I needed some small detail chisels for a carving I was working on, and didn’t have the coin to drop on a handful of chisels. Like all quality tools, chisels are expensive, and all the good vintage ones go to deep pocketed collectors with damn good sniping programs. Anyway, I had an old garage spring laying around so I decided to make my own. I lit up the forge, pounded out the shapes, annealed, cold worked, hardened in oil, tempered to straw in oven, and quenched in water. After sharpening the first one and taking it for a test drive it seemed that they were worthy of a liitle more time, so I got out the mini lathe (an old electric drill and bicycle bottom-bracket setup) and made some handles out of scrap. All in all, it was a pretty good learning experience. They hold a fine edge and they look pretty good doin’ it.
Comments
I know it's not a hand tool but I'd like to hear a little more about the "mini-lathe"
I like everything about this.
Tooljunkie12, the mini-lathe is a pretty crude set up made from scrap plywood, a rip from a solid core door,some wing nuts, old hand drill, and a sealed cartridge bottom bracket. The rip from the solid core door acts as a base. On the left I built an armature that houses the drill. There is a threw slot in the center of the base which attaches the bottom bracket via wing nuts. I drill a hole in the center of a piece of wood, thread a small lag bolt with the head removed into the hole, chuck it into the drill, slide the bottom bracket over to act as a live center, and turn it on. If I can find a way to post pictures of it, I will. Our send me an e-mail address and I will forward pictures.
Log in or create an account to post a comment.
Sign up Log in