removing plastic chisel handles
Gary B in Central NY
>anyone know a good way to do it? I've got a set of old craftsman chisels that I'm thinking about re heat treating and grinding for dovetail chisels......and replacing those terrible handles!!!
removing plastic chisel handles
Posts
Re: removing plastic chisel handles
#2this will work
bill tindall
>They will be cellulose acetate or butyrate. You can heat it in oven, about 150 C, and it will soften and you will be able to pull the steel out. It will take quite a while to get the whole mass heated. I suppose you could just heat the steel and it would in turn just melt the plastic around the steel.
Alternatively, it will dissolve in acetone. It might take a couple of days as it will dissolve very slowly without stirring.
I don't understand heat treating it again. Was it not done best to begin with?
Re: removing plastic chisel handles
#3Re: this will work
Gary B in Central NY
>Thanks bill....I planned on regrinding them to taper the side bevels to a point. though I could be careful and probably not draw the temper, I've heard that you can make the chisels better by re heat treating them, though maybe it's an old wives tale.
Re: removing plastic chisel handles
#4Re: removing plastic chisel handles
Dave Thompson
>If you're planning to re-heat treat them, why not just clamp the with some vice grips and heat the metal with a torch. The plastic gripping the metal will melt and just let go of the chisel.
Re: removing plastic chisel handles
#5Mystery metal
jimreed@tallahassee
>I have reworked many chisels and think it is fun. For this project however, I would start with some quality high carbon steel. Why waste your time? Grinding dovetail chisels and re-heat treating is alot of labor that could go up in smoke for one reason or another. My experience with plastic handle chisels is that the tangs are made especially for molding into plastic. Don't be surprised when you melt the plastic and find a short stubby ROUND tang! Good luck with your project. What sizes are you going to make?
Re: removing plastic chisel handles
#6Re: this will work
Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX
>Wives, old or new, almost never talk about chisles, much less make up tales about them.
Pam
Re: removing plastic chisel handles
#7Re: this will work
Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia
>Old wives tales are just as valid as rules of thumb. :-)JR
Re: removing plastic chisel handles
#8I have a full set of them
Gary B in Central NY
>from 1/4 to 1"....planned on making them all.....but it's in the "when I get around to it" pile
Re: removing plastic chisel handles
#9Re: this will work
Thom D
>I don't know about Craftsman, but a lot of those blister pack specials are designed to be sharpened by file in the field, or at least that is a charitable explanation... So re-heat-treating them is a good way to increase the performance if you are a bench guy with a lot of cutting power like belt sanders and grinding wheels and stones. Jim Cummings described this process in one of his FWW videos. It can be a useful introduction to the world of heat treating. You quickly come to realize that the shop guy can easily outdo the big factory with all it's assumed competence, well at least relative to matching one's own needs.
I get the plastic handles off in one of two ways. Usually the translucent ones are not well adhered, and you can just break them, or split them free. You can even get them off and then put them back if you want to. The way to remove a handle that is designed to come off is to bat it against a block of endgrain as though the chisel is a bat, and the block a very large ball. Rotate with every hit or so and the handle walks off. Often even acetate handles can be re-used after this treatment. But this will usually get any tang off that needs removing.
Re: removing plastic chisel handles
#10Re: I have a full set of them
Thom D
>If they did turn out to be very short stubs you can pot them in an oversized epoxy slug in a handle, it's called hardware bonding. You need a good grade of epoxy that cures hard, I use WEST.