Chisels - I could quit if I wanted.

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They are Best Improved Round London Pattern.
You can hold onto the bulb and put your shoulder against the end and use the force of your upper body to pare downwards. It's also why they are sooooo loooong.It makes your shoulder look like chopped liver for a while, but you'll get used to it.

So that's what the dark stains on the end of some were ...... BLOOD ...... maybe I shouldn't have cleaned em up and kept this 'patina'
 
,...... some of the videos online of crafts people from the past working for a living that gouges are often used for doing much of the wood removal before finishing the edges square with a straight chisel.
Similarly with a scrub plane or adze - effectively a gouging tool to remove material quickly but roughly, followed by a flattening one.
I used to pop in the Chesterfield market (before Covid) but always got the impression someone had got there before me!
 
Moulson Brothers Sheffield. The gouges and paring chisel are approximately 21 inches in length. I bought them off a stall in the eBay car park a few years ago. :love:
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It's just that my social worker said I should come to the meeting for support. I'm not a binge chiseller, it's just that I can't walk by a cheap good 'un in need of resto , and here in the Sheffield area, they're everywhere. I can quit, honest.

It all came to a head when I stopped counting chisels and just counted sets of chisels.

For example, one of my favourite, the thin patternmakers paring chisel, non-bevel type:


View attachment 126514
These are rather gorgeous, Danny, but I'm getting a bit worried that you may be turning into a magnet - have you noticed any difference in your pulling power lately? :love:
 
They excel at cutting side grain to a line (because the sides of the cut are clipped by the gouges - the grain doesn't split and travel past the marked line and break out)....

...speaking about incannel gouges.

And they are superb paring across end grain where much of the cut will be somewhat diagonal to the straws or up with no part of the corners buried in the cut splitting off wood. The ability to use a patternmaker gouges on a piece of furniture to trim off end grain easily is something that can't be overstated. It's not matched by just narrowing a cranked neck flat chisel. It's near effortless.

Once you get one set up well (I would suggest a conical or small sanding drum on a lower speed setting on a die grinder (like 10k rpm) to grind back the bevels and then stone just near the edge slightly steeper with a pair of stone (a deburring wheel and buffer is dandy for this also) and then hone the back of the barrel on a stone until the edge is free of damage and polished near the tip. You want to bias the pressure toward the end of the tool, but not lift it.

The difference in how an incannel gouge cuts end grain vs. a flat chisel is literally often the difference between being able to physically cut end grain neatly or not.

No clue why the ears are sometimes sheared back, but it may be to be able to maneuver the chisel a little bit to release a cut without digging corners in, or it could be just to make sharpening and grinding easier. I doubt most of these chisels are ever being used in carve repeated patterns like a lot of firmer gouges may be as when I have gotten most of mine, even if they're sharp, the edge isn't neat.
 
Moulson Brothers Sheffield. The gouges and paring chisel are approximately 21 inches in length. I bought them off a stall in the eBay car park a few years ago. :love: View attachment 126575

Those are divine. The tang style suggests they're fairly early, and the quality of the glaze inside of the second one is supreme. The bolsters also look neat and well finsihed. Really nice!!
 
I think the handles are long on a parer because there's no reason they can't be. There's no balance issue because you are always holding the handle, and the only real problem you could have is fat chisel blades making them end heavy. They don't start to feel funny unless you put the rounded part in the back of your hand to push the chisels and your fingers never touch anything that tapers down (there's an older notion that something is on chisel handles for finger or thumb to push, but that's a poor idea - ask someone with mild arthritis to try it. Pushing is done with the back of the chisel in the ball middle of the hand or leaning over hand in front of shoulder or just shoulder pushing. I've made handles longer and shorter just to try things out and without the butt end as rounded and you find out pretty quickly why veering away from the established stuff was a dumb idea.
 
Those are divine. The tang style suggests they're fairly early, and the quality of the glaze inside of the second one is supreme. The bolsters also look neat and well finsihed. Really nice!!
They all bear the same owners stamp but the seller insisted on selling them as individual lots.
 
They all bear the same owners stamp but the seller insisted on selling them as individual lots.

I may have made my comment in a way that unintentionally misleads - they look like the same make to me, handles and all. The glazing on the second one is easy to see because of the light and it's very clean, but I'd bet they're all similar quality, even if any are a different make.

They are just dandy - it takes care and costs money to finish a steel that warps that straight and cleanly.
 
Shouldn't take long to sharpen new chisels, in fact never easier when they have a nice new perfectly ground 25º bevel.
Just a few strokes at 30º and you are off. They always seem to have a hollow face but that makes it easier to sharpen, no need to flatten, just enough to take off the burr.
Sellers over-does it a bit, but could be a lot worse.
Call it "initialising" or "prepping" if you want to but it's just a fashion - it's just sharpening and next time you do it again exactly the same way again


Thank you I am a total novice at a lot of things so that's good to hear. I think I need to cut a piece of wood for the angle or does it matter that it's bang on 30°? I have an angle finder wheel thing for the hand plane blade but it's too big for the chisels. Is it better to learn to do it by eye or build a trusty jig type thing?
 
....... Is it better to learn to do it by eye or build a trusty jig type thing?
Absolutely. it's not difficult either. Helps to visualise 30º if you draw it out a few times on a piece of paper, or have a 30/60 set square to look at. You only need the one angle of 30º, the others are "a bit more" or "a bit less": etc
 
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That's incredibly vague @Jacob, surely there must be more to it than that.
I'm told there are 360 of them but I don't believe it. 90º and 45º are also handy, but who needs the others? 180º isn't even an angle at all!
 
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and a wee TEST, to make sure we're all back from our hols, here at the Lodge of the Grand Order of Chisellers:

atest.JPG


Below, for scale, is a Marples and Sons socket chisel, longer bladed version, (mid 20th C copy of American style, I'd say, and similar to various very pricey current chisels), but here are the questions:

1. What is the small chisel (make and type)?
2 Same Q for the set of 5 larger chisels?
3. What do they have in common?
4. Surely the set in Q2 was usually 4 , true or false?

Sorry no physical prizes, but your membership of the Order is assured for another year -- all dues to the Grand Vizier.
 
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and a wee TEST, to make sure we're all back from our hols, here at the Lodge of the Grand Order of Chisellers:

View attachment 126675

Below, for scale, is a Marples and Sons socket chisel, longer bladed version, (mid 20th C copy of American style, I'd say, and similar to various very pricey current chisels), but here are the questions:

1. What is the small chisel (make and type)?
2 Same Q for the set of 5 larger chisels?
3. What do they have in common?
4. Surely the set in Q2 was usually 4 , true or false?

Sorry no physical prizes, but your membership of the Order is assured for another year -- all dues to the Grand Vizier.
3. They all need sharpening.
 
3. They all need sharpening.


Correct - and confession time - their state is partly down to me - wrapping in an oily rag was not enough for a damp shed - now I'll be thrown out of the lodge for chisel abuse. -- actually, like Groucho -- I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member
 
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