Vintage Chisels for Dovetails?

[Mark Gibney]

Thanks! Soon I'll have no excuse for my shoddy dovetails.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Thanks! Soon I'll have no excuse for my shoddy dovetails.

My poor work is related to my skill, or lack of it :-)

[Warren Mickley]

I use vintage chisels for dovetails. I use 19th century English chisels for their steel. It sharpens easily, takes a very fine edge, and is very durable. It is nice to have chisels from 1/8 to 1/2 by sixteenths, however 3/16 to 3/8 or maybe 7/16 are most useful. For cutting the narrow sockets for the pins, it is nice to have a size where you can cut the full width. When cutting the wider sockets in the pin board, we usually use two side by side passes so it is not so important to have a close match in size. Usually something like 3/4 and 1" are sufficient.

These are tang chisels. Socket chisels were traditionally used for carpentry and were generally quite a bit heavier than tang chisels. Ideally you want something that is rather thin at the bevel and tapers thicker toward the bolster.

For chisels that have seen a lot of wear, it is nice to put longer handles on them to bring total length up to around 10 inches or maybe a little more. And it is nice to have at least 5 1/2 inches of handle so you can put your hand comfortably on the handle and not worry about hitting your hand with a mallet.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

A nice three chisel set is up for sale in the classifieds right now,but they are not vintage. Lee Valley with O1. I will get this wrong, but I think it was a 1/4, 1/2, and a 1" chisel. You can buy them individually or as a set. Cheaper than new. I own nothing with O1 steel so I do not know what it is like to sharpen, but I like my PM-V11 bench chisels from Lee Valley.

[Derek Cohen]

The Veritas O1 chisels are excellent. Fine lands, fine edge, and flat, flat backs. They are the ones I generally take to wood shows when demonstrating joinery.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[steven c newman]

Vintage? Just because Veritas begins with a "V",eh? I prefer Witherbys or the old Buck Brothers.....maybe one from Butcher.....have one by New Haven Edge Tool Co. 1/4" Mortise chisel, though.