Show Off Your Chisels

[Scribbly Gum]

One way to improve those blue handles was to slightly flatten the rounded top.
The hard plastic is very long wearing but the slight rounding on the striking surface sometimes deflects a blow that is a little off centre. The hammer usually then impacts with some part of your hand.
I still have some morticing chisels and one or two of my beaters in this Marples Blue line. They are very good chisels. Much under-rated and usually cheap to pick up second hand.
You are right - the older ones are better steel.
Cheers
SG

[IanW]

............Anyone had a go at rehandling these? It would be nice to have decent wooden handles on them. How do the plastic handles come off?

Yes Stu., done several. It wasn't difficult to get the plastic off - I gripped the blade in a metal vise & bashed the handle off with a hammer & a bit of hardwood as a 'punch' - a brass punch would probably be better, but a chunk of wood is usually close at hand!

The ones I did varied a bit wrt the tangs, but most had a stubby, fat tang, straight off the drop forge. It means you need a generous sized hole for it in the handle, or you risk major splitting when driving it home. Otherwise, there is nothing special about re-handling them.

I agree with you - plastic handles neither look nor feel right to me, either. I hope you get a good chisel or two out of the batch. I have a couple that are excellent chisels, and a few that are only fit to open paint cans. My 1 1/4" was a xmas present from someone who wouldn't know a screwdriver from a chisel, but it's a beauty I would never part with. If they could get some so good, why couldn't they have made them ALL that way??

Cheers,

[dynoforce]

Anyone had a go at rehandling these? It would be nice to have decent wooden handles on them. How do the plastic handles come off?

G'day mate,

Check this one out.

Turn a Cheap Set of Bench Chisels Into a Quality Set you Can Be Proud of. :John Shortell, Carved Eagles, Wood Art

Cheers

Gunn

[jimbur]

G'day mate,Check this one out.
Turn a Cheap Set of Bench Chisels Into a Quality Set you Can Be Proud of. :John Shortell, Carved Eagles, Wood Art
Cheers Gunn

I reckon they look clunky with ferrules, not much better than the original handles.
I have a set of the blue chip and have used them for about 40 years. The only change I made to the handles was to sand off a proud join in the plastic at the top.
They've been used for everything from chopping mortices on. I have only ever hit them with a mallet (red gum head). The early ones didn't seem as gaudy as the irwins and eventually they do tend to look less obtrusive.
They are also harder to lose - like the red plastic handled Titans.
Cheers,
JIm

[NZStu]

I reckon they look clunky with ferrules, not much better than the original handles.
I have a set of the blue chip and have used them for about 40 years. The only change I made to the handles was to sand off a proud join in the plastic at the top.
They've been used for everything from chopping mortices on. I have only ever hit them with a mallet (red gum head). The early ones didn't seem as gaudy as the irwins and eventually they do tend to look less obtrusive.
They are also harder to lose - like the red plastic handled Titans.
Cheers,
JIm

You're right actually - the ones in the link do look quite clunky with those ferrules. A shorter (possibly tapered) ferrule might work though. Then again, by the time I actually get around to embarking on a rehanding project I'll probably have got used to the blue handles anyway...

[IanW]

I reckon they look clunky with ferrules, not much better than the original handles.
JIm

Well, I have to agree that it's hard to match the ferrules to the taper of the bolster, especially as they seem to have varied in diameter quite a bit over the years. I made up this set of butt chisels from various finds picked up here & there - some are Stanleys & some Marples - mostly old & well-worn as found. Looking at them critically in the pic, I admit they do look a bit wonky, but I wanted stubby tops that were a cross between striking & palm handles, because I usually push & rarely wallop them. P'raps narrower ferrules would have worked better, especially if I could find ones that matched the bolsters.....


The 1 1/2" has an interesting life story - it's the chisel that almost never was. I got it for 6 or 8 dollars, as I recall ('twas quite a while ago!) because at the time we were doing a major renno that involved stripping zillions of ceramic tiles. There were square metres of the ugliest tiles you ever saw, in bathrooms & laundry and kitchen and just about any other surface that was vaguly flat & standing still. After I had finished with it, the back was scratched and duffed over for about 5 or 6mm back from the edge, so I gave it to my then 10 yr old son for his toolbox, after a very rough re-grind. One day, I needed to do a job where there was a danger of hitting some hardware, so I retrieved it & put a working edge on it. It turned out to be an excellent bit of metal, & since said heir wasn't taking care of it at all, I decided to bring it back into the fold. After a cleanup & a new Gidgee handle, it became the start of my butt-chisel collection. Don't use them a heck of a lot, but they have certainly been handy on quite a few occasions where regular chisels just wouldn't fit.....

Cheers,

[jimbur]

Ian. I think all tools look better once they've had a bit of sweat on them
Talking of rough chisels or rather chisels for rough work, I remember a plumber had come to the builder's suppliers to fix up some piping. This is about 45 years plus ago. He had a strange chisel which I seem to remember was marples. It was completely steel, one piece handle and all. He reckoned it was specially made for plumbers and electricians who had to chop through floorboards etc and weren't renowned for care with striking tools!
Never seen one since. Has anyone else?
Cheers,
Jim

[jimbur]

ps maybe shorter steel or brass ferrules would look better but then I've never been keen on copper for ferrules.

[IanW]

Ian. I think all tools look better once they've had a bit of sweat on them
Talking of rough chisels or rather chisels for rough work, I remember a plumber had come to the builder's suppliers to fix up some piping. This is about 45 years plus ago. He had a strange chisel which I seem to remember was marples. It was completely steel, one piece handle and all. He reckoned it was specially made for plumbers and electricians who had to chop through floorboards etc and weren't renowned for care with striking tools!
Never seen one since. Has anyone else?
Cheers,
Jim

Yep, I've come across them made by a couple of different manufacturers, so probably quite a few made them in the past. If you want some, I happened to notice Stu at the Tool Exchange has a set for sale...

Chisels

lot #5138

No affiliation, etc., just happend to notice them this morning when having a browse.
cheers,

[jimbur]

Yep, I've come across them made by a couple of different manufacturers, so probably quite a few made them in the past. If you want some, I happened to notice Stu at the Tool Exchange has a set for sale...

Chisels

lot #5138

No affiliation, etc., just happend to notice them this morning when having a browse.
cheers,

I'll stick to using a wooden mallet thanks. and thanks for the info Ian

[derekcohen]

G'day mate,

Check this one out.

Turn a Cheap Set of Bench Chisels Into a Quality Set you Can Be Proud of. :John Shortell, Carved Eagles, Wood Art

Cheers

Gunn

Hi Gunn

That's a coincidence - I have just rehandled a Stanley equivalent of one of these chisels - one of the black-handled Stanleys. Decent steel but horrible handle. I thought it would be a nice gift for woodworker friend.

The handle is easy to knock off, just as Ian suggested. The chisel has a tang exactly as shown in the link. I ground down the shoulders of the blade so it can be used for dovetails, turned a handle (note - to fit it against the square end of the chiselyou should add a slight chamfer to the hole end), re-hardened the steel, and then epoxied the whole thing together. No ferrule as the tang is long and there is a lot of support around it.

Photos courtesy of my iPhone.

Jarrah handle ..



Close up of the blade (about 3/8" wide) ...



For those interested, I did post an article before on grinding the blade and turning a socketed handle. http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMad...ailchisel.html

Regards from Perth

Derek

[IanW]

Pretty neat Derek - you could almost pass it off as a socket chisel!


I might try that approach myself - if I'm careful & use some epoxy to bed the tang in well, it should be more than enough to stand up to the sort of use I give my butt set.
Cheers,

[Blue-deviled]

Anyone had a go at rehandling these? It would be nice to have decent wooden handles on them. How do the plastic handles come off?

I had one come off when it was stuck (and struck several times) between some seasoned oak, and my heaviest mallet!

[jimbur]

It's one thing to make a cheap set of chisels look good but if you go for the modern crap you'll probably end up with a good looking set of cheap chisels that won't hold an edge. Still they will probably sell well on ebay
When Marples first brought out the blue chip pattern they were still using the "good to the last inch" slogan. You could see where each chisel had been hardness tested so there was no need for retempering. Good to the last inch really did mean that - I've seen Marples chisels shorter than that being used for fine cabinet work.
Cheers,
Jim

[dynoforce]

Thanks for sharing Derek & IanW. The handles look very good.

I have a few Marples and Stanleys that I would like to rehandle but I am no turner, so I lack the equipment and skills for such an endeavour.

However, I do enjoy the passion and craftsmanship put into them.

Cheers

Gunn