Anyone know what this rounded and re-shaped chisel was meant to do?

[Miles Shea]

I have a bit of a problem with buying and refurbishing more chisels than is probably reasonable. It started out with me trying to assemble a basic set of vintage chisels on the cheap, but then I just kept on going.

This one came in a pair I bought a couple weeks back. I really liked the handles and thought this one might be great for paring. I figured I could flip it over and grind the bevel on the other side since it didn't appear to be laminated. And for $15 to my door for the pair, I was willing to take a gamble on some neat-looking chisels.

But once it arrived, I saw that the work done to round the back was way more involved and done more precisely than I could tell from the photos. Someone spent a lot of time to shape the blade this way and based on how smooth and symmetrical the rounding of the back is, I'm sure they knew what they were doing.

So, it seemed like a shame to just regrind it into an ordinary chisel and undo all that work, at least until I was certain I didn't have a use for it as-is. I don't think it's for using with a lathe, since the bevel is around 22-23* so I don't think it would hold up to that. I grabbed a pine scrap and tried using it with a paring motion across the grain, and it leaves a scalloped surface kind of like a fore plane with a rounded iron. But that's all I can come up with.

Does anyone know what this might have been made to do?

[Andrew Hughes]

I have a shallow gouge that’s very similar.
Stay in the mix long enough and you’ll have lots of special need cutting edges.
You should keep it as is I’ll bet you’ll need it one day.

[Jim Koepke]

It looks like it was for use like a shallow gouge. These are good for smoothing curved or carved features, fitting coped molding together and a few other uses.

If you buy enough chisels and gouges you will find quite a few peculiar custom grinds.

Here is one that was rounded:

Rounded Chisel.jpg

The second from the left perplexed me for a while wondering why someone would sharpen a chisel in such a manner. Then it dawned on me that this would be good for cutting the vertical stop cut for a finger catch on a sliding box lid.

n Round Edge Chisel.jpg

Make the stop cut first, then:

o Gouge to the Line.jpg

follow up with a gouge of a similar radius.

The original owner may have had a different use. An old FWW magazine had a tip about custom shaping and rounding the edges of chisel to use in carving work.

jtk

[Warren Mickley]

This chisel originally had an octagonal handle and no ferrule. Then somebody decided to turn down the small end of the handle to put a ferrule on. The bolster would have fit nicely with the original handle configuration, but with the handle turned down it is now too small for the size of the bolster.

I think it is somewhat questionable that the guy knew what he was doing, however carefully the work was done. It does look like rather recent work, turning an unused chisel into a makeshift shallow gouge.

[Andrew Seemann]

It almost looks like an old file or chisel that someone ground to use as a lathe chisel.

[Chuck Nickerson]

Here is one that was rounded:

Rounded Chisel.jpg

The second from the left perplexed me for a while wondering why someone would sharpen a chisel in such a manner.
jtk

Jim I've often wondered if chisels shaped like that were used to clean up pocket hole sockets.

[Miles Shea]

Thanks for the responses, everyone.

Andrew- that's basically what I was thinking, that I'll eventually need it for something and be glad that I didn't do anything to it.

Jim- that's a cool idea, and the kind of super-specialized use I was wondering about. I found a half-inch chisel ground like yours a couple of years ago, but the tip was broken and I wanted a longer half-inch chisel so I ended up grinding it back normally.

Warren- I wonder why. There is a split coming out from under the ferrule, but that could have happened after making the handle narrower, and why the ferrule was added? The handle is really interesting, I'll try to get a couple photos of it in good lighting.

[Bill Houghton]

Back in the early days of Foine Wooddorking - when photos were all black and white, many of them probably shot on view cameras (well, not quite that long ago) - there was an article touting curved edges on chisels for those who couldn't afford carving gouges. As I recall, the chisels in question were the classic Stanley No. 60 yaller-handled carpenter's chisels, which you could find all over the place at yard and estate sales. I filed that in the back of my mind, but never followed up; and now, over the years, I've stumbled over enough carving chisels cheap at yard sales that I doubt I'll ever need to pull the trick out.

[Jim Koepke]

when photos were all black and white, many of them probably shot on view cameras (well, not quite that long ago)

Maybe a Speed Graphic 4X5 then or at least a Rolleiflex?

My FWW #30 September/October 1981 has an article on page 67, A Carver's Tricks - Three methods from a period-furniture maker.

One of the tricks for "roughing out relieved areas or smoothing convex surfaces" was to round the edge on a set of butt chisels.

It claims they can do the work of many gouges.

jtk

[Peter Christensen]

Decades ago I was in a small tool shop in Seattle that was owned by a nice old Japanese man. I think it was called Tashiro. He showed me chisels that were round and very polished on the bottom and flat on the top. Like a D with the flat up. It was sharpened with a single bevel to sharpen the curve. He showed me how easily it did the work of a gouge with the ease of sharpening like a chisel. I should have bought some.

[James Pallas]

Many chisels get adapted to specialty use. A chisel like the one you show may be handy for a special job for a pattern maker. It could also be handy for carving the cove inside a stair rail volute. Things similar to that.
Jim

[Miles Shea]

That's more great info, thanks everyone!

I'm going to find a soft piece of scrap and see what kind of cuts it seems to "want" to make (for lack of a better term), and try some of things people have mentioned here.

[Bill Jobe]

I picked up one at an estate sale 3 or 4 years ago.
Almost all of mine are from auctions and garage sales.