Beech vs curly maple blue spruce chisels

[allen long]

About to pull the trigger on the blue spruce paring chisels. Was wondering if the curly maple matched the pictures of the longer handled pics. The curly maple on the short handled pictures are really ugly. The beech does not look bad either. Has anyone seen the beech handles?

I could go for the African blackwood, but the lighter woof is calling my name

[Scott Winners]

I have only worked with a little bit of fiddle back maple, a fair bit of fiddle back walnut, a little bit of quarter sawn white oak and a fair bit of beech.

My observation so far about figured hardwood is what you see in the rough blank is going to be different than what you get in the finished piece. Sometimes it looks more figured, sometimes less. I have made a couple dozen sgains dubh, and with wood I can tell you I just never know. Pre CITIES walrus tusk is fairly predictable, musk ox horn is fairly predictable, mammoth ivory is fairly predictable; figured hardwood you never know. Antler, fairly predictable.

An analogy might be the ironwood chisel handles shipped by Lie-Nielsen. The handle is iron wood. The mix of heart and sap wood in the finished handle can only be estimated when the blank is chucked up in a lathe. It has to be carved or turned to find out what it will look like. The aesthetics of the LN handles are variable, but they are made of ironwood and I can wail on all of them with a heavy mallet and relative abandon.

FWIW I would not choose quilted maple for a chisel handle. I don't see it offered on the Blue Spruce website anyway, but there you go. All the quilted maple I have seen is western big leaf (soft) maple, so not a good material for chisel handles anyway, but also the figured grain (my subjective opinion) goes from wow on flat surfaces to ho-hum on curved surfaces.

I poked around a little bit on the Blue Spruce site and didn't find their handle treatment easily. I suspect, and will readily believe given the price point, that all their handle stock is stabilized in vacuum bags with some kind of epoxy after turning.

I didn't find the interior dimensions either, but they might email you back. There is a pretty fair chance you will someday find a piece of fiddle back maple that is good/excellent figure all the way through no matter what you carve off it. You might could someday use that billet to make new handles for all of your chisels. It isn't "Moby Billet" the way some gold miners around here are looking for "Moby nugget." If you love fiddle back maple you will watch for it, shop for it, and fairly easily find an outstanding billet in less than two years. If you just have to have dense birdseye that will be rather a lot harder to find. Fiddleback hard/rock/red/sugar maple is fairly common compared to dense birds eye. Plus you can fool around with stains and finishes on fiddle back maple while you are looking for Moby Billet.

Good luck and best wishes.

[Assaf Oppenheimer]

I have 3 bs paring chisels all with a long handle and the curly maple handles. There can be quite a bit of variation in the grain but all are beautiful

[Robyn Hawkins]

I also have a set of curly maple handles and think that they are just beautiful. I agreee that there can be a degree of variation but I enjoy it because that’s what the world is like - if you want absolute consistency, then buy plastic!

[Bob Betker]

I got a set of the curly maple paring chisels about 3-4 years ago. They look nice but there are some variations in coloring and patterns between each.

[John C Cox]

I have a pair of Blue Spruce paring chisels with the rosewood handles. Very comfy. Very pretty. Pick whichever one floats your boat. To me, there's less worry about cracking in use because you won't be malleting them.

Beech is a smidge lighter than curly maple, but that may not matter much with the longer blade to offset the balance.

I will say, fancy, high figure wood probably helps future resale if you care about such things.

[Derek Cohen]

All African Blackwood, with two Bubinga fishtails. Purchased about 15 years ago …



Regards from Perth

Derek