what chisel shape would you choose..

OTOH and getting a bit off topic

Bruce, a MN Galoot

I have a friend who is a highly skilled wood turner. His wife teaches fabric arts, weaving, knitting, quilting. For some years the only thing he turned was knitting needles, $15 a set, sold to her students, at street fairs, etc. He could make a set in about ten minutes. Those knitting needles paid for a cottage to house her classes and an addition to their home.

Raising the subject of handles

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

The picture you showed illustrated a great variety of handle shapes.

When I made chisels I was anxious to get them in service. I turned a simple handle like 3rd from right. Seemed I would not need to experiment to get its ergonomics optimum. The thought was that I would make more highly profiled handles later.

Well time passed and I never found that simple handle lacking in any way. So what is the advantage, for some/most, of the more highly profiled handles?

Not sure...

David Weaver

...Several of those styles are very similar.

I prefer the carving type handle, but the one type that's otherwise similar except for wood or octagonal or not is reasonably nice, too.

I've been stabbing simple handles on all of the test chisels and they're not quite as crude as a cut off dowel (and they're good quality wood), but I don't know that I would pick any of the commercially made handles over them.

I've learned the same as you - if you're making a tool to use in the shop and you figure "I'll do a better part of this later", it usually won't happen. It's just not going to rise to the top of the list of things to do above things you're making - making is always more interesting than re-making.

Delayed Response...

David Weaver

..I had a relative (now deceased) who was a hard core knitter. I don't remember what was in her quiver except that she mentioned that she went to a couple of different classes, and at one of them, a skilled turner offered needles. If you wished, you could have the needles made so that you could see them being turned, and she'd paid something like $15, as you say for them.

I had just started woodworking, and am still probably only a youtube video away from seeing how it was done, but they were nicely finished and she'd said they were more or less turned quickly and burnished and that was it.

The nice thing about something like that is at $15, people don't start getting into "I'm not going to pay you that much to do that little" (vs. items that are in three digit price ranges where buyers start to dicker about how much they think you make per hour on an item).