I’m starting to collect some chisles and don’t really know much about the companies that made them, how good they were, which were the best ones etc. I have a few Winchesters, two Douglass mortise, 3 ClearCut, and a Witherby drawknife. I assume these were some of the big companies of the day that made cutting tools.
I know more about planes but not the chisel.
How do you guys compare the older high end to the better ones of today like Hirsch, Two Cherries and Lei Neilson?
Replies
The old chisels (Swan, Buck, Witherby, Douglas, Beatty and other "name brands") are at least as good as modern chisels. Modern top end chisels like LN are the only ones that compare. In other words, you would have to buy the best of today to equal the normal chisels of yesterday.
What is your take on the liklihood of a spoiled temper on old chisels (due to careless sharpening)? Do you know of a good way to find out befpre putting a lot of time into rehapilitating the edge, only to have it fade away quickly?
Joe
Tuff question to answer. Probably I've damaged more old chisels than I've found that way. Rarely have I found them that refuse to hold an edge.
Joe,You can check a chisel's temper with a file. You need to recognize that many older, larger chisels are laminated. So the file will cut the iron easily. So pay close attention to the edge. If you can shape that with a smooth file, the temper is blown. You can fix a chisel that's been overheated. But it is a little tricky and it may not make the chisel as good as it was. If you really want to be tricky, blunt the edge before heat treating then tap on it with hammer. Make even taps across the blunted edge. Its best to sing while doing this. I recommend the following ditty:Hammer boys round - Old Clem!
With a thump and a sound - Old Clem!
Beat it out, beat it out - Old Clem!
With a clink for the stout - Old Clem!
Blow the fire, blow the fire - Old Clem!
Roaring dryer, soaring higher - Old Clem!You may need to be roman catholic for the song to have its full effect. I can tell you it works, though.AdamP.S. kudos to the first knothead who can tell us who "Old Clem" is, and how the song became popularized.
P.S. kudos to the first knothead who can tell us who "Old Clem" is, and how the song became popularized.
Well, I'll leave that to others, but being a woodworker, I might sing to Joey as I chopped my dovetails.
That is if I had Great Expectations of the joints fitting well.
David C
No idea who Clem is, although as an RC I suppose that wonderful ditty will have full effect. Reminds me of Tolkien's ditties.
Good advice about the file.
J
Joe, yes you can draw the temper down too far by overheating when grinding. To really soften an O-1 or W-1 chisel you have to heat it to the point it starts glowing. If you were tempering hardened O-1 or W-1 by color and you wanted it to be RC-50, the same as a hand saw, you'd heat it until it turns a uniform dark blackish gray. Most people would stop long before it got to that color. The iridescent blue that comes before the gray would stop most people dead in their tracks. Is it good for a chisel to be RC-50? No but the problem you'll have is the edge will have a tendency to roll or bend back. You'll have to sharpen more often until you've sharpened back beyond where it's softened and that's usually not very far. Frankly my old Marples Blue Chip chisels act like they're about RC-50 and a lot of people seem to think the older Blue Chips are good chisels.My experience is that you're more likely to find an old chisel or even plane iron that wasn't properly heat treated in the first place than to find one that's been badly damaged by grinding. I have a 2" James Swan chisel I had to re-harden because of factory heat treating problems and the iron in a Norris A-5 had the same problem and fix.I think too many people have had an unreasonable fear of grinding instilled because of all the nonsense about ruining tools by grinding. If you learn to grind on coarse well dressed wheels you quickly learn to grind without any real risk. My experience is that those who fall for the hype about slow speed grinding with finer white or pink wheels are doomed to working with softer steels.
Yes in spades about the slow wheels. I have a Wen Wetstone grinding wheel. It does as promised about not heating the steel, but it is so slow it isn't funny.
Joe
"To really soften an O-1 or W-1 chisel you have to heat it to the point it starts glowing. "
Nope. Not even close. RC50 is about 800F. RC60 is 400F. Steel in my shop (depends on the ambient light) doesn't start glowing until over 1000F or so. The oxide colors only show up on clean polished pieces. In my shop, heavy grinding is often a first step in rehabbing a chisel, so the tool on the grinder is typically too rusty to show oxide colors.
If you feel the steel getting warm where you are holding it, the tip can be quite a bit hotter- i.e. plenty hot enough to be drawing the temper. If it sizzles when you plunge the tip into water, you've either blown the temper or you're close to doing so.
There's no doubt in my mind hapless grinders are responsible for the inadvertent retempering of fine old steel. You can say this could have happened at the time of manufacture. I say it happened 2 weeks after Sears produced their first electric grinder.
To grind effectively, you need a good wheel, a clean wheel (a wheel that you clean), a light touch, and patience. I know more than a few woodworkers who have none of these. Dear old Tage Frid didn't help anyone with his 30 second belt sander grindings.
Adam
Edited 6/11/2007 9:12 am ET by AdamCherubini
"...If it sizzles when you plunge the tip into water, you've either blown the temper or you're close to doing so..."
Last I heard water boils at 212º so a piece of steel at 220º would "sizzle" when dipped in water. Yet it's nearly 200º lower than the temperature required to change most high carbon steel woodworking tools. Even if heated to a dark gray at 800º this same high carbon steel would still be as hard as the steel in a good hand saw. I don't recall anyone saying hand saws won't work well.
To me grinding is a necessary skill for woodworking. Rather than feed this absurd paranoia about grinding, I think it's better to realistically examine grinding and grinding problems. It's actually a simple, easy process where avoiding mistakes is just common sense. While it might be good for the economy to encourage sales of a lot of expensive unnecessary gadgets and gizmos that only slow down the process and make it a hassle, perpetuating this myth about grinding really isn't a help to woodworkers. Even if they screw up and turn the edge of their tool black, they haven't ruined the tool. It's most likely they could still use that tool and it would return to normal after a number of sharpenings. In the worse case, they may have to grind it back a little.
Coarse grinding wheels, decent dressers and proper technique do a lot more to promote successful woodworking than perpetuating fear and ignorance.
Next time you are grinding and you think your chisel is 212F because its making steam, push the tip into a piece of pine straight from the grinder. If the tip is really 212F, the pine won't burn or discolor.The point is that woodworkers working with high carbon tool steels of the sort traditionally used for chisels need to realize that overheating them is fairly easy to do. There will be no fanfare, no colors, no glowing. It can happen quickly.I agree with you (Larry) on grinding. My advice is if you are rehabbing old chisels, assume they are 1095. If they are getting too hot to touch, set them aside and clean your grinding wheel. When you pick them up again, use a lighter touch.Also, as the edge gets keener, the risk to the temper grows. So what you can get away with on a blunt tipped chisel, you won't on a sharper tool.AdamP.S. There's a lot of other metallurgy to quibble over. Rc50 for example would be instantly recognizable as the world's worst chisel. There's a heat affected zone assocuated with bluing, etc etc.
Edited 6/11/2007 9:29 pm ET by AdamCherubini
To expand a bit about grinding (and I think Larry would agree), I use a 3700 RPM grinder with a Norton 3X 60 grit wheel. I have yet to burn/blue steel with this combo and I don't "dip in water" as I grind. I simply take my time.
One caveat: you must keep the wheel properly dressed! It takes a little practice to get used to this method, and after the hollow grinding, I use a medium India. At this point, sometimes I use an old #### stone and then strop. Sometimes I use my translucent Arkansas stone and then strop. Sometimes I resort to the granite plate I have that has 1200, 2000 and 2500 grit Sc attached and then strop.
Sometimes we all complicate the obvious, thinking that if a little is good, then a lot is better! With sharpening, I believe you can quickly do more harm than good by being overzealous in the pursuit of sharp. I have more than my share of jigs, but I rarely use them: it is quicker to hollow grind and hone without the aid of the jig. The question becomes for many of us: do we want to work wood or is our hobby (because no professional could afford the time) sharpening?
"How do you guys compare the older high end to the better ones of today like Hirsch, Two Cherries and Lie Nielsen?"
I don't think much of new chisels. The patterns aren't great, the handles usually stink and they rarely are offered in the right sizes. Modern chisel makers like to brag about their steel, but I think its like the emperor's new clothes. I'm not impressed by what I've used. The alloys they choose are hard to sharpen and the drop forging they do results in a poor quality edge in my opinion. Hand forging causes steel to recrystalize into smaller grains. Smaller grains take edges better. No wonder so many woodworkers prefer Japanese chisels. I just think its a shame no american or european company has challenged them. The process used by Japanese smiths is no different than that used by English cutlers in Sheffield 200 years ago. I'd like to see new english pattered, laminated chisels.
Adam
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