A bit of tool ID help needed

[Zeddedhed]

Here's a few items from the weekends haul.

Up first is this I Sorby chisel.

The iron is very thin and all my Great Uncle could tell me is that he's had it since he could remember and always used it for splitting wide wedges to use as grounds for fitting door linings. I'm wondering if anyone knows of it's intended use, age, and any other pertinent info.

Next is this brutal looking mortice chisel:

As you can see the handle has been beaten down over the socket and ends in a ragged fashion. I quite like this and don't want to rehandle it as I know it was a regular user and chopped many hundreds of lock mortices on doors. Would this originally have had a normal socketed handle? When GU was asked he broke into gales of laughter and spluttering and recalled a 'right evil bas*ard' clerk of the works who used to torment him over his limp and how eventually he had enough and used it to 'do all four of his effin' tyres on a Friday just before knocking off time. They were working out in the sticks and no-one was prepared to give the guy a lift home. He reportedly had to walk 15miles in the rain and then spent most of the weekend getting his car sorted. The chisel became known as the 'equaliser.' I'm sorely tempted to put it in a glass case!!

Lastly is this pair of tools:

I'm guessing they are for draw boring mortices but I know very little of these things!!

 

[Racers]

Top one is a sash pocket chisel, bottom ones are draw bore pins.

Pete

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Top one is a sash pocket chisel, bottom ones are draw bore pins.

Pete

Agreed.

The middle one is a socket mortice chisel, intended for heavy duty, sometimes rather rough work. They were made of wrought iron, with a small piece of tool steel forge-welded into it to provide the cutting edge. On yours, that piece of tool steel is probably quite short - when new, the chisels were somewhat longer than that. Nice to see it still has it's wooden handle; some become detached, and crude users continue to strike the socket end with a hammer, mushrooming it over and ruining it. Making a new handle is quite easy - just whittle a piece of wood to a reasonable fit, and whack it in, so there's no real excuse for the abuse.

Nice story!

Edit to add - The 1938 Marples catalogue (Toolemera website) still lists several sizes, and two different types, of sash pocket chisels. I can't prove this, but strongly suspect that they were the sort of tool to be dropped from manufacturers' inventories during WW2, so I'd say your example is pre-1939 and possibly earlier. The draw-bore pins look post-war, though - leather washers under the ferrule and labels still on the handles suggest 1950s or '60s. Others might know better, though!

 

[swb58]

A question if I may. Draw-bore pins seem highly priced to me, or is there more to them than meets the eye?

 

[Zeddedhed]

Thanks guys for the info, especially re the sash pocket chisel.

I'm a bit unsure why my GU told me he used it for splitting out grounds as I know for sure he made many a sash window in his time. It could obviously be down to old age and general booze - related addlement (he recounted a story of having to rush from his workshop to a family do whilst slightly pi55ed and brushing his hair with a wire brush. He was particularly pleased to recall the horror on his Aunts face when she arrived to collect him and he opened the front door looking like something from the exorcist - blood matted in his thin grey hair and all over his forehead.)

Now I don't make many sashes (four in the last 8 years) but I guess the the chisel would have been used cross grain to whack out the bottom edge of the pocket complete with bevel for a nice flush fit - hence the thin blade. Presumable the long edges of the pocket would be made with a kerning plane?

 

[AndyT]

For cutting the pockets the tools used would have been the plough plane (cutting the long groove for the parting bead, coinciding with the internal long edge) a brace and centre bit to make two holes at the back to allow use of a padsaw for a crossgrain cut and the sash pocket chisel to cut/split the rest.

This is according to an excellent old Woodworker booklet, rescued by Richard Arnold and republished recently.

 

[Billy Flitch]

Zed I would believe your GU about the use of the chisel he obviously used it in place of an Axe to chop wall plugs. Probably used it because it was lighter to carry around with his tools than a joiners axe.The plugs where chopped in a shape like a propeller so when you drove them between the brick work they would twist and lock them selves into position. Al the interior joinery work was fastened in position using wall plugs. that's where the modern equivalents get their name from (IE rawl plugs, Plasa plugs and so on ).

 

[AndyT]

A question if I may. Draw-bore pins seem highly priced to me, or is there more to them than meets the eye?

Have a look at this old thread where we compared buying from a tool dealer to having a blacksmith make some.

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/draw-bore-pin-t72235.html