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Thread: Chisel back prep - old vs new alloy steels

  1. #16
    I'd love to hear Stan's take on this, as he had to support a family with his chisels.

    On my end, I'm a hack. Most older chisels I find are abused...ground at weird angles, sometimes with an angle grinder, bent, stepped on, rusted.

    I think that most guys on the Creek are higher level craftsmen than many of these "carpenters"

  2. #17
    That's probably true - and nearly all old fashioned manual furniture making was gone by the 1950's or 1960's... Largely replaced by large power machines which would chop out thousands of parts quickly and cheaply...

    This region had a LOT of furniture making... But by the 60's - it was all basically furniture assembling... Nobody hand cut joints with hand saws and chisels...

    I applaud the fellows who have kept the craft alive - as that world is mostly gone as a vocation/trade.....

  3. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Warren Mickley View Post
    Some of the responses in this thread are kind of far fetched. If one is going to use a chisel for daily work for a lifetime, the amount of time he spends getting the back to a fine state is trivial. If on the other hand one plans to fool with a chisel in spare time and then buy a whole other set next year, the time spent bringing it into service seems like a burden. I am having trouble imagining using chisels with double bevels as suggested by some. Put yourself in the position of a craftsman- nobody wants to screw around like that.

    Some guys seem to think that when they find a chisel or plane at a flea market, it has remained untouched since a fine craftsman last used it in 1790 or whatever. It is many times more likely that it was used by some farmer or handyman in the meantime. That some one ran it into the ground without much care or skill.
    Warren you have the experience with many things as woodworking goes. I agree with most of what you have to say. Having been around some real craftsman I think I've seen a lot. One thing I have no doubts about is the fact that all the good ones have their favorites. They all tend to have those special tools that they are so familiar with that if you handed the exact same make and model blindfolded they would know that it wasn't their tool. I have also seen those same people modify a tool in ways that another would probably not find useful. Some may find an absolute flat back on a chisel a necessity and another not so much. A double bevel chisel in the hand of an experienced carver has the same level of skill as a bench chisel in the hand of a furniture maker. Swap that around and each may look like a bear cub in boxing gloves. A lot depends on the type of experience the craftsman has. I think that when there was more hands on work involved in tool making that a tool passed through several experience tool makers the tools were better made and chisels were flatter if they were a quality tool. The craftsmen that were buying them knew the difference.
    Jim
    Last edited by James Pallas; 05-21-2018 at 11:39 PM.

  4. #19
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    The best paring chisel I own is a 14mm No. 1 sweep with very low-ground bevels on both sides. Like butta' I think the problem here is the notion that you have to have an absolutely flat back in order to make a flat surface. You don't. You can certainly do fine paring with a chisel that has a flat back, but it is far from being necessary.

  5. #20
    Here is a portion of plate 14 from Roubo (1769) showing a chisel and a fermoir. As explained in the text, a chisel has one bevel and a fermoir has two bevels. Fermoir means clasp and as Salivet (1792) explains it is so called because the the steel is held between two pieces of wrought iron. When I talked to French toolmaker Michel Auriou, he was emphatic: "A fermoir is not a chisel."

    In 18th century France a double bevelled tool even had a different name from a single bevelled tool. The idea that 18th century woodworkers were so clumsy that they could not maintain a single bevel tool is just not supported by evidence.

    roubo ciseau & fermoir.jpg

  6. #21
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    In 18th century France a double bevelled tool even had a different name from a single bevelled tool. The idea that 18th century woodworkers were so clumsy that they could not maintain a single bevel tool is just not supported by evidence.
    Figure 9 appears to be hollow ground whereas figure 11 appears to be flat ground for the full length of both sides.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  7. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Warren Mickley View Post
    Here is a portion of plate 14 from Roubo (1769) showing a chisel and a fermoir. As explained in the text, a chisel has one bevel and a fermoir has two bevels. Fermoir means clasp and as Salivet (1792) explains it is so called because the the steel is held between two pieces of wrought iron. When I talked to French toolmaker Michel Auriou, he was emphatic: "A fermoir is not a chisel."

    In 18th century France a double bevelled tool even had a different name from a single bevelled tool. The idea that 18th century woodworkers were so clumsy that they could not maintain a single bevel tool is just not supported by evidence.

    roubo ciseau & fermoir.jpg
    It's a No. 1 sweep. Regardless of what you call it, or the history of its nomenclature, it still does a wonderful job paring whether in the context of carving, furnituremaking, trim carpentry, or whatever. A chisel's back does not have to be flat to produce a flat surface. There is nothing wrong with a flat back, but it is not in any way compulsory.

  8. #23
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    Hmmm...needed end grain trimmed today..
    IMG_4376 (640x480).jpgIMG_4374 (640x480).jpgIMG_4373 (640x480).jpg

    Used my chin to "power" the chisel through the cuts...food for thought.

  9. #24
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    A "Project" for anyone that wants to try it...
    double bevel.jpgback.jpg
    1930's era Defiance by Stanley....1-1/2" wide
    logo 4.jpg
    I have removed most of the "mushroom" and shined the logo up..
    Back is fairly flat, yet has a small bevel at the edge. Main bevel has two bevels going on, and a reverse camber..
    mushroom chisel.jpg
    And....it doesn't say anything about ...Aldi's....either.....$2 chisel, qualifies as being "cheap"?

    Needs a handle with a leather washer on the end.

  10. Japanese chisels don't have flat backs - they are flat just at the cutting edge. Traditionally made English chisels were made slightly hollow - before side bevels were drop forged and were not used (pre-1850 or so) or hand ground in (post 1850 - 1930's? in the UK) the chisel was hardened and the grinder would figure would which side became concave because of the hardening - and put the bevels on the other side. Today Ashley Iles grinds intentionally their backs with a minuscule hollow - so that it is very easy to get a consistent honing across the back.
    -----
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    Tools for Working Wood

  11. #26
    I do appreciate Ashley Iles doing that.

    I have been scratching my head about why the touchmarks on some of my old chisels are on the front and others are on the back - even within the same brand and what appears to be similar markings and features..... And there's my answer... Of course none of them had slightly hollowed backs when I got them - they all come to me humped... At least I am getting better/faster at sorting out the humps....

    I sort of wish some modern makers would go back to letting the grinders pick the concave side for the back... Cough cough Two Cherries..... Working humps out of modern alloy steel that's been hardened to the right level is a work out....

  12. #27
    I always wondered about that one Joel. Many chisels back then were laminated. Not much choice which way you grind the bevel.

  13. #28
    Steve,
    looks like a sweet chisel project you got there.

    I would take you up on the offer except that I am mostly full up on big wide chisels. I currently have a giant old 2" cast steel Sorby I am trying to figure out how to do something with it... It's a beast.

    I am still jealous of your local rust hunt results... Useful chisels are very thin on the ground here....

    Quote Originally Posted by steven c newman View Post
    A "Project" for anyone that wants to try it...
    double bevel.jpgback.jpg
    1930's era Defiance by Stanley....1-1/2" wide
    logo 4.jpg
    I have removed most of the "mushroom" and shined the logo up..
    Back is fairly flat, yet has a small bevel at the edge. Main bevel has two bevels going on, and a reverse camber..
    mushroom chisel.jpg
    And....it doesn't say anything about ...Aldi's....either.....$2 chisel, qualifies as being "cheap"?

    Needs a handle with a leather washer on the end.

  14. #29
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    new handle.jpg
    Added a handle, to make sharpening a bit easier...

  15. #30
    Definately A very nice chisel you have there. How does it run on wood? The only way to know is to test it out...

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