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Thread: Old japanese chisel
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21st June 2012, 03:04 PM #1
Old japanese chisel
I am an amateur woodworking from Brazil and this is my first post here.
I see that here has many post about japanese hand tools and I have a few question about japanese chisels. In Brazil is almost impossible get japanese tools, the only way is importing them. I have some Gyokucho saws, ryobas that a friend brought for me from Italy and I love use them.
Recently I bought three used japanese chisels: 6, 8 and 12 mm. They are old and the blades were full of rust, with deep spots of rust in the back.
First I tried to flattening the back, but because there are deep rust spots I had to remove a lot of metal from the back. Since I am removing more and more metal, the holow back almost disappeared and I am flattening now more hard steel, and wow , the steel is very hard. I could not leave the back flat, even working in a #250 coarse waterstone.
Then I thought that if the hollow back make its easier to flattening, I could remake the hollow back, to facilitate flattening the back. Using a rotary tool (like a dremel) and small stones I remake the holow back, working alternatly on the waterstone and with the rotary tool until I can get the result on the picture.
It is not perfect, but seems like a orignal hollow back, and its much easier to flattening and polish the back now.
I stablished the bevel (about 30°) on a coarse waterstone and then hand sharp progressively in the #1000, #4000 and #8000 Norton waterstones. Two of the chisels are ok, they can take an edge so sharp that i never see anything like that.
But one of the chisels (the 8mm), although I sharp and resharp it, it can't hold an edge. It is apparently sharp, i can feel in my finger, but in the first stroke in the wood the edge bends.
When I sharp/polish on the #8000 the line between the two layers is almost invisible, but on the two good chisels I can still se the line. However on the chisel that dont hold an edge i cant see the steel layer.
Is possible that in the process of flattening the back I make a mistake and have removed all the hard steel layer? That would be good answer for the problem of the chisel dont hold an edge. Your opinions are very welcome.
Thanks! And sorry for my poor english.
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21st June 2012, 04:35 PM #2
Youre english is fine mate.
A lot better than our portugese
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21st June 2012, 06:48 PM #3Boucher de Bois
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That does indeed sound like what's happened
Not really a lot you can do about that I'm afraid, but if you had to remove that much material to get past all of the pitting/flatten it, it was a lost cause anyway.
Just consider it an excuse to vist Tools from Japan, Japanese woodworking tools direct from Japan.
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22nd June 2012, 02:24 AM #4Senior Member
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22nd June 2012, 02:34 AM #5Senior Member
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Your English is just fine, Tomazelli -- as Watson said.
And you probably did, as you speculated, remove the lower layer of steel on the 8mm by working too hard to flatten the back. I don't believe there's any fix for that, sorry to say. But you've still got two well-restored chisels.
Search these posts for a process called ura-dashi, which will show you how to maintain the hollow on the back of the blade without removing steel. (I'm sure someone will be along any moment with links.) Here's one link, anyway: https://www.woodworkforums.com/f111/u...ng-out-134611/
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22nd June 2012, 10:50 AM #6Senior Member
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Tomazelli,
Your English is not just ok, it's excellent!
That's a great job you have done on the back of the chisel. I have thought of doing the same but haven't done it yet. I will now, after seeing your results.
Usually the hard steel extends up the sides of the chisel as well as across the cutting edge. If you have cut away all the hard steel across the cutting edge, there still may be hard steel on the edges of the chisel. You could check if the edges are hard to diagnose what has happened.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Gadge
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22nd June 2012, 01:50 PM #7GOLD MEMBER
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30 degrees is a good bevel. Is the 8mm chisel 30 degrees? If the edge bends/folds/crumples, the bevel may be less (20?)
Sometimes in old tools, there are so many rust pits that you cannot repair it. I have several large axe heads like that = just splitting wedges for logs now.
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22nd June 2012, 02:36 PM #8
I can read english very well, but to write I still need to write with a translator, to see if my grammar is correct rather than to translate. And well, write here is a good excuse to improve my english.
NZStu, I am seeing Tools from Japan and this is a torture for me. The import taxes in Brazil are very agressives, about 60%. I have a cousin who go constantly to China, maybe I can buy and ask to ship to my cousin in China. So I could avoid taxes.
Yojimbo, I dont remember the process of tapping out, even i had done it on a japanese plane blade, when I did a rehabilitation of an old plane to a friend. In my mind the process would be only for large blades, but it would be useful for these chisels, especially because the tip of the blades were rounded, in a convex shape. Tapping them out I would need to remove less metal.
Gadge, I remake the hollow because the blades are so hard that flatten them seemed to me an infinite labor on the waterstone, even on the #250 coarse. If you try this, make sure to dont remove all the hard layer like I did, maybe tapping out the tips (on the soft metal of course) to facilitate.
I will see if the hard steel is still on the edges of the 8 mm chisel. The problem is that it is difficult to see the line between these two steel on the chisels, I have an old plane blade where the division is easily seen, but on these chisels is difficult to see.
In any case I can send the chisel for a friend who is blacksmith, makes knifes, and ask him to weld forging a layer of hard steel. Would not be a japanese stell, but the chisel would be usable again.
Greetings,
Tomazelli
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29th October 2012, 07:49 AM #9Senior Member
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Hi and welcome to the forum....I just bought an old Slick off E-bay....waiting for a little work but generally its in good condition.
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