Can a regular hammer&chisel chisel be safely turned into an inside bowl scraper?

[Joshua Dinerstein]

Ok. So the other day I was at the local big bin store. Here it is called NPS and it is just a warehouse full of junk. Steel and other components are sold for pennies a pound. I got 30+ 1 1/4" nuts for making face plates and things for my mustard lathe as well as about 20 1" nuts for the HF one.

I also go a set of wood chisels. The kind you hit with a hammer/mallet and clean up holes with. I needed a smaller one for some work I was doing. Well it had this really wide 1.25" one in the set that I don't figure I will ever need. I was looking at it last night and I thought to myself, hey I bet I could make scraper out of that!

But before I turned into a weapon of mass destruction I thought I would ask on here. I have seen a few comments about files being too brittle and not a good idea. So it got me to wondering if this really was something I wanted to try. So I thought I would ask here. Any one tried it? Anyone been successful? Anyone have a clear/good reason not to try it?

Anyway you guys have been so helpful in the past that after a few quick searches on here not turning up much I thought I would just ask.

Thanks!
Joshua

[Jeff Nicol]

Joshua, Most chisels are some sort of hardened steel not sure if it is HSS but might be. I use a small chisel that I ground into a little skew and it works like a dream! For a scraper it would probably work fine, the only thing it lack is mass and thickess and a larger handle. I would give it a try but take your time regrinding it to the shape you want. Experiments are what gives us new things!

Be safe and have fun,

Jeff

[Ryan Baker]

I agree. It's hard to know the quality of metal in the bargin bin tools, but it would probably make a decent scraper if you give it a better handle. It's probably not HSS, so be careful not to blue it when grinding it down.

[Dale Miner]

Regarding the 1-1/4" nuts, make sure the thread in them is 8 threads per inch. The standard (NC) coarse thread for a 1-1/4" bolt is 7 threads per inch. 8 tpi is not a standard thread, although it is a pitch that is used in special applications.

8 tpi nuts are usually available at industrial hardware supply houses.

Later,
Dale M

[Rich Souchek]

Yes, the 1 1/4" chisel should make a good scraper. The steel is almost certainly a high carbon steel, which is good for us, but the steel can not be heated too hot while sharpening. Keep a can of water by the grinder and dip the steel tip in the water to pull the heat out while griding it.
Other than that, you should be good for go.
Rich s.

[Joshua Dinerstein]

Regarding the 1-1/4" nuts, make sure the thread in them is 8 threads per inch. The standard (NC) coarse thread for a 1-1/4" bolt is 7 threads per inch. 8 tpi is not a standard thread, although it is a pitch that is used in special applications.

8 tpi nuts are usually available at industrial hardware supply houses.

Hehehe. Yeah I ran into that one of the early purchases. So I took in a bolt known to be 1x8tpi when I got those and they are correct and thread onto my headstock beautifully.

I then did the same thing on the 1 1/4 x 8tpi nuts. This NPS place is kind of a "if it can fall off of a semi-truck and still be sellable in any fashion we will sell it" place. They are right down near the shipping docks her in Salt Lake City. They have wildly different stuff from day to day down there. Guess I just got really lucky that they had them and they were correct for what I needed...

Joshua

[Joshua Dinerstein]

Excellent. Thanks for the replies guys. I am going to try grinding it into what I want this weekend. Shouldn't be to hard to get the starting shape... I will post a pick or two when I am done.

Joshua