butt chisels - please no CORNY jokes! *LINK*

Re: butt chisels - please no CORNY jokes!

mikew

>Hi Frank,

I have them and have used them for a few years on various tasks. I like the size--but they are small.

Also, some people to not like the fact that they have rounded edges due to the polished nature of them. Other than I wish they didn't round over the edges--or polish them at all--I haven't found it to be an issue.

Take care, Mike

Re: butt chisels - please no CORNY jokes!

Kurt Loup, Baton Rouge

>Frank,

If it matters, I think he is using Stanley 750s.

Kurt

Re: butt chisels - please no CORNY jokes!

joel -( tools for working wood)

>Ashley Iles chisels are not currently polished.

question for joel

frank shic (walnut ck, ca)

>joel, thanks for the quick response! have you used them for chopping out dovetail waste?

Re: butt chisels - please no CORNY jokes!

frank shic (walnut ck, ca)

>kurt, i never knew that stanley made chisels as well! don't think that i'll be trying to put together a full set of those as the prices on ebay are a little on the high side!

Re: butt chisels - please no CORNY jokes!

John

>I have only one Ashley Iles butt chisel and I find myself reaching for it more often than any other. I really like the size and the edge holds up very well. A few weeks ago during a woodworking class I was taking, a fellow student let me try out a Crown butt chisel. It's a better looking tool than the Ashley Iles but it felt a little to small for me.

Re: butt chisels - please no CORNY jokes!

frank shic (walnut ck, ca)

>john, can you hold the chisel by the blade without any problems with the balance?

Re: butt chisels - please no CORNY jokes!

Christopher Fitch @ Memphis

>I have the whole set of Iles Butt Chisels(just ordered the 2" since it was out of stock until recently)..

I like them alot. They are fine chisels and work well for me...

Also...

Christopher Fitch @ Memphis

>I don't use them top chop out the dovetail waste, I use the to pare out the waste, per Ian Kirby's suggestions...

Now I do chop with them in certain cases and I have had no issues doing that...

Re: question for joel

joel -( tools for working wood)

>Yes, probably. I just don't remember I use way too many differnt tools. They are a very nice chisels. The sides are thicker than a bench chisel but that shouldn't be a problem as long as you used skew chisels for blind dovetails.

My advice to everyone on chisels is the most important criterial is the set which feels good in your hands. Buy a few and see if you like them. If you don't return them. Any decent retailer will be happy to take whatever back at no cost to yourself and while recommendations are great there is no substitute for trying stuff out first hand.

Re: butt chisels - please no CORNY jokes!

Ted Shuck, Centennial, CO

>I have a set of the Crown butt chisels that I received as a gift a couple of years ago. I don't use them very much. They do feel very good in the hand, but the blades are very thick with very thick edges. The steel does not seem very hard either. It has that "gummy" feel when sharpening like an alloy steel rather than a good high carbon steel. I really can not recommend them.

Regards,

Ted

I have one crown butt

Derek

>I really like the way it feels in my hand and the size for many tasks but the steel is quite soft and it does not hold an edge well. I probably need to give it a steeper bevel but I use it most for paring type work and this is really the wrong thing for paring.

Re: butt chisels - please no CORNY jokes!

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>It seems like the last time I saw Frank Klaus chopping dovetails, he was using the Lie-Nielsens. I'll verify that for you tomorrow, if you would like. These, as has been noted on this forum by tool collectors, are modeled after the Stanley 750s, but with some major performance improvements, that wouldn't be noticed by a cursory glance. I can assure you that these balance very nicely when held by the blade for chopping dovetails. By the time you hand them down to your decendents, if you use them every day, they might be short enough to be called butt chisels. Maybe, if you need shorter handles, you might convince L-N to make you a shorter set. They currently are offering a longer set of handles for these chisels, and calling them paring chisels. I haven't tried these, yet, as I have a some old paring chisels, one crank back, that are all I seem to "need" beyond the L-Ns.

Re: butt chisels - please no CORNY jokes!

John

>Frank

It balances very well holding onto the blade.

John

Re: butt chisels - please no CORNY jokes!

frank shic (walnut ck, ca)

>william, you're right! i just took a look at last months' popular woodworking and it seems like klausz is using the lie-nielsen chisels and dovetail saw. at $250 for a full set, i think i'll pass for now...

thanks again, guys!

frank shic (walnut ck, ca)

>here comes another order your way, joel! thanks for everyone's advice and experiences. now i can start building an iles family chisel collection and save my wife the agony of trying to figure out what to buy me for xmas! ;)

Don't want to be the butt of a joke here, but...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>I'd stay away from the Crown ones. Their steel just isin't up to parr.

Re: butt chisels - please no CORNY jokes!

mikew

>Yes, I should have been more specific--it was the Crown butt chisels I was talking about.

Now if the AI chisels had been available years ago when I was buying new chisels...

Take care, Mike

Re: butt chisels - please no CORNY jokes!

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>As joel suggests, for starters, you might just buy one. Try to figure out what size will most likely fit the dovetails you are most likely to be cutting. Buy one or two of the other brands in sizes that you also expect to use commonly, work with them all for a while, and then decide which ones you like best, or which you and your wallet can come to a compromise on, and fill in your set from there.

butt seriously...

frank shic (walnut ck, ca)

>thanks for the advice! i liked the feel of them when i first picked them up at rockler but after you guys mentioned it, the corners were rounded and the metal was strangely extremely SHINY!

Re: butt chisels - please no CORNY jokes!

Jack Guzman from Maine

>The new Lie-Nielsen chisels are patterned after the 750s. I like the LNs for chopping. For paring I like thinner,lighter chisels like two cherries.

If you really want butt chisels,Lee Valley makes some nice looking ones that are a real good price.---Jack

Re: Don't want to be the butt of a joke here, but.

Dan Donaldson

>I have a set of them and agree that they did not hold an edge well at all. They were bad enough that I decided I had nothing to lose, so I heated them up and retempered them. (I used an oil quench, not sure if that was right or not) I still don't like them as well as others, but it made quite an improvement in the edge holding. The first one I tried, I didn't temper it right, and it was very brittle. (took a big chip out of the edge and had to regrind and start over ;-))

Crown chisels are rubbish, IMO.

Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia

>Stop me if you've heard me say this before...

I have a pair of their skew chisels. The steel is so soft I can fold the point over wwith hand pressure.

Don't waste your money.

Re: butt chisels - please no CORNY jokes!

Dick Schafer

>I have the 4 piece set and they're not much. Won't hold an edge for squat. Bought them from Rocker several years ago.