Mystery Sorby chisel

[smackie]

Folks,

I need a bit of help identifying a chisel. I’m sorting thru (very slowly) a load of hand tools that I was bequeathed. Most things I‘m familiar with but this Sorby chisel has me puzzled.

i’m assuming that it’s a morticing chisel but it’s an absolute brute. It’s got about a 1/2” edge on it. It’s built like the proverbial outhouse and obviously intended for heavy duty use. Seems like overkill for doors and windows. House framing?

Cheers!

Scott...

 

[Darrenp]

Folks,

I need a bit of help identifying a chisel. I’m sorting thru (very slowly) a load of hand tools that I was bequeathed. Most things I‘m familiar with but this Sorby chisel has me puzzled.

i’m assuming that it’s a morticing chisel but it’s an absolute brute. It’s got about a 1/2” edge on it. It’s built like the proverbial outhouse and obviously intended for heavy duty use. Seems like overkill for doors and windows. House framing?

Cheers!

Scott...View attachment 102839View attachment 102840

Is it not a mortice chisel ?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

It's a mortice chisel.

 

[smackie]

Is it not a mortice chisel ?

It’s definitely a mortice chisel. However, I’m curious about what the heck it’s been created to mortice given the weight and bulk of it - I’ve got a bunch of old mortice chisels up to about 1” wide and none of them are built like this.

It looks like it’s been designed for extreme leverage

Cheers!

Scott...

 

[dannyr]

Yes - a heavy socket mortice chisel of the older type (especially pre WWII) as used by wagon-makers, wheelwrights, house framers, boat builders, working with ash, oak etc. One grade tougher even than the heaviest of the 'pig stickers'.

I have a few widths of this type by various Sheffield makers - nice tools, but not following any of the above trades, don't use them much

They're the best and yours looks like a good one, little used.

If you look carefully, you can probably see that the steel for the edge has been laid in to the wrought iron body.

 

[smackie]

Thanks Danny! That’s what I suspected but just wasn’t sure. I’ve already given it a bit of a clean (as it was rusty as hell) but the actual edge is heavily rounded. I’ll probably spend a bit of time getting it back to a square cutting edge. I have to mortice some beams and roof trusses in a few months and this might actually be very handy...

 

[D_W]

tall cross section means it's made for rotating in a deep mortise. You'll be able to see why this is useful if you're cutting deep mortises, but anything smaller like cabinet mortises and it takes a lot of depth for the bevel just to get into the mortise to rotate and it's not going to make sense what it would've been used for.

Tall cross section rotating deep in a mortise is pretty handy, and curved top of the bevel allows you to rotate, move the chisel, rotate, etc, more smoothly than you'd be able to with a harsh angle at the top of the bevel.

Or another way to use it, for a large cut deep (where risk of any damage is pretty low), you can take an enormous amount out on each pass with a chisel like this - pound a couple of times, rotate, and an enormous amount will be split free, reset, a couple of more strikes, more rotation - far different experience than taking 1/8th inch slices out of a mortise and useful deep where straightening a cut to vertical can be done in a pass or two passes rather than 8.

 

[Droogs]

looks like a pig sticker witht he wrong handle on it

 

[Jacob]

Thin mortice chisels come as narrow as 1/8".
My theory is that these are from the days when a huge amount of work involved combinations of metal and wood. Scientific instruments, cameras, church organs, coaches/wagons road/rail, farm machinery, industrial plant, boats and ships and so on. Narrow slots in timber could contain moving metal parts etc.

 

[D_W]

looks like a pig sticker witht he wrong handle on it

more common in this socketed style over here in the states than pigsticker. Sometimes referred to as millwork mortisers or architectural mortise chisel.

 

[Droogs]

cool, i have never seen a socketed mortisce chisel myself but I suppose they must be about.

 

[dannyr]

Unlike the 'straight conic section' of some recent v expensive chisels, this slightly different profile of the hand forged socket (call it a 'slightly convex' cone), in my experience these handles never fall out of the socket.

I really like the chisel you show at the top, Sm, and my favourite set is very like this. But there are also even heftier versions - longer and ring at top of socket - I have a couple by Stormont that were sold for marine and railway use. Oak framing is popular now for expensive 'barn' conversions, posh garages and as well as using chain mortisers etc, I think these are quite sought after for that (not so much the narrow type like yours, but that would likely have been part of a set up to 0.5in or more).

 

[D_W]

cool, i have never seen a socketed mortisce chisel myself but I suppose they must be about.

One of the reasons that the Ebay looting of English tools to america is so brisk is because the forms here are different. Whereas there are lots of pigstickers there, there a many more like the one in this thread in the USA. Nice tanged bevel edge bench chisels are less common here. I'm guessing because the skilled work in factories was phased out much earlier and there really never was a strong love for tradition here.

I remember when antiques became popular in the 80s and 90s, my grandparents thought the desire to reminisce about a time they remembered as hard labor and drudgery was dumb.

 

[smackie]

I really like the chisel you show at the top, Sm, and my favourite set is very like this.

I have to say that I really like it too. The weighting and balance is good and it feels really solid in your hand. Mind you, it’s pretty ominous looking tool now it’s sharpened up and shiny. I showed it to a neighbor (socially distanced from the workshop door) and his first comment was “that’d get you arrested in a heartbeat”...

 

[Jacob]

,,,,,

It looks like it’s been designed for extreme leverage
....

If anything a mortice chisel is designed to reduce/eliminate leverage.
With the tapered shape and the trapezoid section you can knock it in a long way but then loosen it with just a small to and fro movement. A straight parallel sided chisel would be much more difficult. The depth of the blade also keeps it straight in the slot or mortice.
With a through mortice you don't do any levering at all - a series of cuts at 90º with just a wiggle to loosen it. The chippings get pushed out as you go.
Much the same with a blind mortice though you'd have to lever/scrape a bit to flatten the bottom of the hole and get the last chippings out.
It was my very first lesson when I did my course - he said just have a go with this mortice chisel while I get your kit together so I sat there tapping, levering etc and got told off! No sitting for starters, ever, except when taking notes. No levering - every mortice chisel cut vertical at 90º, paring down the face of the previous cut.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

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!

 

[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!

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.

 

[workshopted]

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.

Hi, Jacob, I have a few 3/4'' mortice chisels in a tool chest that I reserve for chisels.

 

[workshopted]

Folks,

I need a bit of help identifying a chisel. I’m sorting thru (very slowly) a load of hand tools that I was bequeathed. Most things I‘m familiar with but this Sorby chisel has me puzzled.

i’m assuming that it’s a morticing chisel but it’s an absolute brute. It’s got about a 1/2” edge on it. It’s built like the proverbial outhouse and obviously intended for heavy duty use. Seems like overkill for doors and windows. House framing?

Cheers!

Scott...View attachment 102839View attachment 102840

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

 

[Phil Pascoe]

One Marples, one Ward. Not an unusual design.