Metric Socket Chisels

**IanW** · 23rd March 2015, 10:12 AM

I agree with Ian, Luke. The way I was taught, actual sizes of chisels are largely irrelevant for most hand work. You work to the sizes you have rather than the other way round. Chisels were made to 'nominal' sizes only, and precise sizing is largely a modern take. If you take a batch of old "3/8" chisels you'll find they vary by at least plus or minus a mm, so there's a good chance you'd get one that is bang on 10mm if you checked enough of them. However, if you have a penchant for 10mm socket spaces, I suggest a 3/8 chisel, would be quite ok for the task, you aren't going to miss the 0.5mm or less either side, in most woods I know. I rarely use regular dovetail spacings, & working out exact intervals would take far too long, so I lay out all my dovetails by eye. That means there is often a 0.5 to 1mm variation in my spacings, in any case, so I seldom find that any chisel fits any space, exactly. If you rough out the waste, & leave a fraction in front of the line, it's not too hard to keep the chisel straight and square on the finishing cuts, even though you may have to make more than one cut to clean out the socket. It takes a little practice to become quick & efficient at it, but it's not all that difficult.

Mortising is definitely best done by setting the gauge to whatever chisel you plan to use, because of the aforesaid variation in nominal sizes. A mortise that is a mm oversize is not tolerable! The exception is if you are using a mix of power methods and hand methods - you might need to find chisels that match the router bits or hollow chisels you want to use.

Cheers,

**Luke Maddux** · 23rd March 2015, 01:32 PM

I suppose that makes sense. I guess maybe I was unclear but the problem arises more with positioning the mortise than with sizing it to an appropriate chisel.

Example: I want to put a mortise in a 22mm board. I use a 10mm chisel and that allows me to split the difference exactly and precisely by setting the mortise width to 10mm and making it 6mm from an edge.

That said... I guess, at the end of the day, that doesn't usually matter, and the spacing from one edge is more important that precision equidistance from both edges. Fair call.

**IanW** · 23rd March 2015, 07:56 PM

Originally Posted by Luke Maddux

.... I guess, at the end of the day, that doesn't usually matter, and the spacing from one edge is more important that precision equidistance from both edges. Fair call.

Luke, there is a rule of thumb that a mortice should be 1/3rd of the width of the pieces being joined, & it's often convenient to centre the mortise, but no, it's not mandatory. There are many good reasons why you might want to vary the cheek depths of a mortise, and as long as there's enough meat left for structural purposes, your only concern is keeping track of the varied tenons, & don't reverse them or get them mixed up. DAMHIKT!

In the good old days, when things were bad (like no powered thicknessers

), & all stock had to be prepared by potato power, there were bound to be small variations from piece to piece. Old craftsmen were consequently very meticulous about always marking faces & edges on every board, & laying out from these. As long as you lay out joints logically, face edges should always match, & be coplanar & square. The opposite side may or may not match perfectly, & this is where you normally make adjustments/plane off excess, etc., leaving the face edges perfectly square & straight, and a reference point for subsequent laying out, etc....

Cheers,

**Twisted Tenon** · 24th March 2015, 06:03 PM

Bergs make a socket chisel too.

TT

**malb** · 24th March 2015, 08:36 PM

Pfiel make two families of chisel using Scandinavian steel in true metric sizes. The Carpenter series are tanged, but the Cabinetmakers series are socket chisels. I have a full set of the chippies ones that I bought in from the US years ago, only to discover the cabinet makers ones were released a couple of months later. Carbatec have both families in their catalogue as individuals or sets.

**IanW** · 24th March 2015, 09:11 PM

Originally Posted by malb

Pfiel make two families of chisel using Scandinavian steel in true metric sizes. The Carpenter series are tanged, but the Cabinetmakers series are socket chisels. ......

I think you'll find both carpenters & cabinetmakers sets are tanged, malb. I just took a look at the pics in the catalogue, & I think you'll find that what looks like a socket on the cabinetmaker chisels is a solid taper at the end of the blade. The clue is the ferrule between the 'socket' & the handle - you don't need a ferrule on a socket chisel.....

Cheers,

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