>I am thinking about getting a few paring chisels. My understanding is that one of the main differences between a paring chisel and a bench chisel is that both the blade and the handles are longer. I understand that one of the advantages of this is to provide a better reference if you are paring vertically or horizontally (e.g., cleaning up the sides of a mortice, tuning up a tenon or a groove).
One concern I have is whether the increased length of a paring chisel gets in the way of fine work, especially in the 3 or 6mm (1/8 and 1/4 inch) sizes. I find that when I am doing fine paring with the chisels I have now, such as cleaning out the corners of a small dovetail, I tend to grab the chisel close to the tip, and I wonder whether the extra length of a real paring chisel will be an impediment. Of course, I could just have crappy technique. :@)
The other concern I have is that for the thinner size chisels, a paring chisel blade seems to be quite long in proportion, and maybe not as sturdy, especially if I am putting my weight on the chisel for paring.
For those of you who use paring chisels, do you find that you often use them in the 1/8" or 1/4" size? Or do you still find that you use bench chisels for paring in this size?
>I never understood the long length of paring chiseld. Sometimes I thin manufacturers makde stuff up to sell more tools. "Here! Buy this! You need it because its longer!"
The paring chisels in the 18th c Seaton chest are no longer than the firmers. In fact, there's very little difference between the sets.
I think its helpful to have chisels identified as parers if for no other reason than you always have at least one really sharp chisel. This alone may be the best distinction. Beyond that, I do tend to grind lower bevel angles on paring chisels and I tend to prefer a significantly thinner (not narrower) chisel for a paring chisel. The Stanley style chisels feel like clubs to me. Many of my old firmers are no more than 1/8" thick at the cannel and my parers are sometimes in the .060" range.
>I went through that phase of holding chisels by the blades, nice and close, but I kept noticing that the better guys I occasionally saw didn't do it. It seems like one of those things that a master might slap one for if there was a master around, but as a self tought person it has taken a long time to tbreak the habit, and maybe a camera would say I hadn't. But what I do know is it isn't rock solid enough technique that on should judge tools by it.
I did without paring chisels until a few years back, so you don't need them at all, though the ones I bought are now amoung my favorites. Still why buy them if they aren't in any way different? Since they aren't being struck they can, as Adam mentions, be a little lighter in the blades, though mine are fairly robust, and the angles can be lower. I find the longer shafts do help bring the body into play and with aligning the cuts. But one style of chisel that is often used for paring are carving chisels, they are both struck and pushed, and they tend to be small. For joinery where swooping curves aren't the issue, I find the longer handles are fine.
My chisels are Japanese, but they look pretty similar to the ones LN has brought out, at least from what I can tell in pictures.
Here are some observations, which are based on what I do. Others will differ according to what they do...
For paring to the scribe line on the pins or tails board, I make a fist around the top of the handle, then tuck the fist under my jaw, and just lean down to make the cut. So the comfortable length depends on a whole bunch of details (your height, the height of the bench, how much you want to bend over, etc)--but for me the best total length of paring chisel for this operation is 12-14". YMMV.
For horizontal paring, say to level a plug, I like a wide chisel to get a long skewing cut, and a chisel with some hand relief over the work. Length doesn't really matter in that case. Except that with the longer handle, a given movement at handle's end produces a smaller movement at the blade edge, than if the chisel were shorter. This is all feel, and it's very helpful to be able to try both.
Then there are times when the main thing is to get your eyes near the work--this is a function of how good your eyes are, too. Like the other day, I was mitering the cockbeads on a drawer where they come together at the corners. In that case, I used a short 'detail' chisel--made by Dave Jeske, and it's a very fine tool. Never considered a longer paring chisel for that. It was like carving.
Blade thickness in the smaller widths has never been a consideration, except in a mortising chisel. My most-used paring chisel is a 3/16" (4.5mm) for dovetails.
Overall, you will hear opposing experiences and opinions, because people do things differently. So in the end, you'll start with how you like to work, and go from there.
>You mentioned specifically about narrow chisels. I have a few of these that are really quite expensive, bought in order to "complete" sets. I don't use them that much. I have a japanese 1/16" chisel I would be hard put to say when I used it at all. I talked to one tool store guy, and he told me that they had stratespheric returns of japanese 1/8" chisels, in fact, I think I was returning a 1/8" mortising chisel at the time. The welded back on that chisel had not been properly welded, and had separated, but he told me about the cassulty rate was north of 50%. One really can't pry on these chisels at all in my oppinion, even the monolythic steel ones are fragile.
Anyway, my point is I don't use them a lot. Any old solid steel chisel is still pretty easy to break, and japanese ones are downright fragile. The pressure required to get the same cut out of a 1/8" chisel is 1/8 what it would be with a 1" chisel, give or take, so take it easy and they will cut fine.
With long paring chisels, a small movement of the hand produces a smaller change of angle than you would get on a shorter chisel.
I love them. They will feature in my "chisel use" DVD which will be out in a few months.
It is notable that pattern makers used in cannel gouges and chisels with very long blades and medium length handles, for their extremely precise work.
It is no coincidence that L-N long handles are similar to Japanese.
I suggested the idea and my friend Bob Seymour turned the early prototype.
For the smallest sizes, 1/16" 1/8" and 3/16", I would not recommend the longer Japanese models as the blades are indeed extremely fragile. (Perhaps not so much of an issue for softwoods).
I have Japanese long paring chisels by several different blacksmiths. Some have very thin blades and others have more substantial blades which will do heavy work. (They are never struck with a hammer).
>In regards to narrow chisels, I suppose I could have been more specific in my original question. Although I didn't mention it, I am particularly interested in Japanese chisels, but I though the mechanics of a long paring chisel would be pretty similar whether it was a Japanese or western style chisel.
I am in the process of setting up my first Japanese plane, and what I need a 3mm chisel for is for adjusting the side groove that the plane blade sits in. A 6mm chisel just won't get into that spot, and I don't currently own a chisel smaller than 1/4". Based on what I've taught myself so far, which very well could be wrong, if I had a 3mm chisel handy I would be holding the plane in one hand and the chisel in the other, holding onto the blade. This is where I'm not sure if a 3mm paring chisel, which would be longer than the bench chisels I have now, would turn out to be just too unwieldy for this purpose.
This would be a lot easier if Lowes carried high quality Japanese chisels so I could just go over there and try it out for myself. But we all can dream. :@)
>I am under the impression that pairing chisels always had long thin blades for pairing deep details. Can somebody explain why a short chisel with a long handle can be called a pairing chisel? It doesn't make sence to me...
>I think patternmakers tools are they way they are because of the shapes of the things they made and not because of accuracy requirements. Contrary to what our Grandfathers would have us believe, I don't think pattern making was all that difficult technically. Many of you are probably creating M&T's and DT's that are more precise.
>"I don't think pattern making was all that difficult technically. Many of you are probably creating M&T's and DT's that are more precise."
Huh???
Doing Wooden patternmaking is orders of magnitude harder than cabinetmaking. All a M+T or DT has to do it fit within itself. Parts are made to fit. Patternmaking requires making something to a print. Much harder. Also nothing is square. And lots and lots of stuff is oddly shaped with complex curves.
>I don't think you'll find a lot of difference in the blades of 3mm bench, paring, or mortising chisels. Basically, once you get that small, you need a certain height just to keep the metal straight. I've used a LV bench 3 mm chisel for adjusting Japanese planes, as well as making dai.
>oops, that's a LV 1.5-2 mm chisel, my 3 mm chisel is from a Woodcraft set of bench chisels. Also, I've got a little 4.5mm mortising chisel for making shoji that also works for this job.
Pam's right on, for that particular cut you can use pretty much whatever 3mm you have.
But when making that cut--whether your 3mm chisel is long handled or short--I urge you to take your Japanese plane and get it fixtured between bench dogs or in a vise (not real tight, just enough so it doesn't slip) or just wedge it into a corner, so that the plane isn't going anywhere, you have two hands to use, and you can concentrate on what you're doing. You only want to lay back the sidewalls--don't take any material off the top or bottom of the abutments.
>You either have your funny bone working OVERTIME tonight, or your dabbling in something that I hope you brought enough for all of us that want it to play!
>It's not my impression that wood patterns were necessarily all that pretty, though I don't know a whole lot about them. My grandfather was trained as a patternmaker, something I didn't know until he was gone; his cabinet work was incredible (pieces he made from fir and fir plywood before WWII are still tight - drawers work smoothly, etc.), but not technically all that stunning. Lots of drawers held together with nailed rabbets and so on.
>I never understood the long length of paring chiseld. Sometimes I thin manufacturers makde stuff up to sell more tools. "Here! Buy this! You need it because its longer!"
In that case they fooled many generations of pattern makers.
Either that or pattern makers found genuine benefit in long, fine chisels and gouges, of course.
>I found 3 old Marples paring chisels in a workshop clearance, 1", 3/4 and 1/4" - all the blades are about 12-14" long, and distinctly thinner than normal chisels. After a good sharpening they took a fine edge, and I discovered that I loved working with them, there is something very comfortable about being able to brace a hand against a shoulder, hip, etc or just to take advantage of the leverage to get finer adjustment of angle.
I was also told that some old makers hardened their paring (and dovetail) chisels more than mortise chisels, because they would not be struck and so did not need as tough an edge, but that the improved sharpness and edge holding was appreciated. I do have one old bevel Sorby with a fine blade that is distinctly harder than normal...
What is it about (good) chisels? Something makes them very more-ish ... perhaps it's the fact that they are the archetypal hand tool and you end up very familiar with each one, like old workshop buddies - it's hard to resist one in case it's 'sweet'. Picking up a modern plastic fantastic with a cheese-alloy blade really feels bad now. And they lose their edge real fast, and they are ugly, and the blades are too thick, and ....
just try some and see - you can always find another addict who'll buy them if you don't like them!
Great story about the Marples slicks! As far as paring chisels go, I'm where you are. I love em, and it didn't take long after I bought the first couple. This was a few years ago. It's nothing I ever would have figured out in my head--I bought a couple on a recommendation from a friend and fellow tool nut who just said 'trust me on this one.' You just have to get em in your hand and try them. Mine happen to be Japanese, and the maker does leave them in hard temper. And yeah, you leverage off your shoulder/jaw, or your hip or belt buckle--whatever.
>Cheers Wiley :-) It's always nice to get an affirmative like that... Actually I made a slight mistake in my description - the chisels are overall about 14" long, the blades are 8-9". Oops. The middle one is actually closer to 16mm not 3/4", too, so falls nicely between the inch and the tiddler.
Even though they are not as long as a full size slick (must find one of those...) they do give a different feel to chisel work and I can see them becoming firm favorites. I might try sharpening them down to 15 degrees like Adam C describes - should be even more effective at those end-grain paring jobs on soft timber.
I just made a small bench out of parana pine, horrible soft brittle stuff that I found impossible to chop into cleanly, no matter how sharp the blade I used. However, paring off slivers did work when tidying up the end grain of the large finger joints I used to join the legs to the top - and the large Marples parer was great for this, using a slicing cut.
>I do use my japanese chisels for that. I didn't have my push chisels for most of the planes I have made. Those cuts in the dai are not to demanding, its 40 degrees so a saw will do most of the work, and the end of a file sharpened like a scraper will get the junk out. I would love to try some planemaker's floats for this kind of stuff.
>"I am under the impression that pairing chisels always had long thin blades for pairing deep details. "
The main reason is because it's used for paring. It's not really a mater of what the detail it alters is but how the work is done. There is lots of paring that is nor done down some deep hole and a nice stiff blade is as good a design as ever. Speaking of that I just saw the John Alexander video. He is up to his old tricks of making cheap tools. He has a paring chisel made from a plane blade held in a wooden clamp. It's a long handle with about an inch of blade out front to shape the sides of slat mortices.