More aristocrat chisels

[nabs]

I was intrigued by these unusual chisels when I first saw them mentioned on his forum many moons ago and, when a set came up on ebay last week, I bought them thinking it would be interesting to compare these "premium" models to my motley collection of old chisels. Coincidentally another set were advertised around the same time (this time including the original boxes) and were discussed here the day after I bought mine:

http://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/aristocrat-chisels-or-not-t23503-30.html

They were pricey - nearly 20 quid each if you include postage - but based on the nearly intact Ward and Pane Transfers I was hoping they would be little used.

Here are some observations and some possibly daft questions.

First of I was lucky and they seem to be hardly used - in fact the 1’’ and ¾’’ look like they still have the original ground bevel. The other two had been honed at least once:

Flatness of the face
(look away now if you are upset by chisel flattening!)
Are these chisels any flatter than your standard old Sheffield chisel - no, I don’t thinks so. It took about 3 hours to get them flatish - the two largest sizes both had a pretty deep dip on the right hand edge and I ran out of patience before I could remove the dips entirely. Here is a work in progress and the end result:

Shape
Lord knows why I need three 1’’ chisels when I do no proper woodworking, but it at least does allow a comparison. The other two below are both Marples - the paring chisel in addition to narrowing in thickness between the heel and the toe, also tapers slightly in width so it is slightly wider at the tip. The Aristocrat tapers the other way - I wonder if this is a feature or just a result of manufacturing variability back in the 60s?

The shape is like a firmer but rather than having sides at 90 degrees the sides form a bevel at 75 degrees from the face - very different from the other bevel edge chisels I have.

Does anyone know if this shape is used by other manufacturers, or why it was not as popular as the commonly found firmer shapes?

I will sharpen them tomorrow and let you know about the patented handle so we can decide on whether it is a gimmick or not.

 

[Trafalgar]

They look very.... aristocratic....

 

[D_W]

Don't know who else might use that grind, it does make for a chisel that could do close dovetail work but still be heavily built.

It's a fairly common shape on some japanese chisels (ouchi - the senior, whose son has now taken over) had that profile on chisels. They are viewed favorably (there are many other japanese makers making that profile).

 

[bugbear]

The shape is like a firmer but rather than having sides at 90 degrees the sides form a bevel at 75 degrees from the face - very different from the other bevel edge chisels I have.
View attachment 5
Does anyone know if this shape is used by other manufacturers, or why it was not as popular as the commonly found firmer shapes?

It should be more common - it's strong, but can (in fact) get into a dovetail.

The old Stanley 750 (and the modern LN reinterpretation) are similar, and the current Lee Valley offerings bear a relationship too.

BugBear

 

[nabs]

I have learned some new things about chisels thanks to the thread on mortice chisels
http://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/mortice-chisels-t101591.html

In particular I was interested to learn that the edges of firmer chisels are typically not vertical to the flat face and, when they are, they have a special name: "registered" firmers (thanks Chesirechappie!).

It caused me to look again more closely at my (two) firmer chisels and the design is a more subtle than I realised - the sides are indeed slightly tapered away from the flat face. The chisels are also wider at the cutting end than at the handle end.

I double checked the other Aristocrats and, to the best of my measuring ability, they are parallel in width across the length. The taper on the 1’’ is very slight but the result is that it is slightly narrower at the cutting end.

I had a look at Peter Nicholson The mechanic's companion 1845 to see if I could find out a bit more about chisel nomenclature - the explanation of the socket chisel is just about comprehensible and I think describes a laminated chisel with tapered sides and that is thicker at the handle than the tip. The description of the firmer is bewildering - is it a explaining what we would now call a bevel edged chisel?

 

[nabs]

I honed the chisels and can confirm they can be made sharp, but are they as good as Ward and Payne made out?

The main claim to fame is that the handle has a patented design which incorporates a threaded rod, one end of which is screwed into a tapped hole in the socket and the other into a cap, which when tightened secures the handle to the socket,
https://patents.google.com/patent/GB808614A/en

This invention claims to solve the following problems: “a tool with the usual tang to be driven into a hole in a ferruled handle is always liable to have the blade work loose from the handle in use, and the same difficulty is found with the lesser-known type of tool in which the blade is formed with a tapered socketed shank”

And further that “... the handle may be formed of wood, but advantageously as regards avoidance of splitting it may be formed of a plastic. A damaged handle may be readily replaced by unscrewing the cap”

According to the WP catalogue from 1964 replacement handles were indeed available.

All in all, not a bad idea on paper, although the fact it did not catch on tells its own story..

The other interesting thing, which I noticed from a picture posted on this forum, is that some of the (original?) marketing material claimed that the “blade is HAND forged”. This reference to “HAND” is conspicuous by its absence in the 1964 catalogue marketing - perhaps a sign economies were needed a few years after this model was introduced.

The marketing bumf differs on heat treatment also - I don’t know what the difference between “Induction heat treatment” (1964) and “High Frequency heat treatment” is, but I rather suspect it is something to do with cost also.

The Aristocrats were about 3x the price of the equivalent standard bevel edge firmer mentioned in the same catalogue, although surprisingly they are not the most expensive chisels W&P offered. This dubious honour belongs to “high speed steel tipped joiners chisels” which are another 30% more again. According to W&P these are a “World first”!

 

[ndbrown]

I have acquired 2 of these chisels in the last few years, both Beech handled versions. I have both vintage Marples and W & P chisels but the steel on the older W & P is absolutely superb, and I find that it really holds an edge for a long time. The vintage Marples is also excellent but I really like the old "grey steel" colour W & P chisels.
Unfortunately, although superb looking chisels, I have not found the steel to be nearly as good on the Aristocrats I have. I have held onto them just because they are W & P and a bit different, but in truth, I prefer the more common bevel edged older W & P chisels as useable chisels. Maybe I just have two bad Aristocrats in my collection.

 

[bugbear]

All in all, not a bad idea on paper, although the fact it did not catch on tells its own story..
...
The Aristocrats were about 3x the price of the equivalent standard bevel edge firmer mentioned in the same catalogue...

Not enough benefit to to justify the cost. Sort of like the Bedrock design, which only sold in moderate numbers, compared to the less good (but cheaper) Bailey.

Where did you get the very interesting catalogue shots?

BugBear

 

[nabs]

thanks all - ndbrown's observations do seem to increase the odds that the 1960s were desperate times for the W&P chisel department.

the catalogue was recently posted to archive.org https://archive.org/details/WardAndPayneCatalogueET64

For those that are interested, here is the page describing their high speed steel chisels and a relevant section from the associated patent.

I wonder if "... laminating two grades of steels ... does not provide a practical solution to the attainment of longer life for the cutting edges" really means "is too expensive" or refers to some other disadvantage?

 

[ED65]

Don't want to divert the thread so pardon this little step off-topic.

Not enough benefit to to justify the cost. Sort of like the Bedrock design, which only sold in moderate numbers, compared to the less good (but cheaper) Bailey.

I'm not one who subscribes to the 'accepted wisdom' (not sure how universally it is held to be true) that the bedrock design is actually superior. Certainly on paper it appears to offer clear advantages, but in practice the benefits have a hard time showing up on the wood. And in use there is a clear advantage to the Bailey design if you're one to adjust frog position on any sort of regular basis, assuming you don't tighten the frog screws down one grunt past tight and and therefore can't make proper use of the adjusting screw at the back without removing the irons anyway.

 

[D_W]

The marketing bumf differs on heat treatment also - I don’t know what the difference between “Induction heat treatment” (1964) and “High Frequency heat treatment” is, but I rather suspect it is something to do with cost also.

a bit of googling suggests that there's not much difference, but I may not have hit the right google sites. One of the heat treating outfits online describes High Frequency as heat treatment that only heats the subject part, "also known as induction hardening".

Bummer that the samples so far don't have the same feel as the older ward stuff, but not surprising if they are induction hardened.

 

[TFrench]

Spotted a set on ebay and won them for about £40 and they eventually turned up today. The 3/4" was sporting a rather impressive chip from the blade. I had 10 minutes on them this evening and they're looking much better. The rust is superficial and the pro edge has got the damaged one back to good steel in no time. They seem really nicely made, I'm impressed so far.

20170411_202422_001

20170411_202524

 

[D_W]

Lovely looking chisels.

 

[bridger]

Having that threaded rod down the center would make me pretty hesitant to drive them with anything but my hand. Hit it with a mallet and you're driving a slender rod threaded at both ends. That can't end well.

Here in the US we have a retailer called brookstone. They sell a bunch of overhyped, overpriced gadgety junk. They sure don't hesitate to lavish superlative praise on said junk. These chisels have a bit of the smell of that sort of hucksterism to them. I think I'll stick to my random selection of crucible steel working class chisels.

 

[bugbear]

Having that threaded rod down the center would make me pretty hesitant to drive them with anything but my hand. Hit it with a mallet and you're driving a slender rod threaded at both ends. That can't end well.

If you think carefully, you'll realise the rod is under tension, not compression. Mild steel performs well under tension.

BugBear

 

[nabs]

that's right - you'd have to hit it hard enough to significantly compress the wood/plastic in the handle to have any chance of damaging the screw threads.

Besides, the purpose of the design is not to allow you to clout them as hard as possible, it is to stop the handles coming lose or falling off - a problem even the excellent makers at Lie Neilsel have been unable to prevent with their socket chisels. In the case of my examples, I can confirm the design is a great sucess, as I can't get the handles off at all

 

[TFrench]

From the look of the cap on the 3/4" and the state of the blade, someone has been using it as a bolster chisel with a club hammer! You can't even see the ward and payne script thats engraved in it - I had to file the mushrooming off the edge. If they can take that I'm pretty confident they'll be alright with a mallet.

 

[bridger]

From the look of the cap on the 3/4" and the state of the blade, someone has been using it as a bolster chisel with a club hammer! You can't even see the ward and payne script thats engraved in it - I had to file the mushrooming off the edge. If they can take that I'm pretty confident they'll be alright with a mallet.

And how are the threads hplding up?

 

[nabs]

I'd be interested to know if you can dismantle yours Tfrench . I tried to remove mine but could not manage it - I did read about a top tip in these circumstances, which is to use a jubilee clip to grab the circular part, but the edges of the cap made it hard to get a firm grip. Having said that, I don't have any real reason to take the handles off mine, I was just curious to see what sort of state they were in on the inside.

 

[bugbear]

Here's my 1" Aristocrat. The top shows clear signs of bashing with a metal hammer,
being nicked and burred. Our American friend will be happy to know the threads on
the 5/16" rod are fine (actually British Standard Fine .

BugBear