf?

If you were using the same mallet technique with the 3/4 chisel that would be a possible indicator the tang on your one inch might be a touch overlong, at least to me.

[Keegan Shields]

Are the chisels dull? How are you sharpening them?

[Rafael Herrera]

I looked at the mallet you're using. It seems the maker went to great lengths to make the head really hard. Perhaps you should try a mallet of untreated hardwood.

[Tom M King]

I have used chisels up to 15 hours continuously, over a couple of days, with a Wood is Good mallet, and the handle is not bruised at all, nor does it show any evidence of use at all.

I used one with a Walnut handle a few days ago, also with the 30 oz. Wood is Good mallet, and the handle appears unused. In both cases, my elbow also experienced no ill effects from use. It was a 1-1/2" Barr timber framing chisel that I bought from a seller here, who had replaced the handle with one he made from Walnut. The ring on the end kept coming off because the handle end never flared out. I finally just took the ring off because the handle was showing no effects anyway. I was chiseling away a fair amount of square footage on really hard, old wood.

I don't use any other kind of mallet now. I used to wear out chisel handles, and mallets, as well as get a tired elbow, when I used wooden mallets.

[chris carter]

I was going to say the tang is too long also. But then I read this about that mallet:

"Blue Spruce Round Mallets feature a maple head infused with a tough polymer resin that increases the density of the maple by 80%. The infused head puts more “smack” into less space than simple wooden headed mallets. In addition to concentrating power, the resin protects the wood fibers from compression. This beautiful tool will still look beautiful after chopping hundreds of dovetails and mortises."

Sounds like they made a steel hammer out of wood!

Chopping with a 1" wide chisel is a lot of force. No matter how big my tails/pins are I never use a 1" to do the chopping unless it's pine or poplar. I use something narrower that goes through the wood easier without having to swing like John Henry. Then when I'm right in front of my line I'll switch to the widest chisel for the task because at that point I'm removing so little wood I'm just lightly tapping with the mallet anyway.

So if you are using the aforementioned wood hammer that feels like steel, and a 1" chisel, and maybe you are chopping something relatively hard like maple and trying to take big whacks...... I could see the potential for a problem there. Maybe a more normal (untreated beech, etc.) might be required. Or do the heavy chopping with a narrower (3/4") chisel and switch to the 1" for the cut at the line.

Or, the chisel tang is defective....

[Derek Cohen]

I have had these chisels for several years and not managed more than a slight flat on the top of the 3/4". But I do not use steel hammers or resin-infused mallets. I use either a modified Veritas Cabinetmaker's hammer with a UHMW face, about 20 oz, or a modified Dave Anderson plane hammer, about 12oz (the other mallet is for morticing - but I prefer the Veritas here). The UHMW is hard but with a little give. Good feedback ...

https://i.postimg.cc/2yDyKsW-5/Hammer7.jpg

The Blue Spruce is a work or art, and I own one, but never been sure where its use lies.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Mike King]

I do do multiple whacks, usually 2 or perhaps three. Here's a photo of the chisel in question. And I had just sharpened the chisel -- sharp enough to shave hair on my arm.

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[Rafael Herrera]

Splitting from the top suggests that the wood gave up, not caused by the tang. What species is it? Perhaps the combination of a relatively weak timber for the handle and an overly hard mallet is the problem. Again, I'd just suggest a regular mallet, forget all the designer nonsense.

[Warren Mickley]

Splitting from the top suggests that the wood gave up, not caused by the tang. What species is it? Perhaps the combination of a relatively weak timber for the handle and an overly hard mallet is the problem. Again, I'd just suggest a regular mallet, forget all the designer nonsense.

I agree with Rafael: to much designer nonsense.

I would expect the baked wood to be more brittle than plain wood. I would expect a plastic mallet to be harder on the chisel than a solid wood mallet. I think you would do better with traditional materials like dogwood, hornbeam, ash, beech. That being said, if you treat the tools like they are indestructible you are asking for trouble.

[Tom M King]

Here is a picture of the wood I removed with the 1-1/2" timber framing chisels, and the 30 oz. Wood is Good mallet. The old bands on this dock had some humps in them that needed to be flattened out so the new bands added would be straight on the outside. I started just slicing the humps off with a little chainsaw, but the old wood was so hard it was dulling the chain too quickly. I just chiseled it off. You can see some of the larger pieces that were removed laying on top of the dock. I'll get a picture of the end of the chisel handle a little later, and add it.

Click on the picture, hit the plus sign, and you can see the chisels and mallets, as well as one pile of wood that came off. There is also and old Japanese timber slick that I finished with, but I didn't hit that one with a mallet. You may notice the 18oz. mallet near the carpenters chisel, and the big 30 oz. one with the timber chisels.

I was hitting the chisels pretty hard with the 30 oz. mallet. I'm sure this is a Lot more severe use than cutting a furniture part.

[Keegan Shields]

I have a mallet I turned out of some scrape soft maple. It gets dented occasionally, but works great. I'd rather dent that than the chisel handles.

I find that if I'm denting the mallet, I'm probably trying to take to much material off at once.

But then I don't chop mortices by hand either, so no need for a more serious mallet.

I'll be curious if switching mallets solves your issue.

[Jim Koepke]

I do do multiple whacks, usually 2 or perhaps three. Here's a photo of the chisel in question. And I had just sharpened the chisel -- sharp enough to shave hair on my arm.

That may be your problem.

Try one whack followed by slipping the edge of the chisel into the end grain only deep enough to cleanly pop up the waste. Repeat one whack at a time.

An innovation on this method is to carefully dig a V on one side about half way through behind the base line. Then flip the board and follow the steps above.

Finally, when cutting a mortice, my chisel gets a healthy whack. Still, usually only one whack at a time. When cutting dovetails my chisel is not whacked with the force of trying to flatten a Tasmanian Devil. It is regulated to a force to drive the chisel about 1/16". This is less likely to cause the bevel to push the chisel in to the baseline.

jtk

[Stephen Rosenthal]

I purchased this -https://www.woodcraft.com/products/pfeil-swiss-made-14-1-2-oz-3-1-8-diameter-11-carving-mallet - about 20 years ago when it was called the Brienz Carver’s Mallet (at half the current price). I use is on everything from pigsticker mortise chisels to delicate carving gouges. Great feel and control, never had the slightest mishap and expect it to last forever.

[Jim Koepke]

My first couple of mallets were store bought. One in a hardware store that had been around forever but has since closed.

After that I made my own:

484851

The one on the far left came to me from the estate of an old friend. He rough cut a hunk of oak from a pallet. I carved or rasped out the finger grips. This is the one used for light tapping when working on dovetails and such.

The two in the center were made from a type of cherry that grows around here. The lower one was made over a decade ago and has done a lot of whacking.

The one on the right is made of hickory and has been my go to mallet for over a year now.

jtk

[Tom M King]

Here is the picture of the timber framing chisel handle ends.

The one with the hoop had been used some with a wooden mallet before I bought the Wood is Good mallets. It's the one I worked for 15 hours in a row, over two days, on a 1798 house sills (picture just shows one small part), and framing with that same 30 oz. W is G mallet. I'm sure the rust is from sweat. We were laminating treated wood onto partially rotten sills, that required a Lot of chisel work to get the old parts flattened out good enough to mate with the new treated wood.

The Walnut handled one came from the classifieds here. I don't know if Glen had used it any, or not. The handle was turned by the seller, and a hoop was on it, but the end never deformed enough to hold it. The hoop kept coming off after a few licks, so I just took it off. It was used mostly without the hoop, but since the end was not mushrooming anyway, it doesn't matter.

The old one is bent so it lays flat with the handle on the surface of the work, and the Barr one is straight. I did most of the work on that dock with the Barr. This was the only time I used it to amount to anything, but I was taking good full swings with the mallet.

I don't care what tools look like. I just am concerned with producing work. The work is mostly done for a living, although this dock belongs to us. I don't do any woodworking for a hobby or pastime.

[James Pallas]

Age old thing with chisels. Japanese used a ring and pre-crushing the fibers so they can’t chase the grain. Stanley did the leather washers to soften the blow on the edges and force the blow to the center. For myself I like round mallets for carving tappy, tap, tap. Square mallets for directed flat square chopping. Glancing blows can start a split and even straight blows can finish it.
Jim

[Reed Gray]

Hmm, never considered V11 for a chisel. The Thompson Lathe tools are V10. I did take an M42 blank from D Way tools and turn it into a chisel, though have yet to put a handle on it. I would want a fairly heavy ferule where the blade seats against the wood. As for end splitting, I would guess that there could have been a crack already in the wood and just not visible. Other than that, I would want a ferule on the top to distribute the load onto the ferule rather than the wood. As mentioned above, saw a Japanese video where the wood worker took a new chisel and tool the handle ferule off. polished the ferule, seated it down a bit so there was plenty above the ferule, like 1/8 inch maybe, and then pounded that proud part over the edge of the ferule. That made sense to me...

robo hippy

[John C Cox]

I think I'd check the handle hole depth and diameter before inserting the tang. If they're epoxying the handles in, that tells me the tang is supposed to be an easy slip fit prior to assembly. You don't want it to be wobbly jobbly, but you don't want the end of the tang hitting the end of the hole.

[David Bassett]

Hmm, never considered V11 for a chisel. The Thompson Lathe tools are V10. I did take an M42 blank from D Way tools....

Robo,

just to be clear PM-V11 is Lee Valley's name for a proprietary steel. (IIRC- Rob Lee once posted PM-V11 stood for "Powdered Metal Version 11", where 11 was chosen with a wink to Spinal Tap's "it's better, it goes to 11".)

V10 and M42 are (different, similar) spec standard tool steels. The similarity in the V10 & V11 names doesn't mean there is any similarity in their composition or heat treatment. (If Internet speculation is correct, they don't have anything in common. But the Internet is always right. Right? :) )

[Charles Guest]

Sounds like the tang is touching the end of the hole to me. The hole wasn't drilled deeply enough. That would be the simplest explanation, and one without a detour through mallet making, etc.

If this isn't the case, you'd really have to be creaming the chisel with a hammer to get it to break. I mean really swinging with some fury. I doubt that's happening in the course of removing waste wood during dovetailing. You'd be putting the chisel through the workpiece and into the top of your bench with every blow.