Hello Fellow Woodworkers,
An estate sale produced this set of chisels very inexpensively, but I don’t know much about them and was looking for advice from the form at FW. Leather handles, with a steel shaft down the center (photo) made by P.S.& W CO (photo). Anyone have an age range on these? What might be the steel type? And are they made as paring chisels or could I use a mallet on them? Any thing else you might know about them? They have a nice heft and feel to them and I like to use them in my shop but wanted to know how to treat them!
Thanks,
Ed C.
Replies
There's something wrong with the photos you uploaded -- they're not showing up.
I'm guessing Peck, Stowe, & Wilcox.
Nice call, MJ. Ecalvin if you go to https://archive.org/details/PeckStowWilcoxCoCatalogNo10/page/n201/mode/2up and look at p. 202 of the catalog, you'll see chisels with leather capped handles. As I can't see your photos, don't know if they're the ones, but, yes, they exist.
That catalog archive is very cool! I have some Pexto chisels and never knew who made them until now. Mine are leather capped and I use them with a mallet. Peck,Stowe and Wilcox from what I could gather from the catalog go into the 19th century. My chisels are marked Pexto made in USA. The "made in" would indicate to me that mine were probably manufactured post WWII as that was set by treaty after the war that manufactures would indicate the country of origin with the prefix " made in". They are quite good chisels I always felt, nice balance, comfortable handles, take a pretty good edge. I've had them for years and at one time they were in my starting line up. I have a set of Bergs now that get the good jobs so the Pextos have become bench players. Tool steel wise I'd put them in the same category as Buck Brothers or Greenlee or old school Marpels. So an actual professional quality tool.
OP photos
Yup, Peck, Stowe and Wilcox. They made good tools. Those are socket chisels, so feel free to sharpen them up and beat them with a mallet.
All of that brand I've seen have pretty thick lands on the edges, so they aren't great for dovetailing. But they'll hold an edge pretty well.
I think they made woodworking tools until the early 1950s, and other equipment after that, under the PEXTO brand.
Just because they're antique doesn't mean the steel is the highest quality, does it?
Steel is steel. These days there are some exotic alloys, but back in the day it was just iron and carbon. Not much to mess up, unless it was heat treated poorly.
A lot of older chisels had very thick lands on the sides, which pretty much negates the benefit of a bevel edge chisel. But I've never had an old chisel that didn't hold an edge well.
PS&W Co started using the PEXTO trademark by the late 1920s. Do not know if earlier trademarks overlapped or not. My guess on date is WW1 or before.
Thanks everyone for you comments—very helpful and appreciated. I did go to the catalogue cited and it seems to be a likely source. Of note is the fact that the handles on my chisel set are not just capped with leather but made entirely of leather, maybe 20-25 “washer-like” pieces stacked and then shaped. I can’t tell if they used leather washers that progressed in size, or if was all one size and then turned on a lathe of sorts. Given that, does it change your thought on use, age, anything?
Is it solid leather, or does it look like there is wood in the center, with, essentially, leather washers stacked?
Chisel handles beaten with hammers or mallets will eventually mushroom, chip, or split. Japanese chisels get around this by having an iron hoop around the handle.
Some US makers turned a round tenon on the end of the handle, added stacks of leather washers, and turned the handle to shape. The leather washers kept the handle from mushrooming or splitting. The wood tenon in the middle transmitted the mallet blow directly to the business end of the chisel. This innovation seems to me to be a 1940s innovation, but that's a guess.
Modern makers sometimes just add leather to the top of a chisel handle, which is just wrong. Without that central wood tenon, the leather just absorbs part of the mallet blows, which makes work harder. Even worse, some modern makers add leather between the handle and tang of the chisel, which looks innovative but is just foolish. It also absorbs part of every hit with a mallet, and adds no functionality, outside of the marketing department.
I hate to say this but I think you are dealing with collector tools here.
You have a complete set of six what were in their day high end expensive, and expensive to produce, chisels in good shape with little use.
I really think based on the trademarks and what you have said of construction they are late 1800s.
Stacked leather handles would have to have a steel rod in the center to take both axial and lateral loads. So now one has a socket chisel with an additional rod welded in, an expensive design over and above that needed for a normal chisel.
They may have been designed and made to compete with the Stanley Everlasting chisels.
If they were mine I would check with some folks in Mid-West Tool Collectors to find more data prior to sharpening them and especially prior to using a mallet. Based on your description and what I can see from the photos, the handles are not replaceable and the old leather would show marks from the mallet.
You may find someone willing to fund the purchase of a set of new LN or even Blue Spruce. Great find.
I would sharpen those up and enjoy them. The form factor is great.
I won't contest the vintage collectable claim but those chisels were not super high-end when they were manufactured. They were pretty much industry standard at the time, comparable to Stanley,Greenlee, Buck Brothers. I have some Buck Brothers chisels that are really sweet so to me they are a cut,so to speak, above the Pextos. When I looked at the catalog and saw the prices I thought that that seemed expensive until I realized that it is a wholesale catalog and those prices were per dozen. As a complete set in what appears to be good condition there might be some value over and above the individual $20 a piece price that you could find on ebay. Now if you had the box too....
Since I own some Pexto chisels this thread got me interested and I looked the company up. From the catalog you can see that they manufactured a wide array of tools and hardware but it seems their main speciality was tinkers tools for light metal fabrication. When I pulled mine out to look at them I can confirm that yes mine have leather tops and they are indeed a set of washers over a wooden dowel or turning. Interesting in my collection is one chisel that is an exact match in every way to the Pextos but it is stamped " Worth"!
There were a slew of brand names, but relatively few actual manufacturers. The off-brand names were usually made for another retailer, and sometimes not finished as well. Fulton was manufactured by Sargent, and often sold at Sears, before Craftsman came into being. And Sargent also made many Craftsman planes later on.
I know Worth was made by one of the bigger names, but can't remember who.
Bigelow and Dowse was a hardware retailer and "Worth" was a brand name of theirs. The scuttle butt on the internet is that the manufacturer of their tools was -drum roll please- PS&W--surprise!!. I think I liked the old days when there was no way to find out useless information!
There is a Fulton Special 1/2" stacked leather handle wood chisel up on eBay currently. It bears some similarity to those in question. Handle is in rough shape.
In answer to John_C2’s question, the handles are all leather but they do have a steel shaft running down the center all the way to the socket. If previous owners did use any type of mallet, there is little evidence remaining from what I can see. Nope, I don’t have the original box, but the set came wrapped in sail-canvas roll.
I've never seen an all leather handle with steel core. Interesting. It obviously didn't catch on.
Not chisels, but Estwing hammers use stacked leather.
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