Colonel Sheffield Tools.

[rabohmer]

Hi guys newbie to the forums.

Picked up a set of three chisels today not knowing what they were but for 4 pounds i figured they were worth a punt since they had some nice wooden handles, definitely need some serious sharpening though .
All i can see on them is that they are made by Colonel in Sheffield and was hoping if anyone knows about these tools or if they are any good?

Many Thanks

 

[Trafalgar]

Free, with a bucket of chicken?

 

[rabohmer]

Free, with a bucket of chicken?

I wish :lol:

 

[richarddownunder]

Never heard of them so did a brief Google, found this http://progress-is-fine.blogspot.co.nz/ ... lonel.html. There seems to be a few chisels on E-Bay, they will probably be of good quality but you wont know for sure till you have sharpened them and given them a test drive. That is a good price for 3!
Cheers
Richard

Took me a while to click re the chicken. Duh.

 

[rabohmer]

Never heard of them so did a brief Google, found this progress-is-fine.blogspot.co.nz/2015/11/vanished-tool-makers-colonel There seems to be a few chisels on E-Bay, they will probably be of good quality but you wont know for sure till you have sharpened them and given them a test drive. That is a good price for 3!
Cheers
Richard

Took me a while to click re the chicken. Duh.

Yeah i saw that too but just like you thats all i could find, they are terribly dull and I have been slaving away on my whetstone trying to get rid of high spots before sharpening properly ... very, very, slow progress haha.
Thanks for the help anyway and yeah took me two seconds to get it too haha

 

[memzey]

I've got a colonel chisel I picked up at a boot fair a while back. I did wonder about the maker at the time as I didn't recognise it. Good to know some others have cropped up. It would be nice to know the history of the firm but I suspect it's one of so many small Sheffield makers that bit the dust that finding that out will be difficult.

 

[ED65]

Congrats on your find. Four quid for three old chisels with nice handles is nothing to be sneezed at.

...they are terribly dull and I have been slaving away on my whetstone trying to get rid of high spots before sharpening properly ... very, very, slow progress haha.

Do you know what grit your stone is? In the absence of a grinder when you're faced with edges that are in very bad shape it's well worth using 80 or even 60 grit paper to start the process. If the corners are very rounded it's also worth squaring the edge as a first step, by rubbing back and forth with the chisel held vertically.

BTW how much of the back are you trying to flatten? The way most people use their chisels you only need a narrow strip right at the edge flat to produce the cutting edge, just a few mm will do it.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Hello Rabohmer, and welcome to the forum!

I've been doing a bit of digging about the Colonel brand - and come up with very little. They seem to crop up occasionally - not rare, but not common either - mostly screwdrivers (nicely made), a few chisels (standard Sheffield products - good quality, very usable, nothing fancy) and one reference to some leather working tools.

The fact that nobody can find any reference to a firm of that name suggests that 'Colonel' was a brand name rather than a company. Who owned the brand? No idea. When were they produced? Again, no idea - though the style of the tools suggests maybe sometime between the 1920s and the 1960s.

'Fraid that's all I can offer!

 

[Richie555]

Just to add to the list, I recently picked up a Colonel hacksaw with the same sort of handle you would find on a Gent saw.

 

[dannyr]

I think it might be a retail brand (London store?) - tools by different OEMs, mostly Sheffield, like Governor brand or Buck & Ryan and Buck & Hickman. Usually good sound tools.