Homage to chisels

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I made a chisel from a hand file over twenty years ago. The one with the blue handle. It has a permanent place in my tool pouch. It functions as a wood chisel. As a fine and medium file. It also works very well as a wood scraper but it’s only an inch and quarter wide. It can even take the place of small planes. It is strong enough to be used as a prybar. To make it I used a bench top grinder with both water and cutting oil in tubs to help mould the metal. I first would emerse the tool in cutting oil then as the metal started to turn blue dip it in water to cool it. After grinding a hollow ground end down to a point, 5" radius grinder. I put a finished edge of 25 degrees on it. I honed the edge by using a piece of flat plate steel and a piece of 2000 grit emery cloth with water. After honing it to razor sharp I finished it off with leather to a mirror shine. Then I dipped the handle in the tool handle rubber solution. It was in use during my engineering career almost daily as it had such a great combination of tools. The other one with the red handle is one that I recently created and is not quite finished, is a wood rasp. I am sure others have made some fantastic tools out there, post em if you got em.

CHRIS, Charlottetown PEI Canada. Anytime you can repurpose, reuse, or recycle, everyone wins!

Great idea. Thanks for sharing this. I never thought of this.

Jeff Vandenberg aka "Woodsconsin"

That’s a nifty new tool you created. 2 in one.
Nice combo.

Abbas, Castro Valley, CA

Definitely doing that.

Losing fingers since 1969

These tools are so incredibly handy when fine tuning something made of wood. Everyone should have one. I have no idea where I got the idea to make it, but I think someone else must have thought of it before me, not sure tho. At the time the file was brand new Nicholson, Axe. With fine and medium cuts. As brian can attest, by using it as a scraper you can remove a layer of wood so thin you can see thru, just only as wide as the blade. I have used and abused this thing for most of my carrier and its stood the test of time.

CHRIS, Charlottetown PEI Canada. Anytime you can repurpose, reuse, or recycle, everyone wins!

Very versatile tool Chris. I think that if I could have only one tool to do my woodworking with I would have to choose a chisel. It can do just about everything all the other tools can do, maybe not as well or as fast, but what other single tool can do such a multitude of tasks?

Mike, an American living in Norway