Forged shaped from flat bar, one in 80crv2 steel and the other two in W2 with a bolster forge welded to the chisel and handles made from beech.
Freehand ground, large size about 2" wide at the business end and 15" long total. Made at the suggestion of someone else who said having a good chisel in this size around is kind of a do all for shaping that's too big for a regular chisel.
the 80crv2 chisel is tempered to 60 hardness and the W2 chisel is tempered at 62 hardness.
these were probably after I'd made another 100 chisels, so not too many challenges faced but I figured this size chisel may be useless, and it turns out to be very useful for someone working mostly by hand.
they are definitely big. the style is odd for that size, but they're about as big as the big old English gouges and flat chisels that were probably intended for housewrights- or who knows what- but like the older english style that's more familiar (turned handles, tang, Butcher or Ward as the maker, etc), they're thin and not heavy like timberframing tools.
>>What is stopping the tangs from splitting the handles after a few good whacks?<<
the bolster is forge welded to the tang so on chisels of this style where the bolster covers the entire end of the handle, it's basically like hammering a dowel - the tang doesn't really come into play unless you accidentally hit it sideways. For folks wondering what forge welded means, it's heated to a super high temperature - so is the tang - and then welded to the tang by hammer forming the bolster to the tang. the filing and shaping is done after that and after striking the bolster with a steel hammer to make sure the weld is sound.
here's a comparison picture for scale - a tyzack bench chisel - i can't remember the size - 1/2-5/8" or so with a bit of its length used up. Size wise, they're not quite the heft of a timber framing chisel - but they're tubby up at the shoulder = 3/8" thick at the tang and then tapering down after the shoulder and about 1/8" thick at the end. That keeps them from being too bulky to use, but the stiff shoulder helps make them robust. You can hit them as hard as you can swing anything that won't break off the beech handles, but they excel since they're the length overall of an english chisel being kind of a pusher and hatchet type or shaping wood before final stuff.
>>Great chisels. It would be nice if you added some of your build photos. <<
I don't really have any build photos of these at least that I can recall .....could be a fib saying that, I just don't remember taking pictures.
There's no real magic in the making of them. They start as 3/8 metal bar and I hammer them down to near tapered thickness and then grind them and then forge weld on the bolster after forging the tang to a tapered point, and grind and heat treat.
the bolster is just a flat piece of metal drilled with a hole in it and then the chisel is hammered into it out to form and hammered from the sides. Once it's where it needs to be, the whole thing is heated at the junction of the bolster blank and the tang to near sparking temperature and hammered to set the weld and to make sure there are no gaps. and then the bolster is ground and then filed. It's not a whole lot different than woodworking other than I guess we don't hammer wood to shape, but the grinding and filing seems not much different than hand tool woodwork to me.
The handle is kind of a boring story - it's just a square beech blank drilled with a stepped hole and then turned around the tang - that kind of cleans up the steps and allows the tang to match the handle, but before it's totally just drilled out to size with the tang itself, you stop a little earlier and then tap it into place...sort of by feel. Too late, and the handle is loose - too early and tapping on too far, obviously it would split. But after that, i just form it with a belt sander and then plane the facets crisp and soften the corners of the facets with a file or plane and apply finish. No jigs for anything. Nothing wrong with jigs, but in one off stuff, it's just easier to work freehand.
Do you mean that the small end of the tang protrudes through the end of the wood handle is enough to ensure the wood handle is safe from normal use? I can’t see any metal at the end of the wood handle.
You should just say these are just display chisels and build some real chisels when you get some time.
We don’t mean to be critical of your work we just want you to make quality items.
The handle is similar in construction and size to what you'd find on a pigsticker. The tang definitely doesn't go through the handle, it's in the handle and goes through a little more than half way. It's tapered to a point so there isn't a big void.
I guess if you used a chisel like this daily, once every several decades, you might do something to break the handle and have to replace it, like happens with pigstickers once in a while - though many of those still have their original handles. I'm not aware of a good chisel that has the tang going through the end of the handle, though it might be a good thing to combine with softer steel for a work site where someone could be prying with a chisel and hitting it with a framing hammer.
Two of these are in daily use for the last year or so, and I guess about 30 of my chisels are in daily use with professional woodworkers, I've made somewhere around 200 now and definitely not all of the early ones were perfect - but 100 or so of the remainder are in use with hobby woodworkers. At this point, the two W2 versions of these are a match for vintage chisels of any type - especially the larger ones. The one made from 80crv2 is probably about as good as something from pfeil - the steel seems eerily similar even though they prefer not to disclose what they use.
It definitely does look like that, but they're pretty comfortable to use. if they were to be used as a push slick for houses, one could be made with a long handle, though. They're really intended to be struck - the edge is too wide to pare hardwood, but the handle is big enough to hold near the bottom (and tapered so the chisel doesn't need to be gripped too hard to keep it from dropping), and strike at the top with an inch or two of clear handle. worst thing you could have is a chisel with a handle so short that you accidentally allow the web of the thumb to get above the butt - it'll keep you wide awake for a long time if you strike the web of your hand.
The guy who asked me to make one of these pointed to one in use at colonial williamsburg- it was either in PWW or finewoodworking. I told him I wasn't convinced that the pattern would be very useful, but if I was going to make one, I'd make two. I made two in 80crv2 steel, and thought it was a little lacking, and then just made two more - one for him and one for me. it takes a little while to make one like this - the size is large and I don't have a large power hammer and grinding is slow if you start from bar - W2 steel can go a few points harder and the difference between the two steels is pretty convincing. the guy who brought these up was right - they're useful. But not exactly the kind of thing you need to have in sets.
Handle tip to bolster is 5 1/2 inches, made maybe to look shorter than that because the chisels are big.
I don't know if there's an official answer, but typically a heavier cross section at the business end than these chisels (which are about 1/8" thick at the end), a socket, some back relief - as in often not perfectly flat on the back - and a socket vs. a tang type like this.
I'm sure there are modern versions of slicks that have a ferrule and aren't a socket type, though - now that most stuff is spun on the lathe to make the bolster near the tang. One of the few hand tools I've never owned or made.. western slicks.
Yes - these types with the wide bolster are straight in. these being the ones I made above. They have no relief and would ram into the side of the cut if just fitted with a wider handle. The bolster could be smaller if there's a ferrule at the end, but socketed is more common and just isn't a type of chisel I favor making (socketed) - I like to focus on stuff that stays at the bench.
I make a lot more chisels in a 19th century style like below, though and generally trade them around with friends or acquaintances, or once in a while someone who can shake me loose by proposing something unusual that isn't available commercially, but I don't build professionally and don't want to operate a business, so never at a profit.
https://i.imgur.com/s6qfYju.jpg
If you avoid getting caught up in using the steels that are used now out of convenience, you can get to a point that you can make better chisels than are available, but the heat treating part of this is important to really get dead right.
