5/16" Chisels

[ken hatch]

I'm making a side table for the girl child, The top will be a frame and substrate to hold one of MsBubba's ceramic mosaics. The base is some near 8/4 Sapele I had in the shop.


The top is made, it just needs cleaning up and the legs are dimensioned but not shaped. The aprons are dimensioned waiting to saw the tenons once I finish chopping the mortises. I'm half way through chopping the mortises, two legs finished and two to go.One other thing I happened to find today. My favorite pig sticker it turns out is 5/16", I never knew that. I just knew it was smaller than 1/2" and larger than the 1/4" which made it perfect for table leg mortises. I usually clean out the mortises with a LN 1/4" sash mortise chisel just because I don't worry about breaking it and because it doesn't really need to be that sharp. Today I wanted a sharp chisel, in other words a bench chisel to clean up the ends of the mortise. Lot of luck bubba, out of the hundred or so bench chisel on the walls of the shop there is not one 5/16" chisel. As luck would have it the new Pfeil chisels I bought the other day had a 8mm in the set. 8mm is just a thin one larger than 5/16"so all was not lost but damn you would think out of all those bench chisel there would be a couple of 5/16" ones somewhere. But no joy.

Anyway here is one of the mortise holes:

[lowell holmes]

I have ground old beater chisels to widths I need. I needed a 15/16" chisel for a through tenon on a chair arm. I had an old 1" chisel that I used.

[Jim Koepke]

One of my pig stickers is a 5/16" and one of my Witherby bevel edge chisels is a 5/16".

My 8mm and 5/16" sockets and wrenches are used interchangeably.

Interesting that from 5/64" to 1-1/4" (5/4") the metric exponential derivations of 2 match SAE inch sizes that start with a 5/X. I have never had a 2-1/2" (5/2") or 64mm nut and wrench to see how they fit. 64mm shows 2-33/64", a likely fit.

Sorry for the wondering mind. I should head back to the shop.

jtk

[Stew Denton]

Hi Ken,

I don't have a ton of chisels, but have more than I use, but like you, none of mine is a 5/16ths.

Stew

[bridger berdel]

I actively seek in-between sizes in my rust hunting. Given that a lot of vintage chisel sizes are approximate it's not unlikely that I would have it.

[ken hatch]

I've never paid a lot of attention to nominal sizes of chisels, metric vs. fractional made no never mind. I've reached for the chisel that "fit", in other words: "That looks about right." Like I posted earlier I did not know the size of the mortise chisel. I knew it was between 1/4" and 1/2" and was Goldilocks. Neither too big or too small for many mortising jobs and I had not looked for an equivalent sized bench chisel to work with it before. After the hunt for a matching bench chisel yesterday what I've found is other than Lie Nielsen and Pleif no one makes bench chisels in either 5/16" or 8mm, western or Japanese. There may be others but a quick look didn't find 'em....go figure.

BTW, the reason I know the Ray Iles pig sticker is 5/16" is twofold. I measured it with calipers and I looked it up on the TFWW web site.

Bridger the next time we get together we may need to do a little trading if you have a 5/16 chisel you do not need.

ken

[Todd Stock]

Two Cherries has been offering an 8mm (and sizing in 2mm increments from 2mm-30mm and 5mm increments 30mm - 50mm) since the 1970's - their recent decision to make the the Ulmia-style octagonal handles available as an alternative to those weird fat oval handles is nice to see.

[Jim Koepke]

After the hunt for a matching bench chisel yesterday what I've found is other than Lie Nielsen and Pleif no one makes bench chisels in either 5/16" or 8mm, western or Japanese.

A search on that auction site for 5/16 chisel turned up a few.

Narex makes an 8mm that is available from Highland Woodworking. That is about 0.0024" bigger than 5/16". That would be easy to hone that off by hand.

jtk

[David Eisenhauer]

With a hundred chisels on the wall, bound to be a couple-three-four "traders" on hand. And go figure - a hundred on the wall and not a single 5/16" on hand.

[bridger berdel]

I'm headed to the shop in an hour. I'll check.

[lowell holmes]

In my mind, if there is a collection of old chisels, there is no reason not to file one to the width you want.

[lowell holmes]

A bit different in size, but here are two chisels that I re-handled.DSC08215 (640x480).jpg

[Jim Koepke]

In my mind, if there is a collection of old chisels, there is no reason not to file one to the width you want.

It was a long time of picking up 1/4" chisels before there were enough in my shop to feel it was "all right" to sacrifice two of them to make a pair of 1/4" skew chisels.

In my mind, which some may say I am not in but instead am out of, there aren't enough 3/8" chisels in my shop to grind one down. Fortunately one of my ebay buys included a 5/16" chisel.

Of course one could start with a larger chisel if they have an unfulfilled desire to do a lot of grinding.

jtk

[James Pallas]

You all made me go look at my chisels. Turns out that I purchased a set of those infamous Aldi chisels to use for terrible tasks. They are actually not so awful. The smallest of their 4 chisel set is 8mm. I also have a set of Mifer chisels from the 70s that includes an 8mm.
Jim

[Nicholas Lawrence]

Another reason to like my 3/8 mortise chisel I guess. Pairs nicely with my 3/8 bench chisel.