Tool History - when was the Bevel-edged Chisel born?

[AndyT]

There's an interesting and instructive post about chisels on Adam Cherubini's blog which people who read this thread might like to have a look at.
He shows some early Sheffield-made chisels and discusses the shape, the steel and the working characteristics. They are for sale too - or most likely were for sale, once you read this.

http://www.popularwoodworking.com/woodworking-blogs/arts-mysteries-blogs/shop-clean-up

[Also, Alf has a good chisel-related blog post today - we still miss you Alf!

http://cornishworkshop.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/stanley-sweetheart-chisel.html]

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Now that is interesting - thanks for posting those, Andy.

Cherubini notes that not only were the earlier Sheffield-made firmers much thinner than modern chisels, but that they tapered in width and thickness, and the sides were not quite square to the face, but slightly bevelled. I checked my early paring chisel with an engineer's vernier protractor, and whilst it isn't easy to measure accurately because the chisel is so thin, the sides do bevel at 4 degrees on one side, and 5 degrees on the other. (For comparison, a 1-in-8 dovetail slope is 7 degrees, near enough.)

These 'bevels' are so slight, I suspect they have been put in at the grinding stage during manufacture, and probably by eye given that my example varies one side to the other. Nevertheless, they are definitely bevelled. I'm not sure that they are bevelled enough to be called a bevelled-edge chisel, though.

A thin-bladed chisel with a slight bevel to the sides will easily work into a square corner, and with only a little skewing of the blade, aa acute corner such as a dovetail. So a cabinetmaker equipped with a set of such firmers would not have need for a modern b/e chisel.

Did the modern b/e develop not because of a demand for a dovetial-compatable chisel, but because chisels became thicker and stronger, and therefore needed more clearance on the side angle to get into acute corners, I wonder?

P.S. The Stanley Sweetheart chisels look like they may be good 'uns, too; though personally, I associate socket chisels with heavier-duty work, so not really my cup of tea for delicate benchwork.

 

[Corneel]

Why is noone producing western laminated chisels anymore?

I have some good quality Japanese chisels and they are marvelous. Very hard edge, keeps its edge for a very long time and is still easy to sharpen. And not more expensive then a good LN or LV chisel. So, with all these expensive Western chisels on the market, why not one of these 18th/19th century designs?

 

[AndyT]

Why is no-one producing western laminated chisels any more?

I think the simple reason is that there is very little demand - and those who do want something like that know that they can buy them second hand for very little money.

The ordinary trade chisel - what would have been called a firmer - is now quite thick and very strong and is a good enough general purpose tool to satisfy the occasional need when a router cannot be used.

 

[Corneel]

It still doesn't make sense. Lie Nielsen, Lee Valley, Ashly Iles, Bleu Spruce, to name just a few, see a market for high end, cabinet makers chisels, despite the large supply of vintage stuff still available. But noone wants to go one step further and produce real quality laminated thin chisel anymore.

I guess it's just a case of lost skills.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

I think the reason for British toolmakers ceasing to make laminated irons may be down to steelmaking history. During the late 18th and early 19th century, all steel had to be made by either the cementation process (packing bars of fine quality wrought iron with charcoal in sealed containers, and heating for about a week until the iron had absorbed enough carbon) or by the Huntsman crucible cast steel process (packing cementation steel in small crucibles, heating to melt the charge and thus make it more homogenous than cementation steel, and casting it into ingots). Both processes are labour intensive, so output was limited, and the cost of the product high. Economising the use of steel - especially the best 'cast steel' grade - was therefore economically sensible, hence the use of wrought iron backings welded to steel edges in such tools as mortice chisels.

Bulk steelmaking became possible in about 1855 by the invention of the Bessemer process, but early results were patchy. It wasn't until about the mid 1860s that the problems were solved, and the process was being used extensively to make steel of good quality. This meant that many of the uses of cast steel were now supplied by much cheaper Bessemer steel. This would, I suspect, have the effect of driving down the price of cast steel, There being fewer markets for it, so there was no longer a need to economise the use of cast steel, and the highly-skilled welding operation could be abandoned in favour of forging tools from solid cast steel.

There is no quality advantage to laminating cast steel to wrought iron, over using solid cast steel. The cutting edge is the same material in both cases. So I think the abandonment of laminating was down to metallurgical invention and economics, and not to questions of quality at all.

 

[Jacob]

.....
There is no quality advantage to laminating cast steel to wrought iron, over using solid cast steel. .....

I think there is a big advantage in that it makes (hand) sharpening a lot easier - the bulk of metal to be removed is the softer iron backing. This is really noticeable with mortice chisels. Similarly the laminated Jap 'smoothcut' plane blade is noticeably easier to sharpen than say the ordinary Record tungsten vanadium.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

.....
There is no quality advantage to laminating cast steel to wrought iron, over using solid cast steel. .....

I think there is a big advantage in that it makes (hand) sharpening a lot easier - the bulk of metal to be removed is the softer iron backing. This is really noticeable with mortice chisels. Similarly the laminated Jap 'smoothcut' plane blade is noticeably easier to sharpen than say the ordinary Record tungsten vanadium.

In the case of vintage mortice chisels, I'm not sure that I agree. There may be a minor difference with regrinding a primary bevel, but most honing attacks the first 1/32" to 1/8" of the bevel, which is the hard steel bit whether you have a laminated or solid chisel.

In the case of Jap 'Smoothcut' iron - not relevant to the current discussion about vintage tools, but I have to say that when I used such an iron, many years ago, I noticed little difference in sharpening time compared to a standard Record iron or a thicker Clifton iron. (I subsequently abandoned the laminated iron in favour of the Clifton, but mainly on grounds of additional stiffness.)

 

[Corneel]

I think a company like LN could cash quite nicely with a thin laminated chisel in 18th century style. It would be something realy special. The advantages are obvious. You can make the steelbit much harder while keeping the strength of the chisel and the ease of sharpening. My Koyamaichi chisels are really something special in this regard.

But I'm afraid they just can't do it anymore.

 

[Jacob]

....In the case of vintage mortice chisels, I'm not sure that I agree. There may be a minor difference with regrinding a primary bevel, but most honing attacks the first 1/32" to 1/8" of the bevel, which is the hard steel bit whether you have a laminated or solid chisel.

"Sharpening" involves taking off the whole bevel (whatever your regime) not just honing the edge. So soft backing metal makes "sharpening" easier. NB some of us don't think in terms of 'primary' and 'secondary' bevel, it's all one; flat, convex, hollow ground, double, etc. whatever. It's all one, it's all gotta go!

In the case of Jap 'Smoothcut' iron - not relevant to the current discussion about vintage tools, but I have to say that when I used such an iron, many years ago, I noticed little difference in sharpening time compared to a standard Record iron or a thicker Clifton iron. (I subsequently abandoned the laminated iron in favour of the Clifton, but mainly on grounds of additional stiffness.)

I sharpen both old Record and laminated Smoothcut quite often and the difference is very noticeable.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Jacob - This is a discussion about the evoution of the bevel-edged chisel; perhaps we could leave arguments about sharpening for other, more appropriate, threads. I suspect that the toolmakers of the nineteenth century would not have produced tools that could not be sharpened with the methods available at the time, because they wouldn't have sold many. They would have concentrated on making saleable tools with a view to making a profit, so would have done their best to supply demand for good quality steel, and forms the craftsman found suited to their work. They would have regarded the precise techniques of sharpening as a matter for the craftsman at the bench.

The original question was, 'When did the bevel-edged chisel come into being'. We have uncovered some interesting snippets of history in trying to answer that question, and enjoyed some discussion about tool shapes. Let's not get side-tracked.

 

[GazPal]

Plane blades by Stanley and Record were laminated up until WWII with a few plane manufacturers using laminated blades up until the 1960's.

A quick test to find whether or not a blade/iron is laminated can be made by pickling a blade in warm citric acid/hot white vinegar until the blade/iron darkens. The harder edge steel darkens to form quite a contrast to any softer backing steel/iron present and this makes it possible to clearly define whether or not a blade/iron is laminated, but you can also quantify the extent by which a homogeneous steel iron/blade has been hardened during processing. This point is typically just shy of the slot in plane irons and approx 1.1/2" - 2" short of the haft on chisels.

The difference between laminated and homogeneous steel irons/blades can definitely be felt when sharpening single bevels by hand. This is more evident when dealing with Japanese chisels made using harder edge steels

-------------

I'm given to believe most chisel blades (Carpentry and masonry) bore a flared profile up until the mid C19th and the wider use of drop forging technique involving dies which lends itself to the production of more uniform sizes. Newly made mallet headed masonry chisels can still be found with a taper from edge to bolster and their utility can be felt in their balance and the way they handle during use. Bevel edged chisels - by virtue of the extra cost involved during manufacture and the then need to hand forge bevels - were more the reserve of specialist users and not as widely owned or used by carpenters and joiners unless they were necessary. Cost would have been prohibitive unless the purchase was justifiable. Bench chisels - by definition - were once what we'd name firmer chisels, although modern - more robust - firmer chisels are more capable of handling light mortising work than their thinner bladed predecessors.

 

[Corneel]

I am probably too much an engineer to ever understand anything about marketing. But I would say, it would be a great sales argument when you can sell cabinet makers chisels like the originals when the most intricate furniture ever was made. So, laminated, thin, tapered, firmer chisels. Just like these described by Adam Cherubini.

 

[Jacob]

Jacob - This is a discussion about the evoution of the bevel-edged chisel; perhaps we could leave arguments about sharpening for other, more appropriate, threads.....

Feel free! :lol:
I was responding to your comments about laminated tools, which inevitably leads to (you know what :roll: )

Plane blades by Stanley and Record were laminated up until WWII with a few plane manufacturers using laminated blades up until the 1960's.
.........

I've discovered several laminated blades (Record and others) where I didn't expect it - for some reason the lamination joint line shows up visibly if you grind with a coarse belt sander, but not with a wheel grindstone.

 

[AndyT]

I think we are getting somewhere with the contributions from CC and Gazpal about steel types and the introduction of steel that was cheap enough to use for the whole tool. You've made me realise that I have only the vaguest idea of how chisels were/are made. Perhaps if I try a summary, someone could fill in the gaps a bit?

So, in the 18th and early 19th centuries, when good edge-retaining steel was hard to make, a small amount of steel would be welded onto a bigger piece of wrought iron, one tool at a time, by someone working with a hammer and anvil. He would hand forge the steel to stretch it out into the right shape, and hammer it to have a rectangular cross-section. [Maybe using a trip-hammer?] The cutting end would be ground to a bevel. The long surfaces would be ground as well, by eye, removing the minimum amount of metal, so keeping the rectangular cross-section, but possibly introducing a few degrees of slope on the whole of the edges, leaving a trapezoidal shape.

[I think I have read somewhere that a long strip of steel would be welded to a long rectangle of iron, and then cut transversely into strips, each one as wide as a chisel - is that right or have I imagined that?]

If bevelled edges were wanted, would they be made by forging them, or by lots of grinding? Both methods sound expensive and therefore avoided if not really needed.

When cast steel was introduced, there was no need to weld steel to make the edge.
Manufacture would have initially been the same as before (I guess) but sooner or later someone realised that drop forging could make the whole shape in one or two mechanised blows. There's a useful illustration in "The Ken Hawley Experience" showing drop forgings of chisels:

Somehow the 'fash' would have been cut away - and I guess that tidying up would have ended with lots of grinding. And maybe that's the time when it becomes just as cheap and easy to make the die shape trapezoidal to make a bevel edge chisel - would it have actually been an easier shape to forge?

Presumably by now, the grinding is all automated and there is no stage equivalent to the hand forging, where the dimensions are controlled by how many times a smith hits the metal with a hammer.

Thinking about this makes me realise that I really ought to get to Sheffield and visit Abbeydale Hamlet and the Ken Hawley Collection, where I suspect the answer would be easily visible!

 

[GazPal]

Plane blades by Stanley and Record were laminated up until WWII with a few plane manufacturers using laminated blades up until the 1960's.
.........

I've discovered several laminated blades (Record and others) where I didn't expect it - for some reason the lamination joint line shows up visibly if you grind with a coarse belt sander, but not with a wheel grindstone.

Yes, patterns can be exposed by grinding/use of the sharpening stone (Japanese sword polishers (Togishi) are renowned for this when exposing "Hamon" and other characteristics resulting from lamination) as soft and hard steels erode in differing ways to expose a unique surface finish/texture, but etching - in the way I mentioned - tends to be least invasive and can also expose variations in the grain produced during lamination. Truth be known, stones which abrade more readily than those we'd consider hard and with higher wear resistance will tend to remove steel more readily due to the continuous exposure of fresh cutting particles, whilst a finer finish/polish results from the addition of slurry to the stone surface.

 

[GazPal]

Hi Andy,

Grinding tends to be the quicker route when bevelling, but there's a lot of waste when done in any quantity and potential for over tempering the steel - through inadvertent overheating - within which future cutting edges lie. For better quality I'd have thought forged bevels would tend to produce better end results and less grinder work.

We used to have a blacksmith's shop tied to the family cabinetry business when I was a kid and used to find myself pressed into service by my uncle (The blacksmith) from time to time during my apprenticeship. It was both fascinating and a brilliant opportunity. I think pre crucible cast steel chisel and plane irons would have been produced on a unit to unit basis, but know they used to produce laminated strips in the manner you've described. The strips would then be fully annealed before guillotining down to size and put through the hardening and tempering process. The older method involving individual forgings would still be used whenever making limited number of pieces, as the smith would clip a piece of tool steel ready for lamination onto a wrought iron or mild steel billet.

I'd honestly assume bevel edged chisels pre-date currently held datelines by quite a few centuries or even millennia (The Egyptians used dovetail joints in their woodwork), but the true answer to the question lays somewhere in the future findings of archaeologists.

 

[bugbear]

An interesting question is why bevel edges chisels have some low angle bevels on their sides. If the (only) purpose were to allow a straight through cut on a dovetail, the sides only need to be low enough to clear a (say) 1:5 angle, which is around 80 degrees.

So why don't all BE chisels look like LN/Ward Aristocrat, which requires less grinding?

BugBear

 

[Corneel]

That's a good question. I don't think dovetails are the reason. Why would a ships carpenter in 16th century Netherlands have beveled chisels? The ships were nice, with lots of decorated carving stuff, but dovetails?

Maybe it was just a weight saving thing?

I do know thin chisels can be very usefull sometimes when you want to get into tight places. For example making a smoothing plane needs a thin chisel, so you can pair the bed all the way through the mouth. Just an example. I am sure there are plenty of other examples in real life.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

An interesting question is why bevel edges chisels have some low angle bevels on their sides. If the (only) purpose were to allow a straight through cut on a dovetail, the sides only need to be low enough to clear a (say) 1:5 angle, which is around 80 degrees.

So why don't all BE chisels look like LN/Ward Aristocrat, which requires less grinding?

BugBear

That IS a good question.

I've been doing some background research on steelmaking history (which I'm not yet confident enough to incorporate into a post, and it is a bit of a minority interest as well), and into the dates of introduction of tool manufacturing techniques.

Broadly, as far as tool making is concerned, until the introduction of the power hammer, the smith had two methods at his disposal. The first was hand hammer and anvil, perhaps with the assistance of a second man with a large hammer - the 'striker' - to assist with larger pieces. The second was the water-driven tilt hammer. Both methods use (essentialy) a flat-faced hammer on either a flat-faced anvil or a pair of shaped dies, one fixed in the anvil, and one hand-held by the smith to form shapes such as rounds, or perhaps bolster/tangs. I suspect (perhaps Richard T or others with smithing experience could comment?) that forming rectangular sections by hand and eye is easier than forming bevel-edged type sections. Any minor bevels (such as we have found on early 19th century firmers) could be better made by grinding.

The small 'spring hammer' beloved of Sheffield tool makers was (probably) developed around 1860 (James Nasmyth's steam hammer was first sold around 1840, but was an altogether bigger beast intended for heavy forging.) The firm of Pattinson Brothers, much associated with spring hammers, was formed in 1856, and is still in business today, though the bulk of their work is now medium-heavy sub-contract machining. These small hammers used shaped dies extensively, and were a great improvement because the kept the dies in much better alignment than is possible by hand alone, and they could apply a far higher strike-rate than is possible by hand. The b/e section would be easier to make with such equipment, but for some reason, it didn't happen.

The next development was drop-forging, in which a heavy mass is lifted between guides, then allowed to drop onto the anvil from several feet. They can apply enough 'thump' in one blow to produce a shape that may take a hundred blows from a smaller hammer, so clearly offer the potential to increase productivity. The disadvantage is that the dies must be capable of withstanding the heavier blows without distortion or fracturing, and I suspect (can't prove it, yet) that the alloy steels needed for this were not developed until the very late 19th century - there was a good deal of experimentation with steel metallurgy ongoing around this time, much of it connected with armaments manufacture.

Now - if you take a piece of steel at forging heat, and whack it hard into a steel die, it helps to get it out again if it's tapered. If it's rectangular in cross-section, like a firmer chisel, and it jams into the die when drop-forged, you have an embarrassment. If it has a tapered, or trapezoidal, cross-section, like a bevel-edged chisel, it's much less likely to stick.

This is pure speculation, but could the b/e section we have become so familiar with have evolved simply to make manufacture by drop-forging easier?