The latest love

Re: The latest love

mikew

>Oh Derek...you butt! I've gone back and forth on whether to augment the Sorby sash mortice chisels I have and use with pig stickers. I *thought* I had relegated that to "it would be nice, but I can do without..."

But no look what you've gone and done. I mean, I like the size of the Sorbys. The smaller handle fits my hand better than some/many others. The steel is fine. Hold an edge OK. And they're shorter than others, which I like. The shortness I believe helps in keeping things square when hitting with a mallet.

But now? You've made me doubt myself again. I mean, I would only really need a 1/4" and a 3/8" pig sticker. That's not much of an indulgence, is it?

And I am a woodworker, afterall, and ones without or in need of handles wouldn't be a burden...Oh the doubts...

Thanks. A lot.

Mike

Re: The latest love

paul womack

>a 3/8" Hearnshaw and 5/16" Sorby

Both fine names - and fine lookin' chisels.

BugBear

Re: The latest love

Jack Guzman from Maine

>Derek,I also have a thing for chisels.I have alot of odd mismatched stuff.I can't resist an interesting looking chisel in a box of rusty stuff.My first pigsticker was a homemade thing someone made from a file.3/8"with a hex nut as a bolster and hemp twine woven around the handle end to prevent the handle end from flaring.This odd looking chisel just felt right somehow.Chopping out a mortise with it was easy.I tried a sorby style and still use it for odd stuff but not for mortises.It feels like it could break at the narrow section(I'm sure that's just me).Also I never know what to hit it with.The ring looks like it would ruin my mallet.Then I managed to get ahold of a traditionally made pigsticker and actually learned how to sharpen it and I'm hooked.

When Ray Iles started making those ones that Joel sells,that clinched it.

Nice handles.I need to replace some of my uglier ones.(not the file and hemp one however,that is unique)---Jack

where do you get those FINE chisels?

frank shic (walnut ck, ca)

>derek, those are the same ones that frank klausz uses in his mortise and tenon video. they sure look like they'd take a greater beating than the thin 1/4" sorby mortise chisel i bought from rockler which works ok, but the thought of faster mortising really turns me on!

is ray iles the ONLY one who makes them these days?

Re: The latest love

Hank Knight from SC

>Derek, I have a set of old Sorby registered mortise chisels I've used for years. I never liked them very much. Last year I bought an Ibbotson pigsticker on eBay and fell in love with it. When Joel announced he was going to carry the new Ray Iles chisels, I ordered three. I've had them a couple of months. The difference in the feel and power of the bolstered chisels compared to my old Sorbys is amazing. Like other time-tested, traditional tools, they really do the job they were designed for.

Re: where do you get those FINE chisels?

Derek Cohen (in Perth Australia)

>Frank

Pigstickers are, as far as I know, either new from Ray Isles or of the vintage variety.

By the time I get my mortise chisels, the handles are old and tired and need to be replaced. Over their lifespan they do tend to get hammered :)

Below are a few more mortise chisels for reference (all as found) - (from left) a 1/8" Mosborn (craftsman-replaced Rosewood? handle), 1/2" Ibbotson (craftsman-replaced your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine handle) , and a 3/8" Japanese (original handle).

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: where do you get those FINE chisels?

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>From the patina shown on Derek's, I'm guessing his sources are similar to mine. I found mine in miscellaneous boxes-o-rust, under tables or in the back end of old pickup trucks at various and sundry old tool sales. If you get lucky, you can sometimes even find them at flea markets. These need quite a bit of TLC to get through the rust and pitting, to reshape the bevels, and to make new handles, but if you can find ones with good names, they can be well worth the effort. Of course, it depends on how you measure the worth of your time, and whether considerations (other than the finished mortise chisel) involved in the history, hunt and restoration are of value to you. If you just want the chisel, and not the experience, or need the chisel now, then by all means, order one of Ray Iles' from Joel.

Re: where do you get those FINE chisels?

McKay in Utah

>Try http://sydnassloot.com/ Sandy is a great guy to work with and I have found a number of items. He has at least two pig stickers still for sale and his prices seem to be very good.

Nice look chisels...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>Did you burn in the handles?

I have 4 laminated W. Butcher's awating new handles. I like the heft of them, but most of the handles are cracked and chipped. It's hard for me to fix them up because I'm very fond of my Japanese mortice chisels.

Sorby & Hirsh

Paul Kierstead

>I have a few Robert Sorbys registered type (don't really look like yours at all) and a Hirsch. I have found the Hirsh to be much much more user friendly then the Sorby. The big advantage, in my mind, (and this is even more so for pig stickers) is that it is much thicker. This allow much more reliable registration off the mortise walls, or IOW, much less likely for the chisel to be twisted and enlarge the hole (not to mention give a jagged edge). My next one will be a Hirsh or a pig-sticker; I will never buy the Sorby type I have again.

thanks

frank shic

>great price, but the chisels are too wide - i'm looking for 1/4 and 3/8

alright, that's it...

frank shic

>time to give ray iles some more business!

You won't be sorry

Hank Knight from SC

>

unless i poke my hand with it!!!

frank shic

>

Re: Nice look chisels...

Derek Cohen (in Perth Australia)

>Hi Scott

I must admit that my method is definitely non-galoot.

I first fit the haft to the unshaped timber, then shape the handles. This is the only method I know that enables me to get everything perfectly in alignment. Drawknive (used like a scrub plane), then spokeshave, then card scraper to clean up.

My understanding of "burning in" is that it is more to protect the internal walls of the wood than to actually fit the haft of the chisel. So I chose instead to use a cordless drill (a Panasonic, not a brace) plus a mortice chisel to remove the waste and fit the haft. Drill straight down, then drill the side angles. Clean up with the mortise chisel.

The haft is a long triangle (ie, it tapers down) and it also has "barbs" along the shaft to prevent loosening. So I just cut the mortises about 1/4" short, then hammered them in until they were a flush fit. This produced a very solid fit (it required very firm blows).

I'll post some pics next time I do one.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Truly beautiful - a pigsticker price question

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>Derek,

Those are lovely lovely chisels.

A question for more knowledgeable Centralians: a local antique store had some pigstickers a few months back. I remember the prices as in the $20-30 range. We can't spend that kind of money right now (two payments away from paying off the house, YAY YAY YAY but it's requiring us to answer "no" to any question that starts, "Can we afford...?" I'm putting off replacing two of the tires on my car until we're done), but once we have disposable income again, should I trek out there, 20 minutes away, and see if they're still there, or can I match that price on the Bay?

Re: The latest love - can I beg a favor?

Joel

>My first experience with English Oval Bolstered Mortise chisels came in about 1985 or so when I first began studying cabinetry. IT's a chisel that is totally useless for anything EXCEPT mortising which as you have discovered along with lots of other people it does brilliantly.

Now a favor - I find the term "pigsticker" totally degratory. coined, I think, fairly recently by a dealer who doesn't use them. The term does a great disrepect to a wonderful, 200+ year old style of chisel, which might look to the uninitiated as barbaric as a spear but to the cabinetmaker a tool as gracefull, balanced, and functional as any of the best. So if it's not too much trouble - can we drop this nickname amd give tool it's due?

PS: Derek if you want them to work even BETTER grind at 20 degrees and put a secondary bevel of 35 degrees on them (a big secondary bevel or the cast steel will bend). You will get better penetration and deep chopping.

Re: The latest love - can I beg a favor?

Derek Cohen (in Perth Australia)

>Joel, I agree. The term "pigsticker" conjures up all kinds of barbaric acts, none of which have anything to do with woodworking, never mind "fine" woodworking. I was not aware of the derivation of "pigsticker", thinking instead that it had some historical significance (which would then make it appropriate - not particularly attractive, but appropriate).

Can you say more about the historical roots of this mortise chisel, and its nickname?

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: The latest love - can I beg a favor?

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>IIRC, it was the same dealer who hung the "Galoot" moniker on all of us knuckle-draggers, now worn as a badge of respect. Living languages change. English is probably the best example of the advantages (and disadvantages) of this adaptability. Orwell called it "newspeak." Some now call it "spin."

We are also adept at inventing jargon, replete with obfuscated acronyms. The traditional name is quite a mouthful. How about EOBM (pronounced "YO-bum") instead? Maybe you need a new marketing agent? Might I suggest that, in the spirit of Le Sanglier des Ardennes, Boar's Head Provisioners, and the Hog's Breath Inn, you hang a shingle from the front of your shop, "Pigstickermonger". Another marketing tactic might be offering handles from mesquite, and hiring Miss Piggy as a spokesperson.

Seriously, I understand your chagrin, but by now it is probably futile to try to change the accepted terminology. You might do better to laugh along with the rest of us, and update your website's search engine to get your customers from "pigsticker" to the good stuff, maybe with a tongue-in-cheek message along the way: "Yo, Bum, you lookin' for BBQ tools?"

Re: Truly beautiful - a pigsticker price question

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Witherby, Swann, etc., without pitting, and an extant handle (You should be so lucky), maybe. But, from the box-o-rust of a knowledgeable old tool dealer, I paid about half of that for some "laminated project steel", Some EOBM, some tanged and some socketed. If all you can read is "Warrented" or "Cast Steel" or some such generic term, you might offer them a fiver. If you can't read the logo at all, or can't make out the weld between the tool steel of the edge and the softer, tougher steel of the body and the shank, then forget about them. The tool steel is finite in length, and in thickness. If it's all, or mostly, been ground away, all you've got is a sorry excuse for a butter knife. The tool steel rusts differently than the rest of the tool. It's the condition of the tool steel that is important. When you get around to flattening the back and sharpening it, you'll have to make a decision, or several of them: Should you grind off all the pits? Or, should you just grind off the majority of the shallower pits, and later when resharpening the edge, you get down to the ones you didn't grind off from the back, grind the edge past them? Modern, solid A2 or D2 (or R2D2) makes all these issues moot.

Re: The latest love - can I beg a favor?

paul womack

>PS: Derek if you want them to work even BETTER grind at 20 degrees and put a secondary bevel of 35 degrees on them (a big secondary bevel or the cast steel will bend).

This sounds like a step-wise approximation to the rounded (for once it's desirable!) bevel that Leonard Lee thought he'd invented until he found a whole pile of old, big chisels ground that way.

If you pare a la Cherubini this doesn't apply of course, but for me there are enough old (really old) pictures of woodworkers using mallets to make that approach valid too.

This is all IIRC, from his sharpening book.

BugBear

Re: The latest love - can I beg a favor?

Derek Cohen (in Perth Australia)

>BB

You mean like this?

The blade is a reasonable length (just looks a bit short owing to the angle - clipped from another picture), with a 20-25 degree bevel to which I has since added a 30 degree secondary bevel.

From memory it is a 1/4" Ward.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: Truly beautiful - a pigsticker price question

Todd Hughes

>I have sold many , many chisels mainly on ebay but also at shows etc. In my experance selling them these "pig sticker" types are just not very popular or in much of a demand and go for less then about any other type of chisels. First off I have never seen one that was made by an American maker so you don't normaly have the name thing going down...You ain't going to have any Swann , Stanley or Witherby guys fighting over them so prices stay low. Some english names might sell better then others but in my experance English chisels , other then carving ones, just don't sell as well as the American ones and the prices are lower then the big name American ones.Many of these pig stickers that I see are made by some obscure old English maker and just don't generate the interest. I'm sure there could be exceptions, maybe a 1700s example from Cam or John Green? I would expect a nice condition , but nothing fancy, pig sticker to have a hard time hitting $25 on the ebay though you never know. I do know I have sold there plenty for that or less.Maybe with these new repos coming out the prices might rise some but I would be surprised. Good news is that in the wild I can buy them for $5 or so pretty easly because they don't look like they are worth much I guess to most sellers.

Personaly I really think these "pig sticker" type chisels are a primitive design that was obsolete about 150 years ago. I am convinced that the only reason they were made is because they were easier to make when you are making them by hand like the English did then a proper socket chisel. Tradtionaly when given the choice I think most wood workers went with the socket chisels which is a much better design .....Todd

Re: Truly beautiful - a pigsticker price question

paul womack

>Well, it sounds like Todd will sell 'em to ya' cheap.

Failing that, I just did a "completed auction" search on ebay. Herewidth the raw results (all pigsticker types).

2 x Addis = 60 GBP

6 x Sorby = 128 US

Willson, 2 X mosely = 28 GBP

J Sorby = 11 GBP

Sorby = 40 US

They're all English...

BugBear