orraloon
19th January 2016, 03:22 PM
Hi,
It is not all that often I do dovetails. Twice in the last year so I have never got around to getting skew chisels. Anything that requires reaching into that hard to get at nooks end up being cut with the marking knife. Well on the last project I broke the handle off a marking knife. Hardware store cheap bit of c?@p. Tang was only about 10mm long and no ferrule. That made me decide that a couple of skew chisels were in order.
I was still mulling over the recent ''Making do with old tools'' thread so as usual turn the joint over looking for something to make them from. I had some very abused old chisels that had not been selected for refurbishing in the rust heap so i picked a berg and swearby, both 3/8''. Not pretty but good steel. In the rejects box was a stub of a 1/2'' chisel so I figured I may as well make a more solid marking knife too. One that can stand up to a workout as a chisel when required. Blade is Sheffield but could not make out the name. All that remained to be done a lot of grinding on the wet grinder to establish bevels (eyeballed so don't ask the angle) then flatten the backs on diamond plates then sharpen. Handle on marking knife is mulberry and one of the skews is wattle of some kind. Cant find anything that is a near match of the birch root that Berg uses. Anyhoo sometimes mild hoarding can be usefull.
Regards
John
It is not all that often I do dovetails. Twice in the last year so I have never got around to getting skew chisels. Anything that requires reaching into that hard to get at nooks end up being cut with the marking knife. Well on the last project I broke the handle off a marking knife. Hardware store cheap bit of c?@p. Tang was only about 10mm long and no ferrule. That made me decide that a couple of skew chisels were in order.
I was still mulling over the recent ''Making do with old tools'' thread so as usual turn the joint over looking for something to make them from. I had some very abused old chisels that had not been selected for refurbishing in the rust heap so i picked a berg and swearby, both 3/8''. Not pretty but good steel. In the rejects box was a stub of a 1/2'' chisel so I figured I may as well make a more solid marking knife too. One that can stand up to a workout as a chisel when required. Blade is Sheffield but could not make out the name. All that remained to be done a lot of grinding on the wet grinder to establish bevels (eyeballed so don't ask the angle) then flatten the backs on diamond plates then sharpen. Handle on marking knife is mulberry and one of the skews is wattle of some kind. Cant find anything that is a near match of the birch root that Berg uses. Anyhoo sometimes mild hoarding can be usefull.
Regards
John