Dovetail chisels DIY (skewed, fishtail and left, right dovetail versions) blog #3: *Honing the chisel blades to new shapes *

Honing the chisel blades to new shapes
no cut, no pain

Intro:
This first part will be how to make the new bevels, and hone the blades.

Where we ended last, with the old chisels and five brand new home made handles.

One of the old blades, as you can see some of them needed a helping hand…

With a marker I draw my layout on the blade, this one for the fish tail.

Time for that Dremmel tool to get running again. I use this because they are quite fast, and do not produce too much heat (relatively).

I said relatively much heat, since I was nervous to lose the hardening of the steel, I dipped in water all the time, I held my hand on the iron, and when it was too hot to hold I dipped it (app. on million billion times I think…).

Almost done!

The edges after the Dremmel tool, were quite rough.

But a quick tour on the stone, and it was fine.

So time to run that water grinder, and my finger…

When you hold your finger long enough on the side of this you start to bleed, and when the edge of the chisel comes to life you should not touch it – I tried both, learning by doing, again and again (no cut, no pain)!

Separate the blades from the old handles (my chisels were forged tang models).
I used two methods; to saw it on the band saw, this might destroy the saw blade, so I stopped after the first.

Then I simply put the handles into my metal vice, and tighten it until it crushed the handle, this was quite effective, and I was able to take out the tangs, I even managed to save the brass ferrules for other projects (I love recycle).

Here we are; blade ready for next step, after a little cleanup of the tang.

Here the marking up for one of the skewed chisels.

And then Tour De Dremmel.

Back to the water grinder, now in skewed angel.

STUPIDITY
Ok, I admit to be so lazy I can do really stupid things…

This was an attempt to let the machine do the work for me since I have troubles with my arms, and cant to well do repetitive moves (due to neck operation).
So I build this crazy setup to let the grinder run without my help!
It did not work at all, not enough pressure.

But I did not give up…
So an elastic band and the machine could work alone while I was smoking my pipe.

Just one more for the laughs.

Back to reality MaFe!!!

Free handing the new low beveled sides of the dovetail chisels.

Here a good part of the way.
It takes quite some time, so I would recommend to find some beveled to start with, but it was possible.

Finally all the blades ready, it was a big work, and took several hours in total, but I have no doubt they will be worth the trouble for many years to come.

Here a update on the fishtail chisel, I grinded the sides also, so it can clean up the bottom of the dovetails, and get into all the little places.

Same.

I’ll split the blog up here, so it does not become too long for a ISDN connection…

Press here for part four.

Hope this winged dovetail tour can be to inspiration,

Best thoughts,
MaFe

-- Mad F, the fanatical rhykenologist and vintage architect. Democraticwoodworking.