millwright mortise chisel questions.

[joel cervera]

Hello. Newb here..

I have been slowly putting together a basic set of mortise chisels and opting for the advice of Mr Smalser have thus purchased these three. The thinnest with light colored handle and the middle on in the attached images are witherby ( winsted edge tool works) 1/4 and 1/2 inch respectively. The thickest of the three is a 3/8 inch beast which has no hooped handle but is a massively thick chisel. purchased from our favorite auction site. Its a W.Greaves and is a very old chisel.

Of the three the 1/4 incher is most charachteristically an old millwright mortise chisel. The 1/2 seems to fall in line as well. But that 3/8 is an odd one. I wonder if it could have been intended for slightly different use originally??

also of these the 1/2 inch has a nice flat back running nearly the length of the whole blade. The 1/4 incher curves up slightly near the edge giving a slighlty crowned back and the 3/8 is crowned so bad I am having a hard time determining a good way to flatten it. You can see how bad it is in the picture . I slapped some 60 grit down on my granite surface plate and it laughed at me after 15 minutes of feverish lapping.

Howw do these chisels get such a convex back? and how flat should the back be on a mortise chisel ? Seems like pretty flat to me so as to give me a straight sided mortise? Ergo Does anyone know of a good way to hasten the flattening of such a heavy chisel.. I have a Baldor 6 inch high speed with norton cool white wheel on it. I have considered maybe using it but I am not so sure. Belt sander?? Anything else I should consider?

Thanks.

Joel.

[Mike Holbrook]

I ran a thread called Chisels I can go ahead and whack, below on this page, that discusses these kinds of chisels. Many chisels are heat treated and then sharpened such that the backs of the chisels are concave. Chisels with convex backs are limited to junky chisels and if you find a convex back on a good new chisel it may be grounds for returning it. The point is it is "normal" for chisels to have slightly concave backs. You do not need and may not want to grind this concave profile out of the back of most chisels. You can "flatten" the back of the chisel without grinding out the entire profile of the back. Leaving the back a little concave prevents you from ending up with a harder to flatten level or counter productive convex back.

[Chris Vandiver]

The 1/4" and the 3/8" chisels are actually firmer chisels and not mortise chisels. The 3/8" Greaves is a sash mortise chisel(socketed). The convex back is probably caused from repeated incorrect lapping of the back. You can still make it work, as a mortise chisel though. Just try and get a flat going back from the tip for an inch or so. After you have created the flat(land), as long as you can predictably remove the wire edge when sharpening(honing), you'll be okay. The only place you will really notice the curvature is when you reach the ends of a mortise. Because of the curvature, you'll have to tilt the chisel forward or back to create square ends in the depth of the mortise. All of your chisels look fine to me and they're certainly not junk. Some work is required but they'll be great.

By the way, does the Greaves have a bit on the blade(forge laminated cutting edge)? If it's really old, it should be a laminated blade.

[Mike Holbrook]

Joel I did not mean to imply anything about the chisels you have. I was just talking about general rules of thumb in original chisel construction. If you look at the back of most Japanese chisels you will see a relatively pronounced concave profile that is part of their design. As Chris mentions if your chisels actually have a side to side concave shape chances are someone messed them up as they usually are not made that way. My understanding of why many old chisels are curved front to back has to do with them being struck repeatedly against hard wood and then often used to pry wood out of joints like mortises.

This is one reason I am looking at chisels designed to be whacked vs just whacking away at my Ashley Isles and taking the chance of bending up the blades or cracking the handles of chisels I intend to use more for paring. Are Millwright chisels ones used by pattern makers or old furniture makers to pound out joints quickly? I am more familiar with the terms Timber Framing Chisel and Firmer Chisel. The Timber Framers are very large heavy chisels, sometimes called slicks I believe, that are/were used for work like post & beam framing joints. The Firmers, as I understand it, are more used for the heavier chisel work in general cabinet construction and furniture making. The thread I ran has been running quiet a while, largely I think, because there is a good deal of gray area in the firmer chisel arena and a multitude of different ways to use the same tools to accomplish given joint construction.

My current chisel strategy, gleaned from the thread I ran, is to collect two different sets of chisels. One set will be more slender delicate bevel edged chisels sharpened with sharper bevels to better enable them to do paring chores. The other set will have handles designed to be struck and beefier blades. Within the heavier set I will have a pig sticker type chisel or two specifically designed to pry wood and get hammered without bending. I am working on at least two different mallets, at least one heavier and one lighter, both with heads designed not to mar chisel handles.

I will also have one or two in my paring set, designed more like butt chisels 1 1/2 to 2" wide. These chisels will do large paring jobs and define the edges of joints, saw lines and dadoes.

[Zach Dillinger]

The 1/4" and the 3/8" chisels are actually firmer chisels and not mortise chisels. The 3/8" Greaves is a sash mortise chisel(socketed). The convex back is probably caused from repeated incorrect lapping of the back. You can still make it work, as a mortise chisel though. Just try and get a flat going back from the tip for an inch or so. After you have created the flat(land), as long as you can predictably remove the wire edge when sharpening(honing), you'll be okay. The only place you will really notice the curvature is when you reach the ends of a mortise. Because of the curvature, you'll have to tilt the chisel forward or back to create square ends in the depth of the mortise. All of your chisels look fine to me and they're certainly not junk. Some work is required but they'll be great.

By the way, does the Greaves have a bit on the blade(forge laminated cutting edge)? If it's really old, it should be a laminated blade.

All correct. Millwright's mortise chisels are usually extremely large, sometimes 18" long and 1 1/2" wide. Thats a beefy chisel. Your chisels should serve you quite well after the normal tuning.

Zach

[joel cervera]

Chris.. Yes in fact the greaves is definitely laminated.
For clarification The 1/4 and and 1/2 witherbys are firmers, you say. Is there an approximate length Witherby Firmers would run? the three of these chisels show all are between 15 and 16 inches long ( with the handles taking up between 4 to 4.5 inches of that ). Does 15 inches long also correspond to being a sash mortise chisel?

Thanks,

Joel.

[joel cervera]

Well.. I went back to the magazine with Bob Smalser's article on chisels. Here is evidence to say ( at least as far as Smalser is concerned) that these are Millwright mortise ( well, at least the witherbys) The Greaves makes those Witherbys look weak, in comparison.. What do you think?


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Joel.

[Mike Holbrook]

Joel, yes it is a little confusing.

The lighter duty paring chisels and sometimes even the heavier duty chisels came in at least two different lengths, three counting butt chisels, usually the shortest of the shorts. Some people prefer chisels with longer bodies or handles for paring, some companies, like Henry Taylor, still offer longer firmer chisels too. I think you will find that there is a large variety of different lengths these chisels were offered in over the years. Add to that fact another fact, which is many of these older chisels are on their second, third...handle. These chisels, particularly the socket chisels, were designed to be easy to rehandle. No telling what some wood worker a century ago decided to make to replace his broken chisel handle. You will see many chisels with bent up sockets because some user was to lazy to replace the handle.

Handle and chisel body length is one of those constantly changing preferences. You are right about the heavier of the heavy duty chisels usually having longer bodies as they were designed to do larger work, unless someone was to lazy to make a handle and the chisel got used without a handle or with an abnormally short handle...Relax, take your time, you want figure out all about chisels in one post, one magazine article or even one book. The subject is a long one with may twists & turns.

[joel cervera]

Mike.

to be truthful, I dont much care to learn about all the chisel types and lengths and specs. etc . I just wanted some info specific to Millwright mortise chisels as my original post stated. I have here two chisels that someone (who presumably knows more than I, called firmers). If thats the case i'll use them differently than I would a Millwright mortise chisel, which is made to chop out mortises all day long in a factory. the article I referenced seems to indicate differently than two previous posters so I just wanted some clarification To be honest is seems clear to me these three chisels are mortising chisels but I welcome opinons on the subject.

thanks for the reply.

Joel.

Joel, yes it is a little confusing.

The lighter duty paring chisels and sometimes even the heavier duty chisels came in at least two different lengths, three counting butt chisels, usually the shortest of the shorts. Some people prefer chisels with longer bodies or handles for paring, some companies, like Henry Taylor, still offer longer firmer chisels too. I think you will find that there is a large variety of different lengths these chisels were offered in over the years. Add to that fact another fact, which is many of these older chisels are on their second, third...handle. These chisels, particularly the socket chisels, were designed to be easy to rehandle. No telling what some wood worker a century ago decided to make to replace his broken chisel handle. You will see many chisels with bent up sockets because some user was to lazy to replace the handle.

Handle and chisel body length is one of those constantly changing preferences. You are right about the heavier of the heavy duty chisels usually having longer bodies as they were designed to do larger work, unless someone was to lazy to make a handle and the chisel got used without a handle or with an abnormally short handle...Relax, take your time, you want figure out all about chisels in one post, one magazine article or even one book. The subject is a long one with may twists & turns.

[Joe Fabbri]

_MF_2772.jpg_MF_2771.jpg

Hi,

I bought this 1/2 millwright's chisel a little while ago, and I posted similar questions regarding the curvature of the back. From what some said on here, a lot of these old chisels had convex backs. It may have been from chopping a lot of mortises, specifically from the prying up action (since you typically pry foward). It was also said, though, that it may have been manufactured with the convex shape, possibly to allow a relief in the back, in order not to blow past the ends of the mortise.

It seems this could make sense, if the mortise was roughly chopped, and then perhaps the ends pared down a little to clean it up.

But it's hard to say. I don't think my convex bottom was created from improper flattening, because the top of the chisel concavity seems to correspond. So, either it's from beind pryed upon, or it was manufactured that way. It's possible it was also not manufactured very well either, since I assume that tools intended for rougher work weren't scrutinized when it came to the flatness of their backs.

Joe

[joel cervera]

Joe,

I have thought it more than once that these chisels may have been made that way (convex). The beefiest and oldest of my three has so much metal on it sometimes seems unlikely that a dished out stone could produce such a severe crown ( even over decades of lapping on a badly dished stone. Like I said earlier in this post even with 60 grit sand paper it would days of work methinks to get iteven somewhat flat.

your chisel is beefy like I would expect from a mortise chisel. My 1/2 and 1/4 inch witherbys are somewht slender compared. Thats why I thought perhaps they were firmers but then I looked at the smalser article again and my 1/4 incher looks identical to his Millwright shown (photo posted above)

_MF_2772.jpg_MF_2771.jpg

Hi,

I bought this 1/2 millwright's chisel a little while ago, and I posted similar questions regarding the curvature of the back. From what some said on here, a lot of these old chisels had convex backs. It may have been from chopping a lot of mortises, specifically from the prying up action (since you typically pry foward). It was also said, though, that it may have been manufactured with the convex shape, possibly to allow a relief in the back, in order not to blow past the ends of the mortise.

It seems this could make sense, if the mortise was roughly chopped, and then perhaps the ends pared down a little to clean it up.

But it's hard to say. I don't think my convex bottom was created from improper flattening, because the top of the chisel concavity seems to correspond. So, either it's from beind pryed upon, or it was manufactured that way. It's possible it was also not manufactured very well either, since I assume that tools intended for rougher work weren't scrutinized when it came to the flatness of their backs.

Joe

[Chris Vandiver]

Joel,

Regardless of what the published name implies, I wouldn't want to use your 1/4" and 3/8" Witherbys for mortising. Just too thin.

[Mike Holbrook]

Joel, sorry if I gave a long answer when you wanted a short one. At least in my mind, the problem is there is no short, simple answer to questions that make assumptions that may or may not be true. Simple answer to how do you flatten the back of a chisel is... you don't, at least in the way you are thinking. I thought that sounded a little rude so I tried to embellish it, sorry ;-)

Mark Twain once said something to the effect that he wanted to write a short speech but he did not have the time so he had to write a long one, often the case here.

[joel cervera]

NO worries Mike
Surely your comments are appreciated. I just wanted to stay on topic and do my best to collect as much info on these 3 chisels as I could. With regard to flattening the back I know in terms of getting sharp it doesnt take much flattening especially if you could use the ruler trick, like i do on plane irons. . But that 3/8 Greaves has such a big belly I wondered how it would serve chopping out a mortise ( especially seeing as how I have not used it to make a mortise yet.

Again Thanks. for your reply.

joel.

Joel, sorry if I gave a long answer when you wanted a short one. At least in my mind, the problem is there is no short, simple answer to questions that make assumptions that may or may not be true. Simple answer to how do you flatten the back of a chisel is... you don't, at least in the way you are thinking. I thought that sounded a little rude so I tried to embellish it, sorry ;-)

Mark Twain once said something to the effect that he wanted to write a short speech but he did not have the time so he had to write a long one, often the case here.

[Bob Smalser]

I always get a kick out of folks demagoging about the "correct" terminology for chisels, as they varied by manufacturer, by region and by trade. "Hoops" versus "striking rings" comes to mind reading the youth who writes for one of today's catalogs. (Both are correct.) As does the term "millwright" chisel, when the identical chisel was sold as a "deck" chisel, only to a shipyard instead of a window, door, staircase, molding and trim factory, or a "framing" chisel to carpenters when the term "framing" was a much more encompassing term than it is now.



Hence of all the things in woodworking that are important, whether the above chisels should be called "millwright", "deck" or "framing" chisels is moot. What's important is they were designed to chop mortises and rabbets quickly and efficiently. And they do it exceptionally well, their length providing great leverage and ease in holding perfectly plumb. You won't break that quarter-inch chisel in wood.

What they generally were not called was "firmer" or "forming" chisels, which were intended for slightly lighter-duty work ranging from that of today's "bench" chisels to general-purpose work on ships, carriages or wagons. For example, these are a collection of what most old-timers would call "firmer chisels" or "registered firmer chisels":



And if you need a reference, please treat yourself to a copy of Audel's Carpenter's and Builder's Guide, 1923 edition. A period reference using period terms, and not somebody writing for modern catalogs.