Thread: Turning a bench chisel handle

Hold it between centres.

Size and fit your tapered socket.

Slip the hoop over the drive or tail centre (whichever one it fits over), size the timber to fit hoop.

Leave enough length that you can trim the timber after you have fitted the hoop.

You can remove and refit the handle as many times as you like into the centres.

Ah, nice one. Hoop will just slip over the steb centre.

Cone end is too small for any of the drive spurs spur drives.

And it's sized to leave a bit of wood protrusion above the hoop so the thumping bends the fibres over and holds the hoop. Gospel acc to the darksiders

Cool. Muchos gracias

Ern, this approach may be of some interest.

Originally Posted by rsser

ah, nice one. Hoop will just slip over the steb centre.

Cone end is too small for any of the drive spurs spur drives.can be put at tail stock end.

and it's sized to leave a bit of wood protrusion above the hoop so the thumping bends the fibres over and holds the hoop. Gospel acc to the darksiders

Cool. Muchos gracias

OIC.

WW: persactly

Thanks for that link WW.

It's a nicely done web piece.

The shaft is an E.A. Berg so I'm following that handle shape.

I'm sure it doesn't need a hoop and it's just for a modicum of consistency.

The timber is what the arborist called Stringybark Willow. It's dense and finely figured. Lovely stuff.

As it happened I too left a smidgen for compression. If it happens the socket will seat very nicely. But with that timber it may not.

It would be lovely to have some boxwood for this work, and in fact birch root should not be that uncommon here but I've never seen it offered.

But those are just niceties; this should work fine as a user.

... was just thinking out loud. Dangerous when transferred to print!

Gotcha. (as in 'I understand'!)

Gunna takes some WIP pics Ern? Its looking good so far.

Had a squiz at WW site the other night. Must concur, it's a good'n.

The shaft is an E.A. Berg so I'm following that handle shape.

From memory the Berg tools have very good steel and will take a real fine edge. Well worth the effort.

Sure artme. Only one step to go though.

Hughie, yes they are a nice chisel. There's a set of four I'm restoring. The more complicated task is to shape the existing mauled handle on two to take new hoops. See Hand Tools.

Here ya go Artme.

The hoop would fit over the Steb centre but the pressure needed to compress its pin produced a small split in the cone end. Bit of CA and dust fixed that.

I found a 2 spur drive that would work with the pin height adjusted.

In the pic you see the hoop slipped over it, and while removing the waste I taped it close to the spindle.

I sized the tenon holding calipers in the left hand and the parting tool in the right. The caliper got a bit too close to the spurs twds the end so then it was stop and measure with the verniers.

Damn if it wasn't a loose fit since I'd mis-measured the ID Anyway, a bit more CA will hold it while the wood burrs over with mallet-ing.

Thanks Ern.

Glad you used the tape to hold the ferrule.

I would not have bothered putting the ferrule there, on the drive spur. Too many risks. You know the diameter - just turn to that size and slip the ferrule on later.

I would be tempted to turn a smidgen of a scruple oversize, heat the ferrule and let it shrink onto the handle. Works with wagon wheels, why not ferrules on chisel handles?

FWIW - always seem to take a thou too much off when trying to part or bedan a tenon down to size for a ferrule, etc. Have had more success with sanding down last thou or so.

.....

Artme, could be the way to go.

How does brass behave when you heat it up and drop it onto wood?

Neil, yeah, sometimes I get it wrong but usually with the other end can manage it.

Think another option if this is repeated would be to plan a sacrificial stub with a collar midway, at the headstock end. Shape the handle, size the stub to accept a loose fit on the hoop, remove piece and fit hoop btwn spur drive and collar, do the rest, then when ready to fit the hoop turn away the collar and bring hoop down for test fitting. Part off stub. Then there's no spur marks left on the top as well. Finnicky eh?

With tang-and-ferrule- chisels, I turn the handle from a blank that's longer than necessary (no drive prong marks). I size the ferrule seat with an adjustable wrench set to the ferrule's ID, slightly undercutting it with a skew chisel so the ferrule will effectively be 'dovetailed' in place. I shrink the business end of the handle as much as possible using a hot air gun for a few minutes. Next, I expand the ferrule (I prefer brass), again, with the hot air gun, place the ferrule on a level surface and belt the handle into it. A wet rag around the end of the handle cools the ferrule, shrinking it into place and expanding the wood fibres at the same time.