Custom made western style chisels?

[Luke Dupont]

I'm curious: does anyone make custom size and length western style chisels in the material of my choice?

In specific, I'm looking for the following:

I really like Japanese nomi-oire size butt chisels with their short blade and thin handles. I'd love to have some western chisels in this size, using O-1 steel, but western butt chisels tend to be longer still with fat, bulky handles.

So, ideally, I'd love to have a few O-1 chisels, with blades of only about 2" in length, preferably tanged, though socket chisels are fine too. The handles I want to make myself.

I assume that such an animal doesn't exist already?

I did think about making my own with some O-1 stock, but I don't really have the time, place, or money (shouldn't be that expensive, but these these kinds of projects tend to become money pits when you realize that you don't have any metal working tools or a way to heat and quench said metal.)

[Jim Koepke]

If you keep an eye on ebay you will often see chisels that are short from use. Maybe a few of these can satisfy your needs.

jtk

[Nathan Johnson]

Not sure of the blade length, but the Ashley Iles butt chisels might be a good bet.

[David Myers]

There's a smith who run a place called Black Bear Forge.

I've only seen videos/checked out his site but he does make chisels.

[Derek Cohen]

Look up "butt chisel".

Lee Valley sell their Veritas range as butt chisels, as well as their bench chisel range in PM-V11. They would be my pick. They also sell a cheaper ranger in O1.

No doubt other brands do something similar.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Matt Lau]

Luke, I'm not sure if it's helpful...but you may want to contact a good bladesmith.

Barr would be my first choice, but his style is a bit beefy.
Another guy is Jim Wester of Northbay Forge, but his style is Inuit.

Stan Covington would have been ideal (since he has multiple smiths he can send the commission to), but I haven't seen him on this board.

Lastly, you could just do stock removal and a propane torch.
Quench in peanut oil. Temper in electric oven.

Lee Valley is also a good idea.

[Derek Cohen]

One more to add to the list, although the steel is A2: Blue Spruce make a very (very) nice dovetail chisel, which is essentially a shorter bench chisel. They are light and perfect for detail work, such as dovetails. The steel takes a great edge, but it does not hold it like a nomi.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Tom Trees]

Crown and Kirschen, ALA two cherries makes some butt chisels, visable on the Axminster tools website.
Have you seen those?

Tom

[John C Cox]

Let's face it.... The primary goal of having something custom made is to get something that works better than what you can buy easily.... Second is customization for you... In real life - "works better" is a pretty tall order... And you can pay a LOT of money for a chisel that doesn't outperform a $1.50 Aldi chisel...

The thing is - a lot of blade smiths don't make or really use wood chisels - and so they don't really understand what makes good chisels good chisels and why. So you see these guys make a chisel like they make a machete... And that makes a terrible, useless wood chisel...

This makes sense when you think about it a bit... Knives are generally designed around slicing and chopping stuff like rope, meat, paper, carpet, cardboard, and green wood - they are not designed around push cutting dry wood.... Chisels are designed around push cutting wood - not slicing or chopping meat, veggies, cardboard, etc.....

The advantage of going to somebody who is already making chisels is that they have (hopefully) sorted out their designs, materials, and their process so their chisels work right...

If I was going to get a chisel made.... I would aim for 1% C minimum... Preferably 1.10%-1.25% C... I like chisels made out of relatively "simpler" alloys that shake out closer to W1/1095 and truthfully - O1 has a lot more alloy in it than W1.... That stuff is fairly tricky to get it to come out right... You don't appreciate how good a Two Cherries or a pre-war Marples/Ward chisel is until you make a few yourself....

[Vincent Tai]

Luke;
Any good blade smith, blacksmith should be able to produce a capable chisel. The problem is finding one with the time for such a project and one willing to step away from their usual business. And the price tag might really shock. Probably definitely shock. There are a few blacksmiths that are also perfectly capable; John Switzer of Black Bear Forge comes to mind, but again good people are booked and backlogged.

Much of the knife stuff is based around edge geometry and the overall structure of the blade. Combine that with with different RC or HT for different applications. Its not too off from our world, and by giving some rules and guidelines you can see how they could understand what makes a good chisel. Luckily the basics of a chisel is pretty dead simple, The point would be to give a blade smith the guidelines and a couple sketches, flat back, grind a 30 or whatever degree bevel. If they are capable of good HT (and they should be or else don't go to them) then they might have a variety of steels to choose from. A blade smith should be able to HT O1 right.

I always like the idea of people making their own tools though, and I would suggest you take a little time to read around a little and maybe the roadblocks you face start fading a little. A hacksaw and files go a long long way. A simple 2 Brick forge and one of these Mag-Torch MT245C MAPP/Propane Heavy Duty Pencil Flame Burner Torch Tip and you'll be on your way for HT. BTW don't get fooled by the "pencil flame" the output this produces will make any other small torch head you can hook up to a 1 pound bottle seem puny.

Since you're in the States you can buy a small forge burner from atlas knife % tool for 30 bucks shipping included, or make your own for fun (you can get a high pressure regulator included form Atlas too for a total of 50$; you NEED the high pressure regulator). I made mine since being in Canada the shipping and currency makes anything from the states forge related too expensive.

O1 isn't hard to treat its just that you need a digitally controlled apparatus of sorts that holds a very steady temp for certain amounts of time in order to get the most out of the stuff they've mixed into it. It'll come out fine from a heat in a forge and canola quench; just not what it could be. But very usable and capable still. If you can get cheaper stock of simpler steels than perhaps use those (only if they also come annealed and precision ground like most O1 does) and if the O1 is cheaper then why not.

Of course if you don't have the time then there isn't much you can do but setting aside some WW time helps but if you hate metalwork then yikes.

All that said, you have the option of sending out your work for HT by a professional, there are many HT services in the States. Shipping doesn't seem that expensive and just tell them what you want done and say quench it like sword or dagger. This gets rid of the nerve wracking part for you. It also stops you accidentally branding yourself above the knee with tongs (short story about daydreaming while having red hot tongs in one hand).

Good luck with whatever you do!

Vince

[Charles Guest]

I'm curious: does anyone make custom size and length western style chisels in the material of my choice?

In specific, I'm looking for the following:

I really like Japanese nomi-oire size butt chisels with their short blade and thin handles. I'd love to have some western chisels in this size, using O-1 steel, but western butt chisels tend to be longer still with fat, bulky handles.

So, ideally, I'd love to have a few O-1 chisels, with blades of only about 2" in length, preferably tanged, though socket chisels are fine too. The handles I want to make myself.

I assume that such an animal doesn't exist already?

I did think about making my own with some O-1 stock, but I don't really have the time, place, or money (shouldn't be that expensive, but these these kinds of projects tend to become money pits when you realize that you don't have any metal working tools or a way to heat and quench said metal.)

https://www.hartvilletool.com/product/5810/butt-chisels

[John C Cox]

Luke - why not do what Mike here on the forum did.... He replaced his Japanese chisel handles with western pattern handles that are more comfortable when you aren't using a hammer..

Another option is to contact Stan or Stu and see about getting a set of un-handled Japanese chisels.... They do sell them this way - just most folks don't buy them this way.... Then make your own handles.

Another option is to get several worn/short pre-WWII octagonal bolster chisels and re-handle them... These turn up all the time with wrecked or missing handles.... And they are CHEAP like this....

There's a high probability that this will be considerably less expensive in the end than having custom chisels made for you. As I mentioned before - I am not sure I really like the idea of paying a premium to be somebody's guinea pig....

[Mike King]

Try Barr Tools -- all of their products are hand forged, and I suspect that they will do custom work.

Mike