Essential Toolkit 2: Chisels

When you start using hand tools, you’ll begin to develop a minor obsession with your chisels.

Or, ahem, at least I did.

There is something about the fact that the chisel is such a personal tool. When you use a chisel for paring work, the steel is literally millimetres from your fingertips. You notice all the minor nuances and qualities of the tool.

So it is best to get the right ones to begin with:

Bevel-edged Cabinetmaker’s Chisels.

There are important things to look out for:

Steel quality.
There are essentially two types of steel - O1 and A2. A2 is air-cooled. It will take a reasonably sharp edge that it will hold for a long time. What you want, though, is O1 steel. This is hammer-forged, oil-quenched, high carbon steel. It will take a razor-sharp edge that will blunt fairly quickly. Which is fine. Take your chisel to your work. Take off some fine shavings. After a little while, return to the strop. Shhup, shhip, shhhuuuup. A couple of quick passes and you’re good to go again.

Bevel edged
The two parallel sides of the chisel need to have a well-ground bevel, that disappears to practically nothing at the edge. This is to allow the chisel to get into the corners of fine dovetails and other fine joints. It also makes the chisel thinner and more comfortable to pinch between finger and thumb as you work it.

Many of us like to go vintage with our chisels, as these two requirements were standard fare in all the old Sheffield tools of 20th century. Many modern manufacturers are now producing chisels to a decent standard, so armed with this knowledge, have a look around and choose what looks best.

Sizes
Now that we know what features our chisels need, what sizes should we look for? The bare minimum, I would say, are five chisels:

1/4”, 3/8”, 1/2”, 5/8”, 3/4”
(In metric: 3mm, 6mm, 9mm, 12mm, 15mm, 18mm)

After this, you can fill in the gaps to get a whole set in 1/8” increments, up to 1”, and then add some special one-offs, such as fish-tail or skew chisels.

And…for furniture and light joinery work, this is all you’ll need. Like always, as you develop in your craft, you’ll add tools as you go. For heavier joinery, you’ll want to get some mortice chisels. For letter carving, again, you’ll need to buy specific tools. But these five chisels will do a lot of the work you need.

Setting-up your tools
You’ll need to lap the back of your chisels: 180 grit wet and dry laid on a flat surface. This will ensure they can do their job properly. After this, they may well have a razor sharp edge down the sides. Take this off with your 180 grit, rounding it over slightly. If you don’t, prepare yourself for some gentle lacerations across your fingers as you use these. Finally, some makers of old rounded the tops of the bevels so they had better clearence in their dovetails. But I’ve never seen the need.

Oh, and some sort of a chisel roll is nice.

Until next time,
Stay sharp friends,

~sh

Stephen Hickman
Studio Cabinetmaker