Thread: Making chisel handles without a lathe

I make file handles from odd offcuts of both softwoods and hardwoods. For these I prefer to use just a spokeshave.
You can never get perfectly concentrically round but very close very easily. And very quickly too. You'll want to use quite straight-grained hardwood though.

This video shows a method with a block plane:

I made lots of round handled things before I got a lathe.

These are made from WA redgum using a spokeshave
Tools2.jpg

Thanks guys! Looks like I've got some future projects in hand.

BobL, your handles look great! I'm definitely inspired now.

Azahan

Hi all,

My father purchased these bench chisels 20 - 25 years ago.
They have never been used and are 220mm long.

Martin.IMG_20220107_110414.jpgIMG_20220107_110523.jpg

Oh, drool!

I think you just have to pick what you want to make and make something and then work from there to make better.

AS far as the japanese chisels go, they are the epitome of machine made (if you get away from american retailers and go to japanese retailers, you can buy the handles and hoops separately, and they're inexpensive, just duplicator lathe or CNC lathe stuff made in volume.

Your go-to if you want to make handles by hand is to do it in two steps (you can use a dowel if you want).

drill the handles free hand, slowly turning the handle in your hand as you drill so that the hole stays relatively centered (could also draw two lines on the handle blanks and just go back and forth looking at the drill bit vs. those lines drilling slowly. This isn't that slow, it'll take about a minute total at once).

Then do most of the bulk work on the handle and affix it to the tool and do the finish work trimming with the handle on the tool (removing material until you can turn the tool looking from either end and not see wobble).

Create your handle shape (if you want to end close to round) with flats - 8 is fine, and then work the corners of the flats off to get close to round and sand or scrape the remainder off).

https://i.imgur.com/RWdN6ri.jpg

This handles are freehand drilled with the method I mentioned above, but I've done enough of them that despite some of the wood being a bear to drill, I finish the handles first and then drill them freehand after they're done. I have only had to remake 1 out of about 100.

If you're making a tang chisel handle and you aren't in love with getting a perfect fit, drill the handle a bit large and then just fill the socket with epoxy, seat the chisel in something that's holding it straight and let it dry.

There are many ways to peel this orange, Azahan. You can make a simple lathe using a drill as the "headstock" and a nail as a dead centre. I've seen amazingly good turning done on such crude gear.

But you don't have to have a lathe to make quite elegant handles if you have the time & patience. The difficult part for the less-experienced is getting a concentric & co-axial hole - it's not the end of the earth if it's slightly off-centre, but a handle you want to strike is really off-putting when it's not in line with the blade. However, it can be done by methods such as DW describes, I do much the same to extend or enlarge a small hole partly pre-drilled on the lathe. Just let the handle turn very slowly in your hand as you drill. Sometimes the bit hits a soft spot or something & decides to go off-track, but usually it works well.

You can round a square blank pretty well using a v-block & a plane or spokeshave, but if you make a simple jig using a nail each end for centres, you can rasp/sand a handle to a very convincing round shape. (Years & years ago there was an article in a FWW about a bloke who used a similar set-up to "turn" quite elaborate table legs - if you happen to have access to their archives, his name was "Yorgy", which has stuck in my mind for what must be close to 40 years!)

Make the handle blank long enough to rotate it with your free hand as you rasp away - shapes like DW's parers above are quite easy to do by this method. And while they may not be the most fancy shape, I think they look very elegant in a nice wood, & it's a very comfy & practical shape for parers, imo. I used a slightly fatter & shorter version on these butt chisel handles, which are lathe-turned, but I've made similar before I had a lathe: Butt chisels.jpg

A slightly more complex, but still easy shape & comfortable to use, it's my favoured shape for bench chisels. These are my freshly re-handled LN set, I didn't like the bland Hornbeam things they came with so I gave them each a different & more interesting local wood: LNs rehandled.jpg

The "London pattern" shape would be a bit more taxing without a lathe, but still do-able, I reckon: 2 Crows ash handle.jpg

While they look very interesting & don't roll off benches, I don't find this shape of handle so comfy to use, but plenty of other people do...

And a tip from a very long-time handle-maker - select thoroughly dry wood & fit your ferrules (& hoops if using one) as tightly as you can - there are few things as annoying as loose ferrules.....

Cheers,
Ian

I fought with the idea of more comfortable handles than the ones above, but I'll give you a sample of the comments I've heard from people (after making about half a dozen different types of handles)...

"...getting the handles on your chisels and gripping one out of the box was matched only by the first time I grasped a breast..."

(I don't think they're that good, but I think they're as good as they can practically be).

..." To put it into service I have been paring with the 5/16" chisel you made for me to use dovetail chopping. It has to be the perfect paring chisel. Everything about the ergonomics is perfect for paring. "

(this is just an english style bench chisel with the same type of handle (a little less long) and a chisel bit only about 5.25" long, so around 10.5-11" long total (experienced users will generally migrate toward a chisel that's more weight near the base of the handle, and since the handles aren't heavy, that means longer and the chisel itself is more delicate.

The bits on those parers to the bolster are much long. I think they are close to perfect.


Here's why i fought with the idea on the handles - they're boring looking.

When the chisels have bolsters and bevels, then you want something that sort of has some visual crispness.

I just don't like the way any of those feel compared to variations of what marples called "the carving pattern" and that handle style was dominant in english chisels - not universally, but close. All of these handles (not mine) were turned on duplicating lathes more or less, so what's complicated for us to do by hand isn't complicated for the handle styles, and something like london pattern is far more of a mechanized lathe type of thing than it is a freehand turned thing because the stock has to go in a fixture where the sides are identically made and then the fixture has to hold the chisels perfectly centered, or the turning will literally not be the same distance from the end of the handle (ask me how I know this).

So, this wouldn't be that difficult for us to do by hand, it just takes more careful work, but I don't like the way they feel.

And I was talking to George wilson (pardon because I"ve gone way deep on the whole chisel thing in general, experimenting with steels and hardening and tempering processes until I managed to come up with something that's harder than O1, sharpens about the same, and twice as tough) - and I said something to George about handle patterns and he mentioned making london pattern handles on a mill and metal lathe (which can do the indexing operations mentioned above...

...he said the same thing - what he likes is what's boring and it's a shame because it looks boring. But sooner or later, you start to forget how boring it is (I have to some extent) and looking at it reminds you of a feel. You can experiment then with surface finishes that are quick on the lathe (this is hand sanding (but handle on the lathe) thin CA into pores on gombeira and then literally about 3 drops of shellac.

https://i.imgur.com/K8uvxlW.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Iltz4CI.jpg

It looks more polished than the rosewood handles on the parers, but i have to be honest - it feels a little like a bowling ball because there's nothing to break the surface smoothness on it. The finish is still shellac - CA only exists in the pores, so it will be easy to refresh or repair.....

..............

OK, back to the OP - now that we've established these patterns, I think you can start with styles like these and then work from there, as they aren't made on a lathe at all. They're made on a belt sander and then coarse and fine filed to finish.
https://i.imgur.com/BkQQDFZ.jpg

And if you want, you can make them fatter and make them a pillow shape more like the marples proportions and then remove facets until it's round. by the time you take the facets out of octagonal shapes by scraping, filing or planing (or sanding) off the line between the facets, you have something that's very close to round and it doesn't take much more).

(these apple handles are different shapes on purpose to try them out - I hate to say it again, the most even octagonal handles are the most comfortable of the group)

An afterthought: I watched a couple of videos including the one dubrosa linked to above, of blokes making lathe-less handles. I have to say, I wince when I see people using metalwork vises for woodwork - perhaps it's just that I was roared at as a kid if my elders caught me using a metal vise for sawing or planing. We had to use a planing stop on the bench top or a bench-hook (for sawing).

Be that as it may, a simple vee-jig makes the job of forming an octagonal or round handle a much quicker & easier affair; you just flip the blank between strokes when each corner is done, no undoing & resetting in the vise. This one is held by my tail-vise with a (wooden!) dog as the stop, but you could hold the jig in a metal vise & it would be a bit safer & more convenient than planing close to metal jaws... 1 Preparing handle blanks.jpg

Cheers,

This idea of using a vise in general to make an octagonal or facet isn't really needed. Make a square handle first - mark it if you need to. Put a plane upside down in a vise and literally push it by hand over the plane and get a feel for what it feels like to do it.

If you have a power belt sander, even a crappy one, they are great at this (just put a vacuum under them somewhere or you will be glazed with dust and your hair will make it look like you were stuck in an attic.

The joy of this is that it's a skill builder - much in making tools is. These are hand tools and you can really work on your training your hands and eyes - it accumulates and is usable on other tasks - it's all part of the same skill set and the more you use it (the freehand bits) the more you'll be able to do everything better.

Originally Posted by D.W.

I fought with the idea of more comfortable handles than the ones above....

......... Here's why i fought with the idea on the handles - they're boring looking.....

Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, to me the shape you used could be described as "understated elegance", and not at all boring - simplicity has its own appeal. But I think what's more important is, (as I said) I do find this a very comfy shape for a paring chisel handle. My own parers are a similar shape but have a shallow 'thumb groove', only because as a long-time spindle-turner for furniture parts etc, I find it hard to resist adding some sort of decoration to any turning, unless I'm making a dowel: 4 Parers.jpg

... but if I were to do them again, I'd opt for the shape you used - not very challenging for a moderately competent turner, perhaps, but well-shaped, in a nice, dark wood & I reckon they look quite spiffy....

Cheers,

I made many of that style early on - and had a lot of socket chisels at the time. In my head was "there has to be somewhere for your thumb to go".

I didn't think that hard about the marples carvers later (After switching to the english style so as to grip by the handle and point easier) - I just preferred them and couldn't deny it. The function is part of the reason they aren't as ugly to me now, but you are right, they are almost nothing to turn. Put a cylinder in the lathe, flip a skew upside down and literally run it center to end, then switch hands with the skew and go the other direction.

For a handle gripper, two things are important assuming you'll put your hand out and like you're going to grip a lever. If you put a handle that's straight in your hands (like equal diameter), it will require some grip. If you put a socket chisel in your hand, you'll end up with the socket in the bottom of your hand and the handle up from there - you won't have to squeeze the handle to keep it from falling. The same with the carver's style - you'll notice that he shape is a lot like a socket without the bottom part of the socket, but the handles you made will be comfortable because they support the shape of your hand holding the chisel without having to squeeze while working.

The london pattern handles actually have that shape. Here's a copy of one of the round versions..

https://i.imgur.com/FYJH1vn.jpg

- if you hold it, it's actually the same thing with different details (the little dip in the handle is the lower diameter part. As long as a handle has that element (the japanese handles assume you'll also have your hand down below the handle on the socket, otherwise you'll smash the web of your hand with the hammer).

(and here's a set of rehandled HF chisels that are actually serviceable tools - the wood cost more than the chisels did by a fair bit).

https://i.imgur.com/w55V1g7.jpg

More in london plane tree:
https://i.imgur.com/MCrsh7p.jpg

All the custom handles you guys have made look absolutely beautiful. But I guess the most important thing is that they feel comfortable & customised to your individual preferences & usage. That's something that hopefully will come to me as I fall deeper into this hand tool madness

Originally Posted by D.W.

OK, back to the OP - now that we've established these patterns, I think you can start with styles like these and then work from there, as they aren't made on a lathe at all. They're made on a belt sander and then coarse and fine filed to finish.
https://i.imgur.com/BkQQDFZ.jpg

And if you want, you can make them fatter and make them a pillow shape more like the marples proportions and then remove facets until it's round. by the time you take the facets out of octagonal shapes by scraping, filing or planing (or sanding) off the line between the facets, you have something that's very close to round and it doesn't take much more).

(these apple handles are different shapes on purpose to try them out - I hate to say it again, the most even octagonal handles are the most comfortable of the group)

Ok now I'm in love with this octagonal handle! There's a sense of utilitarian elegance to it, and doable with the minimal tools that I have. If I find that I don't like the feel, I can pare down the edges later.

Ian, are there more photos of the v-block you're talking about?

Azahan

Originally Posted by mdrose

....Ian, are there more photos of the v-block you're talking about? ...

No, that's the only pic I have Azahan, but I can take some more tomorrow if you wish. It's just a square block, a bit longer than a handle blank, with a "V" groove along the length. You could hand-saw the groove, it doesn't have to be precise, but it's easier to reference your progress if it's reasonably accurate. I just crank the tablesaw over to 45, line it up & centre the cuts so they make a groove about 25mm wide at the surface & vrrsst, vrrsst, it's ready to use. I seem to always have to make a new one when I need it 'cos I can never remember where I put the last one (most likely in te kindling wood box!)...

P'raps the most important step is to just get started & make a few handles. You'll figure out what's comfortable & what's not soon enough. My tastes in handles have changed considerably over the last 40 years, and I've replaced a few I decided I could no longer live with. I accumulate handle-sized bits of suitable wood by the boxful as offcuts from various projects & making a batch of handles is an easy way to spend a rainy afternoon when you don't want to do anything serious...

Ian