Mystery Tool

UKworkshop.co.uk

Help Support UKworkshop.co.uk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Caulking was also used in steam boilers which might explain the curved back of the tool rather than the flat backs on shipwrights caulking irons

Cheers, tom
 
Well guys as a shipwright, the tool looks like no caulking iron I have ever used or seen.
A boilermakers caulking chisel is used in a pneumatic hammer, What is it ? no Idea.
 
It's definitely not a boiler caulking tool. They tend to be short and stubby, for use with a heavyish (4lb or so) hammer, or in latter days in a pneumatic hammer as Billy Flitch says.

It's for a lighter trade than boilermaking. Possibly woodworking (a chisel modified as a scraper as per Bill Carter for finishing plane beds, perhaps), possibly leatherworking (decorative embossing, perhaps?).

The only honest answer I can give is a definite 'don't know'.
 
I was just checking Toshio Odate book about something else when I came across a page of chisels and gouges its page 76 and it has an illustration of your chisel.
Its called a Maru-nomi (round chisel or gouge) and has the identical profile, I guess yours has never been sharpened or been misused!

Pete
 
Hello,

Are you sure the shape is the same. Maru nomi are generally gouges similar to Western carving tools, I'm not sure they would be hooped at the top and the handles would be much shorter. Would the OP be willing to separate the handle from the socket, which would prove a lot about its origin, at least. A Japanese tool will have a tang in the socket, whereas a Westen tool would just have the socket.

Mike.
 
Hello,

Pete Maddex":lrl4nalg said:
I was just checking Toshio Odate book about something else when I came across a page of chisels and gouges its page 76 and it has an illustration of your chisel.
Its called a Maru-nomi (round chisel or gouge) and has the identical profile, I guess yours has never been sharpened or been misused!

Pete

Done a bit of a google search and the chisel most like is called a URI MARU NOMI. A reverse round chisel. It does look a lot like the mystery tool and is hooped, but the handle is much shorter, as with most Japanese hooped chisels. It could be that, or a close variant of.
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    7.1 KB
woodbrains":3jtd9fno said:
Hello,

Are you sure the shape is the same. Maru nomi are generally gouges similar to Western carving tools, I'm not sure they would be hooped at the top and the handles would be much shorter. Would the OP be willing to separate the handle from the socket, which would prove a lot about its origin, at least. A Japanese tool will have a tang in the socket, whereas a Westen tool would just have the socket.

Mike.

I am not sure but Toshio Odate is :)

Pete
 
Hello,

I wasn't questioning your research, just that sometimes those pesky line drawings are easily mis seen. Obviously the Maru nomi I've seen we're not indicative other types of maru nomi. I think you have likely come up with the answer.

Mike.
 
It has the plan and end view so I am sure it is.

Pete
 
Well this does look interesting!
Just to clarify - I haven't bought the tool, it was just a discussion point while I was in the shop.
I've found a picture of caulking tools for pipe joints (in a Buck and Hickman catalogue) and they are indeed heavier all steel tools, resembling cranked cold chisels with blunt tips.
The Japanese angle does seem more plausible, especially as it has a Japanese sort of handle. (I do wonder if the handle really belongs - it does not look like a very good fit - so maybe it's been swapped from another tool.)

The remaining difficulty is that the tip shows no sign, to my eye, of ever having been sharpened.

I'll likely be back in the shop again in the near future and will show them this thread.

Many thanks for all the thinking and suggestions!
 
Definitely Japanese
I've just watched a film about a Japanese carpenter (miya-daiku) Koji Oba
He used a similar chisel to carve wheel clearance on the underside of a skateboard deck
Matt
 
swb58":3i9h2z02 said:
Ebay item number 171368580798. Looks similar to op.

Well spotted swb58! That has to be it.

Desceibed in the listing as Set of 2 Japanese Round Chisels 17mm /6.5mm
003.jpg
 

Attachments

  • 003.jpg
    003.jpg
    105.3 KB
Back
Top