A Shift In The Space-Time Continuum

Was there a shift in the space-time continuum?  Maybe a worm-hole opened up between Cincinnati and Quebec City?  Oh yeah…this is still Wood’n Bits, not some sci-fi blog.

What baffles me is this simple fact.  Today Chris Schwarz announced that “We just received our office copies of the February 2011 issue, and that means it will soon be on its way to subscribers.” I got my copy YESTERDAY!  Great issue for those of you waiting for your ‘soon to be on its way’ copy.

Why Do Chisel Restoration?

With so many quality chisels available today, why would anyone restore old ones?  Back in October, Chris Schwarz did an economic analysis in his Yuppie Tools: A True Accounting post and suggested that it just wasn’t worth the time and trouble.

I agree with most of what Chris talks about and I don’t disagree here, but I do restore chisels.  You see, I don’t think money is everything in the analysis.  For one thing, for most of us, woodworking is about having fun.  The notion that ‘time is money’ just doesn’t apply.  For many it’s fun to find an old socket chisel that hasn’t had it’s brains banged out by someone with a metal hammer.  Lifting old tools from the flea markets of the world is an honorable activity.  Whether it’s fun to de-rust it is less clear but there are those of us who actually enjoy this messy, mindless task.  Certainly, using a tool that you’ve restored is a pleasure for most.

But an oft-overlooked part of the analysis is that Lie-Nielsen (the company whose chisels Chris used for his comparison) doesn’t make wide chisels.  They don’t make slab-sided firmer chisels.  And for this reason alone, you might find oneself doing a chisel restoration even if they own a stack of Lie-Nielsen chisels, which I agree are wonderful.

I did.  I’d been looking for a wide chisel for cleaning up the sides of mortises, for cutting a notch next to a cutline when doing dados with saw and chisel, and for the various other tasks for which a wide chisel is useful.  I found one.

I had also picked up a 3/8″ firmer chisel.  I have a 1/4″ firmer and have found the vertical sides very nice when you’re paring the ends of a mortise and since I do both 1/4″ and 3/8″, I jumped at the chance to pick up a 3/8″ version of this chisel. 

I cleaned them up, sharpened them and then thought about handles.  The firmer came with an old, but quite usable handle.  As it had a tight leather top and was otherwise not too beat up, I sanded it a bit and added some BLO and called it done.

For the other chisel I needed to turn a handle so I took a scrap of maple and did just that.  I didn’t record this process as I’ve talked about making chisel handles in a previous post titled Handling My Chisels.  Here are the end results.

In the end, for the princely sum of $5 + a couple bucks worth of expendibles, I’ve got two very useable tools that Lie-Nielsen doesn’t sell (grin).  I do wish they’d come out with a 2″ wide chisel to match their bench chisels, though.

Cheers — Larry

larry@woodnbits.com

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