Bevel angle for dovetail chisels

[John15]

I've occasionally read that some woodworkers grind the bevel angle on their dovetail chisels to something shallower than the standard 25 degrees, say 20 degrees, for when they are paring/chopping to the scribe line. I guess they would hone to around 25 rather than 30 degrees.
I would be grateful for any views members may have on this.
Thanks in advance.

John

 

[Racers]

Paring chisels have a lower angle as they are only pushed they won't stand up to chopping.
So you will need two chisels of both sizes one for chopping one for pairing , or just use a sharp normal angle chisel which most people do.

Pete

 

[lurker]

Pete,

Post a picture of your dovetail chisel, there must be many who have not seen this fine tool

 

[DTR]

or just use a sharp normal angle chisel which most people do.

+1

 

[Jelly]

TBH the angle is more about the hardness of the wood and toughness of the steel, than the task in hand.

I have chisels sharpened to a variety of angles between 20-35°. Paring Chisels & Paring Gouges and my nice B/E ones, all of which are used without striking, tend to be at the shallow end of that, and are my preference for cleaning up endgrain, partially because they suit it and partially because I make a conscious effort to keep them very, very sharp. (Rather than just "sharp enough").

 

[John15]

Thanks guys. Reading back over my post, I didn't mean to say 'striking', just 'paring' - the shallower angle obviously unable to stand up to being hammered. I have an old 'best' set of chisels and I'm tempted to reduce the angle a bit on them. Hopefully one or two more members will come on with their thoughts.

John

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Cleaning up dovetails usually involves both chopping and paring, but mostly chopping. Thus, as said above, a good starting point for bevel angles are the old stand-by of grind at 25 degrees and hone at 30. Some of the more brittle steel types might be happier honed a couple of degrees steeper, but that's the sort of thing you check by trying them and seeing whether the edges chip - if they do, hone a couple of degrees steeper until they hold up.

Years ago, I did my woodworking in the upstairs back bedroom of a three-bed semi. To avoid annoying the neighbours, I did as much chisel work as possible by paring instead of using a mallet. You would not believe how much longer this took than just whacking the waste out with a few mallet strokes. I dovetailed the sides and ends of a large tool chest in redwood this way; four dovetail joints in 3/4" stock each about two feet six long - it took about a fortnight of evenings, even with careful use of a coping saw to remove most of the waste. Never again....

There are times when paring is appropriate, but in most woodworking, less than you might think. It's only really useful for final close fitting of joints and finishing end-grain surfaces if you can't plane it for some reason. Most chisel work is done much more quickly in conjunction with an appropriately-sized mallet, consequently most chisels are best set up for mallet work. When they need to do a bit of paring, a swipe on the sharpening stones is a good plan (and a tickle on the fine polishing stone if you happen to have one), but not a full reconfigure to a shallower honing angle. Some people do keep a few chisels honed shallow, but that's a bit of a luxury rather than a necessity.

As said above, the thing that makes the most difference is keeping 'em sharp. Having a sharpening regime that allows you to freshen an edge up frequently and quickly is one of the best routes to quick, consistently crisp work.

P.S. - Nothing wrong with a bit of experimenting to see what your particular chisels like by way of honing angles, but I'll bet a whole shilling that you end up somewhere around about 30 degrees!

 

[John15]

Many thanks CC for your sound advice. I've got a sharpening system that's giving me good results but I think there's still room for improvement. I sharpen freehand with 1000, 6000 and 12000 grit Japanese water stones and I sometimes a leather strop charged with the white stuff in a tube.

John

 

[arnoldmason8]

Hi All

I had similar problem to this the other day when dovetaiiing some very soft softwood. When trying to clean up the end grain to the line the chisel just pushed the wood away and tore out the grain to leave ploughed field insead of a smooth surface. I resharpened the chisel to an angle similar to what I use for carving chisels and it worked much better and gave a reasonable result.


Regards----- Arnold

 

[ED65]

I've got a sharpening system that's giving me good results but I think there's still room for improvement. I sharpen freehand with 1000, 6000 and 12000 grit Japanese water stones and I sometimes a leather strop charged with the white stuff in a tube.

Pardon if this is teaching gran to suck eggs but if there's room for improvement here it wouldn't be in materials but in some aspect of the method (a likely candidate being consistency of holding angle). If done right the edge from a 12k Japanese stone should be about as sharp as it's possible to get anything. There's steeply diminishing returns above the region of 8-10k and anyway edges this fine can degrade to a much lower level within a very short time working in many hardwoods.

As far as what angle to hone at goes it's worth bearing in mind that anyone who sharpens somewhat like Paul Sellers might routinely have all their chisels at around 25° since there's no secondary bevel. Excluding work in harder hardwoods and prying out material from a deep mortise most chisels appear to hold up fine to this so actually the norm of 28-30° is probably conservative for a lot of us.

 

[John15]

ED65 - Never mind about granny sucking eggs. I'm persevering with freehand to see if I can master it and yes you're right, it's stating the obvious that my stones aren't at fault.

John.

 

[D_W]

Same angle as any other chisel, unless the wood is absolute low density junk. Then shallower by a few degrees.