The Story of the Easy Chisel Rehab

I've tortured the poor folks on Instagram with this story, so I suppose I ought to also put it up here.

I got a sweet stash of tools from Jonas' dad when I was in Denmark. They all need some rehab, some more than others.

Sweet stash of tools. The chisel I'm working on is the third tool from the right..

I got the fretsaw cleaned up and re-handled, but that's not what this post is about. Part of this haul was a few smallish chisels. For some reason all the chisels I have in Spain that are ready for rehab are around 1" wide. I thought the small ones would be usefull, too. It so happened that a 3/8" Jernbolaget chisel was exactly what I thought I needed for the next step on my rocking chair, and I don't happen to have one in my chest. Let's get this one handled up and sharpened.

I had a nice offcut of wenge left over from a Roorkee chair build a long time ago, and figured it would be perfect for this. It turns out wenge easily splits, and a tiny crack opened up after I finished the handle and drove it home.

The crack wasn't too bad. I figured I'd stuff some hide glue in there and put some massive pressure on it with a C clamp.

C clamps provide a lot of pressure.

The next day I took it out of the clamp, and figured I was golden. It looked great. All that was required now was to lap the back (which was a mess), grind the primary bevel, and hone an edge.

I took some care with all of this, and was surprised how quickly it went. However, I wasn't too happy with the edge after doing my thumbnail test. I ground it again, and honed a new edge.

My thumbnail test failed again. For some reason, I didn't trust my thumbnail test. It didn't quite work like it should, but I did everything right to put a razor edge on it, so figured I was good.

After two whacks on the chisel into wood, I discovered something very wrong, indeed.

Something very wrong, indeed.

I didn't really pay attention to the color of the chisel before. I figured it was just patina from age. But, it now occurred to me that the black-ish color of the steel combined with the crusty black flakes was a sign that this chisel has been annealed in a fire at some point.

I was trying to use a chisel that had unhardened steel. I probably could have done just as well with a chisel made from lead.

Plenty of clues this chisel had lost it's temper.

I got some great encouragement and advice on Instagram, including from Larry Williams of Old Street Tools. I watched his YouTube video and thought I'd give it a try.

I twisted the chisel out of the handle as carefully as I could. I re-opened the crack I had repaired, and opened a second crack, but they weren't catastrophic to the handle. A couple of clamps and some hide glue took care of that.

I was able to repair the handle after removing it from the soft chisel.

I don't have a forge, but The Frau is out of town, so I figured I go for heat treating this chisel using only a MAPP torch and a pair of pliers. I wasn't able to get the whole chisel glowing orange, so I just focused on the last inch or so near the business end. Once I got the little iron pools coming up, I quenched in a small jar of sunflower oil, which was the least expensive oil we happened to have in the kitchen.

This is the chisel after quenching.

Now I got the toaster oven out, and fired it up to about 400 degrees Farenheit (210 Celsius or so), and baked it for an hour. This softens the steel up a bit so it isn't quite so brittle.

While that was cooking, I removed all the squeeze-out from the chisel handle, and added a chamfer to the hole which helps the chisel seat all the way. I forgot to do this last time.

I chamfered the hole to help the chisel seat flat.

When the chisel came out of the oven, I was surprised there was even more color on it than before.

Very colorful now.

This didn't bother me, as long as the edge would hold up.

Being a small chisel, it didn't take long to lap the back, grind a 25 degree bevel, and hone it to 30 degrees.

Frickin' perfect!

Holy carp! This certainly did the trick. This chisel feels and cuts wonderfully now.

It doesn't look like much, but it sure works well.

If I had a buffing wheel, I might try to buff the black off, but I don't. I might try to polish it up at some point, but I think the color on it near the bolster will always be there. I might just leave the black on it. I will for sure leave it there for now.

Lots of colors on the metal.

I suppose the moral of the story is not to give up. If you have a chisel that has somehow lost it's temper, depending on the steel that is used it could be easily hardened again. This also might make it possible if you need to do some serious grinding, such as if you make a new side escapement plane. You can use an old iron. Just anneal it by heating it up and letting it cool naturally. You can then easily grind it to a rough shape, then harden it again.

I'll not be afraid to do this again, it was easy. But, hopefully none of my other chisels are like this.

Re-Handling Swedish Steel - VIDEO

I have a weakness when it comes to Swedish steel. I literally have a bucket in my Munich shop that says, "Swedish Chisels."

The last time I was there, I grabbed a couple that needed re-handling and brought them to where I am now living in Spain.

I'm pleased.

They turned out pretty good. They aren't in any way original to how they would have been handled in Sweden, but it is a way I have learned to do it , and they are very comfortable to hold and use.

A big problem occurred when I started this post three days ago. I had so many pictures in the post that it detracted from the quality of the post (more than usual). Therefore, I decided to put them in a video. I haven't done a video in a while.

GRRRRRRRR!!!!

The freaking video took longer to put together than the actual woodworking did. I apologize in advance, if I have a post like this in the future, I'll just post a zillion pictures instead.

The video turned out OK, so I hope you enjoy it:

I had some special brown oak that was sent to me by a fellow InstaGrammer. I am working on another project with that stuff, and I wanted to see what it would look like finished. It is really cool.

Brown oak. I laid out the handle in line with the grain, rather than the face of the board. It split nicely.

Now that I'm looking at my favorite Finnish chisel, I think that it might need a new handle, too.

Next victim.

Plane Rehab - Record #071 Router

I like it.

I have a project coming up that has sliding dovetailed crossbattens in hard wood. I am a big fan of doing things like this with minimal tools (i.e. only a chisel), but I thought I would treat myself to a new old tool:

A router.

I about had a heart attack when I started looking for routers on eBay. The last time I looked, they were a dollar a dozen. Not anymore.

I had considered buying a new Veritas or Lie-Nielsen, but I already have one of those in Munich. (Just wait, I bet I'll have been back to Munich and had the opportunity to fetch it before I get to the project with the sliding dovetails.) Also, few retailers in Europe happen to have them at the moment. I bet I could sell my Lie-Nielsen here for a healthy profit, if I could get to it.

I was able to find a router on British eBay, and the seller was willing to ship it to Spain for a reasonable price. This one was more than I really wanted to pay, but because it was Record and not Stanley, I saved fifty bucks.

After a short wait, this arrived in the mail:

I was happy with it. It looks better than I expected.

The plane was in remarkable shape. I would say 95% japaning is intact. 105% if you count the yellow paint. Some of the parts turned rough, and there was a small amount of surface rust that I wanted to get rid of.

Broken down. Time to clean it up.

I decided to turn my attention to the knobs, first. My thought was this was the hardest part of the rehab. It turned out to only take an hour or so. I went through the grits with sandpaper, 120-240, then burgundy and gray 3M pads.

Wow! Not bad.

I was worried as most of the "experts" on YouTube do this on their lathe, or with some other power tool. I was just careful, and sanded the least amount possible. I couldn't tell before, but now I see the wood is actually stained beech. There was only a few little spots where I sanded through the stain. I had considered staining them again, but decided since I have no stain, I'll just go with what's there.

I finished them with a dunk in my home-made BLO, and topped it off with my home-made beeswax and orange oil wax. What a nice finish. Nothing stinks.

Before and after brass knob bolts.

I considered polishing up the brass screws, but decided in the end to only clean them up with a bit of liquid scouring goo and a toothbrush. This eliminated all the dirt, but left the patina.

In situ.

This didn't take much time, so I next turned my attention to the metal bits. Since there was no heavy rust, I cleaned everything with the same scouring goo and a toothbrush. What needed it got a soft wire brush. I've always liked this way of rehabbing planes, as 1) it's easy, 2) it is not invasive - it leaves the plane in the condition it was found in, only clean, and 3) it's easy.

After.

The hardest thing I did with this plane was sharpening the blade. That only took 20 minutes, and it's not perfect. However, it should service. The more I sharpen the blade, the better condition it will get over time.

071, or o71? That is the question.

This is a solid plane, and I expect it will work just fine. I like the depth stop on my Lie-Nielsen better, but I like that there is a front "foot" on this one. The LN probably adjusts in finer, more accurate increments, but I expect with a little fiddling, this one should work just as well.

I think it turned out nice.

I look forward to getting to know this tool, and when I am eventually re-united with my Munich shop, I might sell one or the other.

I kept the yellow paint. It's part of this tool's history.

Or, I might not.

Winding Sticks Epilogue - Fixing a Screw Up: Part I

One of the inserts in my newly constructed winding sticks turned out pretty ugly. You'll notice I didn't have too many close-ups of them in my last post. These winding sticks will work just fine (in fact, the inserts are overkill, in my opinion), but I realized that every time I use them I will be embarrassed of the giant gap in one.

Giant Gap.

The others, while not perfect, look pretty good to my eye.

I decided that since the inserts were attached only with liquid hide glue, it should be easy to fix. I decided to remove the insert, make a new one and replace it.

Incidentally, I am extremely happy with how my center markers turned out. I drilled all the way through each stick, and inserted a 4mm bamboo skewer.

I think these bamboo dots look great.

Back to scheduled programming: I used some hot water and a blow dryer to weaken the glue holding the insert. I then popped it out with a chisel being careful not to bruise the sycamore, as I didn't want to re-cut this joint. The mortise itself is pretty good.

Insert coming out.

Insert out.

I have plenty of this insert wood for lots more inserts, so it was just a matter of cutting a piece a little oversize.

Oversized insert stock.

I split it to rough width with a chisel.

I wound up with a piece a little oversize. Once the glue cures, I will plane it flush for a perfect match.

A bit oversize.

If you wonder how I plane with only my two sawbenches as work surfaces, here is a photo of my setup. I put one sawbench near a corner in my office, and use a piece of wood with a birdsmouth cut out of it as a planing stop that is braced against the corner of the wall. If I need a longer worksurface, I just add another sawbench behind the first. I also added a strip to my planing stop to act as a shooting board. It works perfectly.

Shooting the ends of the insert to sneak up on a perfect fit.

I also slightly beveled the underside of the insert, so any dreck will not interfere with a tight joint where it shows.

It has the potential to be nice and tight.

All that's left is to add some glue and clamp it up.

And, cross my fingers that it doesn't move again. I think the C-clamp is what caused the problem before: I probably used too much clamping pressure.

Hopefully this clamping strategy will get it to look nice and tight.

Come back tomorrow to see how it turned out! I will take the clamps off, plane it flush and add some more finish. If all works as I hope, it will be a perfect repair!

The Great No. 2 Knock Off Showdown - Part II - Castings and Frogs

Yesterday was Part I of this review of non-Stanley #2 shaped planes. I introduced the planes I have, and compared the totes. If you don't want to read that long post, essentially I have two Fulton 3708s, one made by Sargent and the other Millers Falls, I have a Sargent VBM 407, and a Sargent 409 as a control and something known that I can compare the little ones to.

L to R - Fulton 3708 BB, 3708 BL, Sargent VBM 407, and Sargent 409

Today what I would like to examine is the main plane castings and frog mechanisms

I would like to first examine the above photo, a head on look at all four planes together. Please ignore the sawdust on #4 size 409 on the right - I use this plane. I rehabbed it a while back with the intention of practicing fixing an old plane up before I did it to a more valuable Stanley type 11. This plane works so well, I have yet to get to that type 11, it sits sadly in a corner of my shop while this Sargent gets the snot used out of it. I probably should have cleaned it up a bit for this photo shoot, but I didn't have much time on my lunch hour that day.  :o)

Anyway, what you can see with the castings in this photo pretty much sums up my entire impressions of these planes. Starting from the right, the 409 has a nice, heavy casting which is even, but a bit on the rough side. I can attest that in use this plane isn't lacking anything other than aesthetics.

The 409. The casting has a grey tinge partly because I de-rusted it in citric acid.

Second from the right is the Sargent VBM 407. The casting on this one looks to my eye substantial, yet a bit more refined. Holding this plane you can feel it is smoother on the edges and obvious a little more care was taken on the fit and finish of this plane during construction. I think I could get the edges of the 409 to look like this relatively easy with successively finer grits of sandpaper, but that is purely cosmetic. Still, it is nice to hold and I'm glad that someone at some point in it's manufacture took the time to do it. There is some evidence that this plane was cleaned  up before I got it, but happily the dark patina of time is still all over the casting. I don't think it was sanded down after leaving the factory.

The VBM 407. At some point, someone "polished" up the lever cap grinding down the letters a bit. I imagine new the printing here was a bit crisper looking.

Next up is the third-from-the-right Sargent made Fulton 3708 BL. Actually, I have no idea if this plane really is a model 3708, as that number is nowhere on the casting. No numbers at all. There is a "BL" on the blade, but that is it. BL is Sears' code for being manufactured by Sargent. Since it is so close in appearance to the 3708 BB, we'll go with that as a designator.

You can see in the first picture, that compared to the others this plane has the thinnest casting. It is also a bit uneven - some parts of the casting are visibly thicker than others. My impression is that this is cosmetic, and only shows that this plane went through the assembly line a little faster than the rest of the planes in this test. We will see, but so far I haven't found anything on this casting that will prevent the plane from functioning well. It's just a bit ugly.

3708 BL - in this photo the uneven tapering of the thickness of the casting can be seen.

Last but not least, the Millers Falls manufactured Fulton 3708 BB. The differences are subtle, but to my eye this casting is the best looking of the lot. Not too thick and clunky looking, yet also substantial enough to not be considered too thin. The thickness looks even all around, and the sharp edges are all polished and pleasingly rounded from the factory. The standard at the MF plant was obviously a little higher than they were a the Sargent plant when the other one was made.

Proportions on the 3708 BB look perfect to my eye.

Let's take a peek now at the frogs, and how they are mated to the castings:

The dust isn't original to this plane.

Here's where the frog beds to the casting on the 409. Sargent used these three bits of metal in the casting that they ground flat(ish) for the frog to rest on. One could file these flat, but to get them all in line and perfect would take a bit of care, I decided to see how the plane worked without doing that, and I notice no deficiencies in perfromance.

A close up of the bed.

The frog itself has three ground places where it meets the raised bits in the bed. Sargent stamped the model number of the plane on the underside of the frog.

Underside of frog.

The adjuster uses a regular threaded bolt. This means that to advance the blade, you have to turn the adjuster knob to the left, which is backwards of what most of us are used to. This plane is old enough to where the knob itself is what we would consider small.

Also, in this photo the yoke is one solid piece.

The great part of this frog is the surface of the frog is ground flat, and has a lot of bearing surface for the blade. I really like frogs like this.

A nice, old-style frog.

Let's now look at the VBM 407:

Is this a different picture?

Looking at the close-ups of this plane, you would be forgiven for thinking you might be looking at the 409 again, just without all the dust. Nearly all the same features as it's bigger brother.

One piece yoke, small knob with "backwards" threads.

This one also needs to be turned to the left to advance the blade. It's something you can get used to, but it is weird at first.

407 once again stamped on the underside of the frog. Strangely, it is upside down as compared to how the 409 is stamped. I wonder why?

A good, robust, functional design. Having used this plane, I can say it takes shavings and performs well.

Ribbit.

Now, how about the Sargent made Fulton? What do you think this will look like?

Same picture again?

I've reversed the order of how we'll look at this one to make it easier for you to scroll between the two to see the differences.

The guts of this plane look awfully close to the same as the VBM 407. The frog looks very, VERY similar. It wouldn't surprise me if the frog was cast in the exact same form.

This one just looks newer.

It looks the same to me, just perhaps done a bit faster. The only significant difference in the frog is the knob is big on this one, and made of stainless steel. Also, the threads are left-handed resulting in advancing the blade achieved by turning the knob to the right. In addition, the yoke is two separate pieces. No idea what the advantage of that is. It probably was easier to manufacture.

Two piece yoke and stainless knob.

The big difference in the bed casting is the center isn't raised, and the paint is left on. I suspect leaving the center of the frog unsupported makes it easier for the frog to feel firmly seated, as there are only two bearing surfaces rather than three to align. We'll have to see how this performs. There could be room for super-tuning here.

Paint.

By the way, this plane hasn't always looked so shiny and new:

Here is the 3708 BL before rehab.

Finally, the Fulton 3708 BB made by Millers Falls:

I've only noticed this on Millers Falls planes.

Like most Millers Falls planes, the maker and number of the plane is engraved on the side. I like this about Millers falls planes, it leaves no questions.

The frog on this plane once again has a lot of bearing surface to support the blade, but the design is obviously different.

What is going on down by the mouth?

The design of this frog mechanism is far superior, in my mind. We'll have to see how it works in practice, but the clever mechanism ensures square alignment of the frog is maintained, and moves the load of the bearing surface down close to the mouth, where it can ensure stability of the cutting surface.

It's a good theory in my mind, we'll have to wait to see if it works as I think it will.

By the way, if you haven't noticed, I got a new pair of Crocs in the mail and am using the wrapper to protect my dining table.

The frog's casting looks like a little more care was taken in it's manufacturing. Like the BL, this one has a two piece yoke and a stainless large knob that turns right to advance the blade.

"2." Not sure what that means. Maybe because the Stanley equivalent is a #2? I doubt it.

There was one more detail in this casting which made me smile. Look at the part that supports the front knob:

Solid front knob.

When I tried to take off the front knob, I first twisted on the knob itself as sometimes this will loosen a front knob so a screwdriver isn't needed. This knob was rock-solid and wouldn't budge. Once I got it off, I realized that these little teeth in the casting were holding the knob in place. This is an awesome feature in my mind. I hate when I am planing and the front knob moves by unscrewing. This feature eliminates that problem.

I don't know about you, but what I am seeing is making me think the Millers Falls designed Fulton 3708 BB might be the best of the bunch. I am seeing enough little details that are in there not to be noticed, but with a function that this plane is setting itself up to be a great little user.

In my mind, the Sargent 409 works so well that it will be tough to beat in performance, so we will have to see during the test coming up in Part IV.

Before that, though, we need to look at blades, chipbreakers and levercaps in the upcoming Part III of this series.

Stay tuned...