Chisels, Gouges, Scissors, etc

There is my initiation at tool making: some of the tools I've been made and use in my woodwork shop.

This is my first ever bladed tool, have never mad a knife or anything meant to hold an edge but I have need of a draw knife so I figured why not just make one! It is forged from a portion of leafspring off of a ford raptor. Not knowing exactly what type of steel it was I cut a small piece and heated it to forging temperature a few times giving it a few hits with a hammer each time, then normalized x3, then heated until non magnetic (my high temp thermocouple hasn't arrived yet) and quenched in mineral oil. It hardened to the point I could snap it in a vice with a very light tap from a hammer and it showed a very very fine grain. This all seemed to point to it be…

I finished a second chain damascus drawknife. It has a 1080 steel backer with redheart and copper handles. I traded the bigger one to a friend (Brian of BearKat Wood) who made me an incredible woodworking hand saw in exchange.

Strictly speaking this project does not involve forging... though it could. I think it might be useful for smiths who also make scabbards or other leather projects though. I made this sewing awl to punch sewing holes for my needles on leather pieces where the throats of my punch pliers is not deep enough to reach. It was about a 15 minute job repurposing an old straight blade screwdriver with my belt grinder and another 20 minutes or so to make the little scabbard for it. I used a ceramic belt and was careful not to overheat the point... so that I could preserve the original temper of the tool. The four sided grind makes a sort of self healing hole that reclose…

I've been working on this chain damascus drawknife. It started as a bicycle chain and a large old ARCADE bastard mill file. It took me three separate forging sessions, as there was more steel than I expected to draw out by hand and my arms are pretty lame. I now have the forging complete and the drawknife rough ground ready for HT.

I'm making some chisels for timber framing, that means the blade will be ~10 inches and the handle will be 8-9 inches. These will be ~1/4" thick with a slight taper to the edge ranging from 1.5-2.5" wide. I'm wanting to laminate/forge weld steel on the back to a mild steel face, it saves cash to keep the costs lower due to the overall size of these. Any suggestions for how thick the tool steel edge should be? I'm likely to use O1 but I'd like to make similar to a japanese style chisel with a slightly harder edge say closer to 60-62 range.

This chisel has been hung on the wall in the wood shop for years. First, I had Nothing! to do with getting it in this shape. It will never be sold or repurposed. Question is can it be repaired. The socket is mushroomed out and in. It's not particularly old as greenlee didn't move to Rockford IL and make hand tools until 1927 but I'd like to put a handle in it if the socket is repairable. Papy

I forged this socket chisel/slick from a bicycle chain welded to an O1 steel backer. Heat treated it myself in the forge and my kitchen oven. The handle is redheart, finished with shellac and wax. This project was inspired by the Peter Ross DVD "Forging a Socket Chisel". Next time I'll try to get the socket to weld properly, but it seems to hold the handle very tightly regardless.

A little background first. Until a few weeks ago I had never turned wood on a lathe. I built a makeshift lathe from parts I had and of course about a week later someone gave me a Shopsmith 10e - the oldest model made I believe. I spent a couple weekends resurrecting it from the dead and making a tool rest and drive center for the lathe function. I've also made a skew chisel and now I'm planning to make a roughing gouge, parting tool, and probably a bowl gouge. My potential starting materials are coil spring, leaf spring, old files, or some O1 drill rod. I don't have a press or power hammer, so I'm looking for a good way to form the roughing gouge. My thinking i…

I, for many different reasons, need an enormous gouge chisel to hollow out logs. I have seen them on YouTube videos and such but they almost always seem homemade and I probably couldn't afford one if they could be sold. But what I do have is a 5 foot long, 1 and 1/4 inch thick, old ground anchor from a mobile home. I know I can cut the auger off, heat, and pound a chisel out of one end, but I'm not a blacksmith, I don't know the type of steel this anchor is made from, how to heat treat it, or whether or not it pays to even try. Any advice?

hi guys, yesterday I was forging my first ever weapon , its a lovely crude war axe its a bit crooked and needs some filing, but I'm very impressed for a first weapon ( second ever smithing project btw ) the problem came with making the hole for the handle, my chisels kept getting stuck. after clamping the chisel in a vice and trying to pry it out with a crowbar, which failed horribly, I had to cut off the tip of my chisel so that I could put the head back in the ''furnace" ( a piece of 120mm steel pipe with a 6 mm wall that I drilled a hole into and stuck an oxy-acetylene torch into "safe" ) how can I avoid this in the future, I don't want to waist tools li…

Here's my first wood chisel. I wanted to do a style like Gerald Boggs but I don't have the best equipment/skill to forge shoulders, so I decided to do a socket style. Mild steel socket and body, 5160 forgewelded onto the bottom for edge, and a sycamore handle. I have some trouble with forging sockets and not getting a slight gap or space where they'll meet the body, whether or not it's on a chisel or an arrowhead. I have trouble getting a completely wrapped, no gap socket. Any tips or suggestions? I chose sycamore because i've been told it makes good hammer handles and is nice and hard, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. Heat treat was quenched in warm, used motor oil and …

Picked up these chisels they look like some kind of alloy ,wondered if anyone knew what type of steel they might be or what they are used for. Cheers.

Hi, How would you hollow a back of a chisel as seen f.e. over here: Those ones seem to be ground. Any idea what is used for the narrow grooves in production runs? I'm planning to do a set or two, so speed and consistency would be required...

I made my first socket handled chisel this past week. The steel is from a leaf spring, which hardened quite nicely, and the handle was turned from a chunk of an oak tree I cut down last year. It wasn't perfect, but is quite functional and the new owner was quite pleased.

Any help on how I can avoid this failure in my next attempt at forging chisels will be greatly appreciated. The material I'm using is new 5160 1" round bar. Using a gas forge with temp control, hammer and press for forging. After forging I did 2 normalizing / thermal cycles, first one at 1600, then one at 1550, soaked for 10 min each. I let them cool to the touch before the next cycle. Quench was done in 120 deg canola oil. Both chisels show longitudinal cracks. What did I do wrong?

Next on my tool list are the cold and hot chisels. What is a good sharpening angle for them? And for a hot cut in the hardy hole?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_TsNQxL1rM The video shows the process of how I did cutters for homemade lathe wood. Thank you for attention!

Hi all, I offer you a video that how i make the Stitching Groover.Thank you for your watching

For me one of the best things about being a blacksmith is the ability to make tools you want. My boss is retiring and the company got him a large 16-inch wood lathe as a retirement gift. I wanted to give him something from me so I decided to make him a large roughing gouge. I used some 1/4 inch 5160. Forged out a tang got the roll started in a swage block and rolled it up on the anvil face. Its 1-3/4 inside the flutes. I turned a handle out of a chunk of cherry and used a cutting shoe from a drill rig sampler for the ferrule. Our company is a drilling and engineering company so using a company artifact so to speak adds some mojo. I quenched in hot veggie oil and te…

Almost finished with this. I havent done any forging for over 2 months due to some tendonitis and bursitis in my shoulder due to work related injury. So this is the first thing I have forged since. Wanted to do something that would assist me in my progress with the japanese blade. In this case easier chiseling for saya. This is my first wood chisel I have made, along with the Mokume Gane is the first I have ever attempted and made. The steel is 5/8" round W1, and it was water quenched in 120F water and switched to warm oil after 4 seconds in the water. This was normalized 3 times prior to quench, and it was tempered at 250F for 2 hours. There is a very slow taper …

Hello smithy types, I have a quick question: I am forging a couple of 3 1/2" wide timber slicks for a pioneering program I help teach at two youth camps in the summer. I have a few pieces of 5160 truck leaf spring that are 5/8" tapering to 1/4" thick. What is the best way to go about forging the sockets. Would it be best to roll the socket and forge weld it (I have gotten to about 90% success rate with fire welding) or would it be best to forge a socket from a piece of pipe and then forge weld it to a tang drawn on the chisel?

We call it a drawing needle, I don’t know the English term, it is for marking were you need to cut the iron and things like that. I’ve heated the chisel to purple/blue and quenched it in water, works fine it is actually my third cold chisel. The needle I’ve heated to bright red and quenched it also in water and then a bit above the tip heated it to blue and quenched it. It works fine, the tip looks undamaged but I’ve made about ten lines, time will tell if it is good or not. Both are made from a coiled spring.

Catchy title, huh? :) Seriously.... it started life as a guy anchor for a utility pole. I found it off in the wilds, how it got there is a mystery, and wasn't about to pass up 6' of 5/8" round stock even it was mangled and corroded. Still had the eye and the original nut. No sign of galvanizing, but full of potential. Of course, that was before I started forging it! Hands down the most difficult steel I've ever hammered on even when yellow hot. Real basic design and just about all I could do even with a yellow heat. Very tough stuff. I cut it about 10" long so my hand would be plenty far away from the heat. The bevel is rather sharp and I might change th…

Is there a resource for tools? I'm planning on making a complete set of hot and cold chisels, but I need reference pictures.