Thread: Paring Chisels - In House Versions

These are chisels that I shaped (hammering at low forging temperature and then as they cool), and then did initial shaping by grinding into a straight blank, and then hardened and tempered and finish ground and then finished further aesthetically by hand (some of the shaping initially at the tang is hand done - hard to do it with machines without having the right machines- which I don't).

The bolster is hammered on hot and then removed, flattened once it fits well and then hammered back on and heated to forge welding temperature with a cutting torch and forge welded on.

Nothing expensive is used in making these except a single belt grinder attachment on a grinder (The pair was about $700, so cheap by bench grinder standards, but not an every day spend). Well, I guess anvils are starting to get expensive, too, but these could be made without an anvil and without the forging.

Three of these were heated in the black can forge on the other thread with two propane torches (and a high class "soup can extension" on the front) and then the other two narrow ones were done in the stand up piece of exhaust pipe with refractory blanket in them. If you asked on a knife forum what to do with 26c3 for something like this where you wanted grain refinement, I think you'd be told that you should have them commercially treated.

Tiny bits of cosmetics to finish and then the tangs ground to a point and sharpened so they can ream their own handle holes. They're a gift to another toolmaker who will make the handles on his own (good!).

One is of the chisels, and one is showing them being tested - they're tested with a file handle since I have a lot of old ones banging around and they can be slipped on and off the tangs (a handy thing that old files all had different sized tangs, so a box full of old handles will have something that fits quickly). It would've been far easier to make these out of a modern air hardening steel rather than a modern water hardening steel (This steel is very similar to japanese white steel, so if you ever thought "ghee, it would be great to get japanese tools in western profiles". That's really what the point is here - in order to keep them from being brittle, they're fully hardened for a bulk of the length, but as you get nearer the handle I slipped them in the quench a little later so they're not fully hard up at the tang, and then around the bolster, they can bend with some force and not break (which is nice for getting the handles dead straight or adjusting the tang before that).

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