Another Chisel Question

[Ron Hedrick]

The newbie is back with another chisel question. My mortising chisels are just what the doctor ordered and I think that my first hand cut mortises and tenons worked out beautifully. They are tight and fit together nicely. Thanks to all that helped me with this dilemma.

My next question is this. I want to start doing handcut dovetails. Do any of you use dovetail chisels and do you really need dovetail chisels or are they a luxury?

Also I will say that IMHO, the folks on this side of the forum are the most helpful. I think that I like the Neander side because you don't get into looking your nose down on others if they don't have the top of the line Unisaw or 18+" bandsaw or whatever.

Thanks in advance for any and all help.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/images/misc/progress.gif

[Bill White]

Are you telling us that you DON'T have that stuff? WELL!!!!! I guess that you are forever relegated to neander status. (My humor for the day).
Bill

[David Weaver]

I have dovetail chisels and bench chisels that I use for cutting dovetails.

I don't know that it makes a huge difference in through dovetails because you can bring (turn) a bench chisel into the tight area at the bottom of the tails on a skew and cut as neatly as you really want to cut.

I think the place where dovetail chisels might be useful is if you're cutting very tight hand cut dovetails that have very delicate pins. When you're cutting the waste between the tails, it's nice to have the tapered sides when it's more difficult to skew the chisel.

If you want to try one, I understand the blue spruce chisels are fantastic (I think they have something that is a dovetail chisel, or at least has very delicate sides where the taper goes almost to the bottom of the chisel).

I purchased the japanese dovetail chisels from Lee Valley - and they are also very nice with very hard edges.

[Wilbur Pan]

You can also take a regular bench chisel and grind down the sides to make your own dovetail chisel. Just because you grind/sharpen the bevel of the chisel doesn't mean that you can't do the same for other parts of the tool. ;)

[Roger Bell]

I have one Blue Spruce DT chisel. Works great. I have one Matasumura DT chisel. Works great. I have an ordinary bevel edge which is ground down to suit. MIght have two, I will have to look. Works great. I didnt get all three or four because I needed all three or four of them to pare tight DT's.

They all do the job. Why don't you grind down an ordinary chisel and see how it works. Could be that's all you need. If your dovetails turn out bad, well, you can always buy another, more expensive chisel, right?