Mystery Sorby chisel

[Jacob]

Somewhat similar to yours but with what I think of as the old style English handle - from English boxwood.
View attachment 102945

Is that a 3/4"?

 

[workshopted]

Is that a 3/4"?

Not sure about that particular one, Jacob, because I gifted it to a remarkable lady carpenter who works on restoring historic buildings in the U.S.A (she does all of her work with handtools only. However, the following examples one by Reaney of Birmingham, and the two larger of these Ward & Payne and Brades mortice chisels are 3/4''... I have one or two others by Moulson of Sheffield in the chest.....somewhere.

d

 

[Cheshirechappie]

I've never actually seen a 3/4" mortice chisel, biggest was 5/8". Simple reason for this must be that over 3/4" to cut a mortice in the prescribed 90º manner (see above) would entail an unfeasibly heavy chisel, a massive mallet and Desperate Dan.
Maybe instead a much narrower chisel as per smackie's offering above would be used to cut slots for the two sides of a wide mortice, which would leave the ends relatively easy to cut with a big firmer, or to partially drill with an auger. The waste wood in the middle would then drop out as a block and save all the effort of reducing it to chippings.
Guesswork I know but I'll have a go and see how it goes.
Had a quick google to see find out but there was nothing. Lots of references to "levering" but in fact the well known mortice chisel shape is designed precisely to eliminate levering.

The method outlined is partially correct for work in green wood, such as timber framing, but the tool used for sinking such mortices was not the chisel, but the twybil. Oddly, Wikipedia is quite informative;

Twybil - Wikipedia

The heavy pattern chisels under discussion were more generalist tools for heavier trades, though obviously the mortice pattern were primarily intended for sinking mortices.

Just for interest, the aforementioned Benjamin Seaton had both Oval Bolstered Mortice chisels and Socket Chisels in his tool chest. The OBMs ran from 1/8" to 1/2", the sockets from 1/2" to 1 1/4". As Seaton was primarily, I think, a joiner and cabinetmaker, it may seem odd that he had heavy duty socket chisels. I'm speculating now, but it may be that as the firmer chisels of the day (and Seaton had two sets, one in cast steel and one in 'ordinary' shear steel) were thin by modern standards, and thus unfit for heavy levering, the socket chisels were kept by some joiners for use when heavier levering might lead to damage of their finer firmers.

 

[workshopted]

Not sure about that particular one, Jacob, because I gifted it to a remarkable lady carpenter who works on restoring historic buildings in the U.S.A (she does all of her work with handtools only. However, the following examples one by Reaney of Birmingham, and the two larger of these Ward & Payne and Brades mortice chisels are 3/4''... I have one or two others by Moulson of Sheffield in the chest.....somewhere.View attachment 102955d View attachment 102954
View attachment 102953

Just found a pic of the 3/4'' Moulson sitting alongside a 3/32'' 18th century James Cam mortice chisel... it needed a guardian.

 

[Jacob]

The method outlined is partially correct for work in green wood, such as timber framing, but the tool used for sinking such mortices was not the chisel, but the twybil. Oddly, Wikipedia is quite informative;

Twybil - Wikipedia

The heavy pattern chisels under discussion were more generalist tools for heavier trades, though obviously the mortice pattern were primarily intended for sinking mortices.

Just for interest, the aforementioned Benjamin Seaton had both Oval Bolstered Mortice chisels and Socket Chisels in his tool chest. The OBMs ran from 1/8" to 1/2", the sockets from 1/2" to 1 1/4". As Seaton was primarily, I think, a joiner and cabinetmaker, it may seem odd that he had heavy duty socket chisels. I'm speculating now, but it may be that as the firmer chisels of the day (and Seaton had two sets, one in cast steel and one in 'ordinary' shear steel) were thin by modern standards, and thus unfit for heavy levering, the socket chisels were kept by some joiners for use when heavier levering might lead to damage of their finer firmers.

Interesting. Many ways to skin a cat!

 

[Jacob]

Just found a pic of the 3/4'' Moulson sitting alongside a 3/32'' 18th century James Cam mortice chisel... it needed a guardian.
View attachment 102957

I was going to say that the bigger you go the more you'd expect to depart from the familiar OBM proportions, which your other examples do, but this one doesn't.

 

[workshopted]

I was going to say that the bigger you go the more you'd expect to depart from the familiar OBM proportions, which your other examples do, but this one doesn't.

And that's before we go into the wonderful world of user-made replacement handles... Grin!

 

[Droogs]

now Ted, they have very Elizabeathan flavour. I can see me choppin' some new mortices on the Marie Rose's replacement while humming that new #1 Hit in the bawdy houses, The Parson's Farewell

 

[workshopted]

now Ted, they have very Elizabeathan flavour. I can see me choppin' some new mortices on the Marie Rose's replacement while humming that new #1 Hit in the bawdy houses, The Parson's Farewell

Sing us another one. Just like the other one. Sing us another one do.

 

[dannyr]

now Ted, they have very Elizabeathan flavour. I can see me choppin' some new mortices on the Marie Rose's replacement while humming that new #1 Hit in the bawdy houses, The Parson's Farewell

Sing us another one. Just like the other one. Sing us another one do.

Just make sure you're not on board when it's launched in front of the monarch.

(I looked at the M R museum some years ago - all of the Portsmouth dockyards are v interesting for woodworking history -- has it been updated recently?)

 

[Jacob]

One Marples, one Ward. Not an unusual design.
View attachment 102952

Those are what I'd call "sash" mortice chisels - intended for 1/2" square (or thereabouts) for sash glazing bars. You couldn't do it with a full size 1/2" oval bolster - too deep blade for the hole, and you don't need the trapezoid section. Window joinery would have hundreds of glazing bar M&Ts

 

[Jacob]

Just to add a little to the information above, these were made in two patterns, socket mortice chisels (up to 3/4") and socket chisels (up to 2"), and also in in-cannel and out-cannel gouge patterns. The design goes back a fair way - Benjamin Seaton had a selection in his tool chest, known to have been bought in 1797. They were still available just before WW2, being listed in the 1938 Marples catalogue, which also shows more refined firmer, bevelled edge and gouge patterns, on pages 16 to 19. The wheeler's bruzz (a sort of heavy duty squaring chisel) is a related specialist form.

William Marples & Sons, Ltd. : 1938 Catalogue : William Marples & Sons, Ltd. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

As mentioned above, the heavier patterns were intended for heavy duty work in construction, railway wagon building, millwrighting, mining and similar industries. Being mostly of wrought iron with just a small piece of tool steel forge-welded in to make the cutting edge, they were tough, durable and not likely to fracture under heavy abuse. Replacing the 'handle' was also easy, though the state of the socket ends on some examples suggest that the hairier-airsed types of user sometimes didn't bother with namby-pamby stuff like handle replacements. Those examples are probably best avoided for anyone putting together a set of users!

Digging in my box of old mysterious tools I find I'm the owner of a "wheeler's bruzz". I never knew!
Thanks for that CC and the catalogue is brilliant
The V is about 60º.
Making a wild guess as to how you'd use it:
Start a mortice (spoke hole?) by boring a hole or holes with a brace or auger, define 4 corners with the bruzz, cut out the remaining wood from the faces with one of workshopted's heavy chisels shown above.