Chisel revelation

[Richard Hutchings]

Having never owned a paring chisel, I decided to regrind a 1" bench chisel to 20 degrees. First I have to say, I was carving braces on my guitar that I'm building and most of it was done and I just wanted to sneak up up the shapes. I was having a little trouble and it just wasn't going as easily as I expected or wanted. That's when the idea of regrinding the angle came to me. When I was done, I swear the wood was scared of my chisel and just got out of the way. It's only spruce and I think it's to be expected but it wasn't happening until I modified the chisel. Now I want to modify my 1/2" chisel as well. I have mortise chisels for banging on and I'm not sure I should ever use anything but paring chisels for my work building instruments. It was a good morning.

[Edward Weber]

20 degree paring chisel + spruce = cuts like butter
Now you're thinking of all the things you want to cut aren't you.

[David Carroll]

Quarter-sawn spruce carves like a dream. Luthier's Mercantile used to sell special brace carving chisels, specially for, well, carving braces. They had a gentle curve and a very shallow bevel. They looked beautiful. Enjoy!

DC

[Richard Hutchings]

I may have to get a curved brace carving chisel someday but for now, this is working great. I don't know that the curve would be much of an improvement. You don't know until you know.

[Prashun Patel]

Good tip. I also have been making guitars. I've always ground to 25 with a 30 micro, Will try 20 on my 3/8, which is what I use for sides, bindings, and braces.

[Richard Hutchings]

3/8" seems kind of small to me although I did have some gouging in the top from the corners of my 1". The 1" is perfect for shaping the ends of the UTB and tongue depressor as I've heard it called. I'll try a smaller chisel on my next set of braces.

[Jim Koepke]

One of my chisel sets has their bevels set to ~15-20º just for paring. They are wonderful but may need honing more often, especially with hardwoods.

jtk

[Richard Hutchings]

Yeah, I was thinking about going to 15 with 5 degree micro bevel.

[James Pallas]

Nothing new to me. I basically use two sets of chisels. One is at 25* the other at 20*. I did have an adventure at 30* due to A2 but gave those chisels away. I learned at 25* and when I want to use bevel down my hand recognizes it. Sometimes I may have to sharpen more often than others however that is what I have always done.
Jim

[Frederick Skelly]

Several years ago I ground a set of the infamous Aldi chisels ($7 per pack) to 20*. They still work fine for paring.

[John C Cox]

A few things I found with paring vs chopping chisels.

If you want any edge life out of a paring chisel, it still has to be a quality unit, especially if you want to be able to handle any cranky grain, end grain, silica included wood, or stuff that has distinct soft and hard grain lines. The key thing is to test your stuff and dedicate the units that actually hold up well in that duty. Often, these same units don't hold up as well for chopping. For example, my BORG sourced Buck Comfort Grip chinesium chisels run circles around my Narex Richter chisels when paring, but when chopping, the Richters beat them hands down. Go figure, right?

While long grain spruce can be pretty nicely behaved, the end grain can wreck edges in a real hurry. I was absolutely flummoxed when my guitar brace carving chisel edges gave up the ghost when trimming the ends of the braces. Talk about frustrating.

I agree on the 20-degree bevels. I love them, but the steel better be good stuff if you want any edge life.

And so it goes.

[Rob Luter]

I have an old 1/2" Corsair Bevel Edge Socket Chisel that I tried this experiment with. I ground a 20° primary with my slow speed grinder and added a micro bevel with my 16K Shapton. The results were great. End grain cut like soap. I need to rig up a better tool rest for my grinder and then I'll do the same on a dedicated paring chisel I have.

[Edward Weber]

If you want any edge life out of a paring chisel, it still has to be a quality unit, especially if you want to be able to handle any cranky grain, end grain, silica included wood, or stuff that has distinct soft and hard grain lines. The key thing is to test your stuff and dedicate the units that actually hold up well in that duty. Often, these same units don't hold up as well for chopping

If you don't mind me saying, this is very well stated and needs to be repeated often. At least once in every inevitable sharpening thread.

[Richard Hutchings]

Good plan. I'm going to try to keep this chisel away from any chopping. I trimmed brace ends with hand and body pressure. The edge is still good but ill probably strop it again before going back to the 8000 Shapton stone which is the highest grit I own or care to buy.

[John C Cox]

If you don't mind me saying, this is very well stated and needs to be repeated often. At least once in every inevitable sharpening thread.

Yeah, and unfortunately, edge prep significantly effects results on wood. Paring is no different in this regard.

Rob Cosman did a video where he jig sharpened two chisels of different brands and then chopped some maple. Both showed edge failure. His comments were along the lines of, "Well, you can see how they both take about the same damage...". Unfortunately, that video was more of a review/hit piece, and as such, offered no advice on how to overcome the edge failure.

I had been on my own quest for the grail of sharpening and cringed when I saw that. It wasn't "chisel" failure so much as an edge prep failure. While some may have rolled and others chipped, basically any chisel, good or bad, would have failed if prepped that way. It wasn't an indictment of the product so much as a demonstration of why sorting out your sharpening and edge prep is important... But thus is life.

[Jimmy Harris]

For example, my BORG sourced Buck Comfort Grip chinesium chisels run circles around my Narex Richter chisels when paring, but when chopping, the Richters beat them hands down. Go figure, right?


That's might be a sharpening issue. I actually own a set of both of these chisels and haven't noticed the Buck Brothers doing any better when it comes to paring. I find them about equal at that task. But I have noticed that they're a lot less fussy about sharpening than the Richters. To be honest, I'm not sold on the idea that honing jigs give as good and consistent results as most people suggest. The distribution of force is off when you use one. But that's probably not the issue. What I'm guess might be the issue is some stones don't work well with harder metals, and some stones don't work well with softer metals. I'm not entirely sure as to why, but I've definitely noticed it. Like my Shapton Pro 320 grit (the blue one) won't put a usable edge on any of my woodworking tools or German knives (HRC 57-59), but will put a scary sharp edge on my Japanese (HRC 63) kitchen knife. It'll grind and shape the softer metal, but it'll never put a sharp edge on them. And I have the same issue with one of my Arkansas stones and my stainless steel keychain knife.