Thread: Titan chisels

As a lad (and don't you hate a post that starts like that ....), I used to help my grandfather "releather" his chisels. We would sharpen an appropriate piece (or pieces) of steel pipe, punch the leather rings on the end grain of a piece of of hardwood, thread the washers onto a bolt, do up the nut, put the bolt, nut and washers in the drill press and machine the outer edge of the washers with file and sandpaper. It used to take about 20 minutes to do half a dozen chisels. If he was doing a a job at a "posh" house next week, he would put a bit of brown boot polish on the outside edge of the washers, I wish I still had the chisels ...
Fletty

Originally Posted by Evan Pavlidis

G'day Kevin,

Yes, the handles need to be removed to replace the leather washers by holding the blade near the cutting edge and then lightly tapping the top end of the handle on your work bench until it becomes loose. This may take some time but it works. I place a thick piece of rubber on the work bench and tapped the chisel on it to prevent damage to the handle, or you can place a softer timber than the handle like pine on your bench if you don't have rubber. You need to turn the chisel and tap it on its opposite sides for it to loosen.
Do not use any instrument to hit the handle off the blade.

Hope this helps,

Evan

Hi Evan,
I did as you suggested today and safely removed the wood handle from a Titan chisel. I knocked it repeatedly for about ten minutes. As the handle came away from the tang, two thin wedges about the size of toothpicks dropped out. Obviously someone had removed the handle before.

Thanks again for your advice Evan.

. . . KevinB

To make a one-off wad punch I found it was easy to take a piece of metal tubing and chamfer the edge sharp on a belt sander. I cut over fifty leather washers before I had to resharpen it. Although I had to poke 'em out of the tube periodically with a stick.

Originally Posted by KevinB

Hi Evan,
I did as you suggested today and safely removed the wood handle from a Titan chisel. I knocked it repeatedly for about ten minutes. As the handle came away from the tang, two thin wedges about the size of toothpicks dropped out. Obviously someone had removed the handle before.

Thanks again for your advice Evan.

. . . KevinB

Well done Kevin; as far as the thin wedges are concerned, I'd say the hole in the handle was too large for the tang and they were used to pack the hole for a tight fit. You can either make a new handle or use the wedges by taping them on the tang to use the same handle.
How did go with the leather washers?

Cheers, Evan