Grizzly Japanese Chisels and Gouges, Part 3

Part 1, Part 2, (Part 3,) Part 4, Part 4.5, Part 5

I finally finished the remaking of the chisels and gouges.

I am very pleased with the look and feel of the handles.

Click on the image above for a bigger picture.

Here is the full set.

Full set

After shaping all the handles and setting the hoops, instead of soaking the ends in water to expand the wood and hold the hoops, I boiled them in my wax mix. This gave the wood such a wonderful feel and look, that I think I will do all handles this way from now on. I love the effect. I suspect they will hold up better too!

I did encounter one fairly important issue during the process. While setting the hoop on the smallest of the chisels, the chisel cracked.

Broken Chisel

The chisel on the far right is the smallest one. It is made sort of like a sash chisel with a deeper cross section to strengthen it, since it is a fairly narrow tool.

I use and make a lot of fairly small tools. This tool did not meet my standards for tool strength. I don’t think the force that I applied was more than any tool with a hoop should be expected to receive.

**As an update, so as not to prejudice you against some great tools, in Part 4, Grizzly support saved the day.***

Broken Chisel

On the whole, I am quite pleased with these chisels. Since I was glad to reshape them and set the hoops, The end result is a very nice and quite functional set of chisels.

Just the Chisels

The real treasures here are the gouges. They are well shaped, work wonderfully and keep their edge well.

Gouge Set

I have tested them on osage orange, oak and mesquite, and they do quite well on all of these woods. So I have no complaints at all with the gouge set.

I plan to grind the small chisel that broke down to an edge and use it shorter. With this experience, I will be a bit nervous using the smallest of this chisel set.  While smaller tools are always going to be easier to break than larger tools, if you are afraid to use a tool, it is not going to be as useful.

Bob

Part 1, Part 2, (Part 3,) Part 4, Part 4.5, Part 5

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