Any diamond mortice chisel sharpeners?

[ColeyS1]

Just used a brand new clico chisel and it's amazing how well it performs. Makes me wonder if my chisel sharpener could do with a sharpen aswell.

Before I send it off to be sharpened I'm wondering if someone's brought out a decent diamond version. I've seen several diamond cone shapes but none with the different sized inserts that go in the end.

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[Myfordman]

I think I got my diamond cones from Veritas. No need for a pilot insert if you work carefully in a lathe.

 

[ColeyS1]

I think I got my diamond cones from Veritas. No need for a pilot insert if you work carefully in a lathe.

That's a good idea. Did you spin the lathe by hand? Still haven't got around to fixing mine yet.

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[Trevanion]

I've never used the diamond-coated ones but I'd assume they would be just as good as an old reamer, but I've never seen one that could do any larger than a 12mm chisel. I can tell you right now that your reamer desperately needs sharpening! :lol: I just noticed your reamer is the wrong one to use with Clico ones, thats a "J" pattern reamer for the Japanese angle chisels which is a sharper angle than the English pattern that the Clicos were, which may be why they don't perform so well anymore as they're letting too large of a chip pass by the auger without being shredded up causing more heat.

Someone who I know quite well had turned a cone to the right angle out of a hardwood like Sapele and used it in a drill with a honing/polishing compound on the reamed surface to get a mirror finish on the inside face. He claimed that this reduced friction from chips massively which in turn increased the life of the chisel as well as a cleaner cut surface. Again, I haven't tried it myself but I can see the reasoning.

I know some people like to buy conical grinding stones that will fit in the drill and shape them to the right angle and use that, like the one below.

 

[ColeyS1]

I just noticed your reamer is the wrong one to use with Clico ones, thats a "J" pattern reamer for the Japanese angle chisels which is a sharper angle than the English pattern that the Clicos were, which may be why they don't perform so well anymore as they're letting too large of a chip pass by the auger without being shredded up causing more heat.

The clico reamer seems to fit the clico chisel pretty spot on [WINKING FACE]

I picked the worse edge in the photo. The rest of them dont seem quite as dull. I'll try getting this one sharpened and have another go with the other chisels.

A diamond cone with different sized inserts would be really good- with a hex shank.

Mortice from yesterday-

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[Trevanion]

Hmm, That chisel does seem to have a Japanese angle to it already, mine have a much shallower curve to the cutting edge. Maybe Clico made a run of Japanese chisels at some point with corresponding augers :-k

 

[Myfordman]

I think I got my diamond cones from Veritas. No need for a pilot insert if you work carefully in a lathe.

That's a good idea. Did you spin the lathe by hand? Still haven't got around to fixing mine yet.

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I do it under power around 50-100 rpm with oil and a rag to protect the shears from debris.

 

[ColeyS1]

Hmm, That chisel does seem to have a Japanese angle to it already, mine have a much shallower curve to the cutting edge. Maybe Clico made a run of Japanese chisels at some point with corresponding augers :-k

That would explain why it fits the reamer which you think is Japanese also. Seems odd that they would supply a english pattern auger with it though. The combination certainly seems to work extremely well !

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[ColeyS1]

I think I got my diamond cones from Veritas. No need for a pilot insert if you work carefully in a lathe.

That's a good idea. Did you spin the lathe by hand? Still haven't got around to fixing mine yet.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

I do it under power around 50-100 rpm with oil and a rag to protect the shears from debris.

Sounds like a reason to finish the motor replacement on the lathe. Thanks

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[Trevanion]

Seems odd that they would supply a english pattern auger with it though. The combination certainly seems to work extremely well !

It’s probably a auger made to match the Japanese angle rather than an English one, I’ll see if I can dig out an old Clico and a new Jap to compare the two and take a couple of snaps.

I know Clico made two different angled reamers, one for the Japanese chisels which was marked “J” on the reamer and box and one for the older English chisels which either wasn’t marked or was marked with “D” on both I think. I wasn’t aware they made any chisels with the sharper Japanese angle though.

A lot of people like the older English pattern for hardwoods over the Jap pattern but I never really noticed any real difference between the two types.

 

[Trevanion]

I got some pictures for you

Fairly unused original grind Clico chisel on the left, brand spanking new out of the tube Nakahashi (NH) chisel on the right.

Hopefully, you can see in the picture how both are ground, it was a pain to get a decent photo. The Clico has a much shallower cutting angle than the NH chisel shown by the lower arc between the points. I'm not certain what the exact angles are respectively, but I remember having a very stern telling off after sharpening an English pattern chisel with a Japanese reamer when I was an apprentice :lol: "You do a mortice with that you'll split the chisel!" So I guess it's kind of stuck with me. I've only ever split a chisel open once but it wasn't really in the best condition anyway and had been in use for years, I've still got it somewhere as a bit of a momento. The NH chisels have quite an aggressive taper to them, the 16mm bit, for example, is 16mm at the cutting end and it's 15mm nearer the shank which helps prevent the timber from pinching the chisel, I haven't actually measured the Clico but I think it's nearer parallel.

Clico double flute auger on the left, NH single flute auger on the right.

Again, not a great photo but hopefully you can see the shallower bevel on the Clico compared to the NH. Keeping the auger in good shape is just as important as keeping the chisel sharp as the auger does the brunt of the work. With a new auger, I like to take all the burrs off the flutes with some sandpaper which really makes a day and night difference with ejection out of the box. Even when the NH chisels cost £50+ starting, they're relatively rough out of the packaging and need a little fettling with a file and sandpaper to get them cutting perfectly, but even if you don't fettle them they'd eventually wear off the burrs and work well. Snapped quite a few augers in my time, which is why I like to keep a spare set of the common sizes handy because a snapped auger can totally stop a job if you haven't got a spare, these days I've gotten pretty good at hearing the different pitch of the tool if it's getting dull though so I haven't snapped one from stress due lack of sharpening in a while.

You might find this testing Scott and Sargent did interesting, it's a bit of a one-sided test I think because they sell NH chisels and they're supreme in softwoods like the douglas fir they did the test in whilst the Clicos domain is hardwoods so of course the Clico isn't going to do well because of the fluffy chips: https://www.scosarg.com/leaflets/NH/NH.pdf

For a machine that's the staple of the joinery trade, there's very little written and published about them. I guess hollow chisels are perhaps looked down upon as a bit "old fashioned" compared to high-speed CNC slot morticers and those oscillating chisel machines. Maybe one day I'll do a little basic write-up on it for the forum going through how to get a brand new chisel prepared for working and how to set up the machine properly since there's almost nothing to be seen that goes through this that isn't done by someone who hasn't got a clue about it themselves.