carving chisel with inlaid handle

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Never seen one like that before. It's almost like a precursor to the modern round ferrule.

Is there any indication of how thick the metal is (without taking anything apart), or how it was fitted? - it almost looks like cast whitemetal!

The chisel looks like an oldie, though. Approximately mid 19th century, from the shape of the shoulders.
 
What an interesting oddity!

I can't work out how it was done - the jigsaw puzzle ends look like they could not have been assembled by sliding a solid ferrule on in the usual way. (Any sign that slivers of wood have been split off and glued back on in place as a cheat?) Or are the ferrules made in two pieces and soldered together?

Maybe their last owner was really really good at inlay work and wanted to mark his tools as his own.
 
Probably a pewter casting, it has l low melting point so could be cast straight onto the wood.

Pete
 
How would that work then Pete? I can see the carving away of the octagonal handle, but what do you then fit the handle into to contain the molten pewter? It would have to be held vertically and not leak.
 
AndyT":3bv6r1ho said:
How would that work then Pete? I can see the carving away of the octagonal handle, but what do you then fit the handle into to contain the molten pewter? It would have to be held vertically and not leak.

A mould, sand, wood, metal any would work. I have done it myself using a wooden mould to cast a lead hammer face directly on to the head.
 
I have seen instructions of how to cast a pewter ring at the end of the handle of a chisel on the old tools list.


Pete
 
Thanks for the help on this. I did wonder if it was pewter, but I hadn't thought it could be cast. This makes sense as the pattern in the metal is quite variable, but the metal fits tightly (with a tiny bit of movement). I also found the letter W scratched into the handle looking at it closely after taking some more photos.

DSCF0286 by nick tasker, on Flickr

DSCF0285 by nick tasker, on Flickr

DSCF0284 by nick tasker, on Flickr

DSCF0288 by nick tasker, on Flickr

Out of interest it is stamped I & H Sorby, and a picture of the "hanging sheep".

It seems like a lot of effort to do this cast pewter ornamentation.

Pete do you have a reference for where you read about this?
 
And a diagram would be nice!

From thinking about it, would this work?

Given that the melting point of pewter is similar to that of solder, so not hot enough to burn wood, the mould could be a simple round hole, blind, bored into a block of wood. The handle is carved on the end, maybe with the edges undercut a little. Without the blade fitted, it is stood up in the hole and held straight. Molten pewter is poured in and allowed to cool.
Quite a lot of surplus pewter is filed away, leaving a tidy octagonal cross section. Removing metal is easier than fashioning an octagonal hole.
Then the blade is fitted in the usual way.

Does that all make sense? Would it work?
 
Thanks Pete. Even more impressive to achieve the results on those handles, with a lot more metal.
 
Yep that's it I did try searching for it, I should have added Jim Thompson to the search.

Pete
 

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