Not all old tools are good tools

[paulrbarnard]

I needed a wider firmer chisel the other day so had a rumage in my box of old tools and found a 1 ¼ inch Brades & Co firmer chisel without a handle. This was one of a bunch of handleless or damage handle chisels I inherited from my grandfather. I fitted a spare handle I had in my drawer and put a quick edge on the chisel. I didn't use a grinder just course and fine diamond stones. A couple of hits with the mallet later it wasn't cutting so I looked at the edge and it was completely rolled over. I guess this is the reason a nice looking chisel blade was in the box of 'rejects' from my grandfather.

I might have a go at a bit of experimental hardening and tempering.

 

[deema]

Harden and temper it, it will be a fine tool.

 

[Bod]

That looks to be almost full length.
It might be worth resharpening a few times, if the tip hasn't fully hardened. Could improve with use.

Bod

 

[D_W]

It needs to be rehardened and tempered. You may not see this as you have several times boasted of having me on ignore, and that's fine.

Since it has no side bevels, you should be able to just heat (get a magnet) the steel to nonmagnetic, and then heat it up a full additional color change as quickly as possible and quench it. In order to get full hardness on much older chisels, you need a fast oil - and cooking oil isn't a fast oil. you can warm cooking oil to help it flow (as in, if the cooking oil is around 150F, you'll get some improved performance - straight into the oil until the tool is nearly cool and then have a bucket of cold water and over to that.

Fast oil is expensive (parks 50 is an example of fast oil - it's $80 a gallon here with shipping, so that's probably out).

You can do the rehardening with the handle on if you wish, just wrap a wet towel around the handle and if the towel or rag that you use dries and starts to steam or smoke, add water to it.

Tempering with the handle on will be a taller order for someone unfamiliar with tempering by eye - it's a lot easier to temper accurately in an oven (so this is leaning toward taking the handle off).

If you haven't hardened and tempered before, you need a good torch and something that will house heat (at the very least, a steel can) of some sort.

Get some gloves as even if the chisel and torch are pointing into the can, and you're using metal tongs to hold the chisel, the radiant heat will make it hard to get the chisel hot.

Not all old tools are good quality steel, but I doubt that a main line name in sheffield won't be good steel (ohio/auburn comes to mind in the US as a lower cost make where the steel isn't that great, same with lakeside - you can't thermal cycle and reharden it into something that will match a good tool).

 

[paulrbarnard]

That looks to be almost full length.
It might be worth resharpening a few times, if the tip hasn't fully hardened. Could improve with use.

Bod

I’ll give that a go first as a it will be quick to try. I have several other Brades and they all hold a great edge.

 

[Jacob]

That looks to be almost full length.
It might be worth resharpening a few times, if the tip hasn't fully hardened. Could improve with use.

Bod

Sometimes edges have been overheated on a grindstone and will improve after a few sharpenings. Bin there dunnit

 

[paulrbarnard]

It needs to be rehardened and tempered. You may not see this as you have several times boasted of having me on ignore, and that's fine.

Since it has no side bevels, you should be able to just heat (get a magnet) the steel to nonmagnetic, and then heat it up a full additional color change as quickly as possible and quench it. In order to get full hardness on much older chisels, you need a fast oil - and cooking oil isn't a fast oil. you can warm cooking oil to help it flow (as in, if the cooking oil is around 150F, you'll get some improved performance - straight into the oil until the tool is nearly cool and then have a bucket of cold water and over to that.

Fast oil is expensive (parks 50 is an example of fast oil - it's $80 a gallon here with shipping, so that's probably out).

You can do the rehardening with the handle on if you wish, just wrap a wet towel around the handle and if the towel or rag that you use dries and starts to steam or smoke, add water to it.

Tempering with the handle on will be a taller order for someone unfamiliar with tempering by eye - it's a lot easier to temper accurately in an oven (so this is leaning toward taking the handle off).

If you haven't hardened and tempered before, you need a good torch and something that will house heat (at the very least, a steel can) of some sort.

Get some gloves as even if the chisel and torch are pointing into the can, and you're using metal tongs to hold the chisel, the radiant heat will make it hard to get the chisel hot.

Not all old tools are good quality steel, but I doubt that a main line name in sheffield won't be good steel (ohio/auburn comes to mind in the US as a lower cost make where the steel isn't that great, same with lakeside - you can't thermal cycle and reharden it into something that will match a good tool).

As you replied directly to me I took a look. I will certainly give it a go if a couple of sharpening doesn’t do the trick. I’m fortunate enough to have a temperature controlled kiln in my workshop. My wife works with glass. So that will make the task much easier.

I already knocked the handle off as I was going to go straight for hardening before I saw the suggestion from @Bod

 

[paulrbarnard]

Sometimes edges have been overheated on a grindstone and will improve after a few sharpenings. Bin there dunnit

Yep been there too but I just used bench stones for this one. There was no hint of a radius on the edge before I started so if it had been on a wheel it was some time ago.

 

[Adam W.]

I don't think I've seen a Brades chisel before.

Is it laminated?

 

[D_W]

As you replied directly to me I took a look. I will certainly give it a go if a couple of sharpening doesn’t do the trick. I’m fortunate enough to have a temperature controlled kiln in my workshop. My wife works with glass. So that will make the task much easier.

I already knocked the handle off as I was going to go straight for hardening before I saw the suggestion from @Bod

Assume a schedule for 1095 as far as temps go of you ramp up to temp with the kiln to heat for quench.

Since the steel was cycled and quenched before, you don't really need to do much other than get it above critical but below grain growth or decarb temps. I think once steel is nonmagnetic, there's a cushion of 150F or so.

The 1095 schedule is safe. 1095 is synonymous with saws for us in woodworking but it has little alloying and very high hardness potential. Higher temperatures would only be needed to dissolve carbides, and things start to get tricky there.

 

[paulrbarnard]

I don't think I've seen a Brades chisel before.

Is it laminated?

Doesn’t look like it. I’ve got a few of them inherited from my grandfather.

 

[johnnyb]

brades were a west Midlands maker specialising in country stuff like axes and Bill hooks . I've got a wide chisel and that wasn't great tbh. I eventually made it into a double bevel straight carver for letters after re hardening and tempering. it's fine now.

 

[johnnyb]

sent me off to look at the william hunt and sons brades catalogue. it's perhaps telling that they sold there own steel. Best best Cs is for taps and dies best Cs is for best chisels whs cast is for ordinary stuff and chisels and so the page continues past shear steel to mild steel etc etc. I'm guessing they didn't waste top steel on ordinary chisels.
they were a very big outfit in Oldbury selling a dizzying variety of edge tools. wood chisels were not high on there list.

 

[johnnyb]

 

[johnnyb]

that catalogue (1922) predates hss and stainless. the swedish bar stock was also highly graded and best best Cs would be the equivalent of there hss.(without the temperature resisting qualities of course.) I'm guessing manufacturers who specialised in say carving tools used the highest grade carefully worked and hardened(Addis didn't get gold medals without good reason.)
it's a common theme throughout old catalogues to have many different qualities. lower middle quality firmer chisels would all use poorer raw material and probably end up as an inferior product. as David says it's much easier to make a chisel from .6% carbon and leave it harder than using 1% and skillfully hardening /tempering for the best edge.

 

[workshopted]

A pair of Brades & Co cast steel mortice chisels and one by William Marples playing piggie in the middle.

 

[diytoolbox]

Does this mean that the new chisels currently on the market are better quality, therefore safer buy? I have been looking at new chisel set selling on Amazon. Some comes with oil stone and honing guide and 6x chisels in hard case set for about £25 including delivery. The steel of the new chisel set seem mostly made of CR-V alloy steel.

 

[D_W]

Does this mean that the new chisels currently on the market are better quality, therefore safer buy? I have been looking at new chisel set selling on Amazon. Some comes with oil stone and honing guide and 6x chisels in hard case set for about £25 including delivery. The steel of the new chisel set seem mostly made of CR-V alloy steel.

No - it means you'll get whatever they decide to make, which could be a good chisel for 25 pounds (or set) or it could be a lower carbon steel that is also not even hardened to its potential.

The older main line sheffield tools should be better, but there's no guarantees there either.

1% chrome vanadium drill rod (which most chisels are die forged from these days - at least anything not costing mounds of money and machined out of bar stock at a CNC boutique factory) is so cheap that there's no reason that you can't get a great set of chisels for 25 pounds from china, but the commitment to make use of inexpensive stuff and turn it into good tools is less consistent than it would've been in sheffield.

I would be surprised if brades used a middling (lower) carbon steel, but one never knows until (like in the case of the OP), they reharden the chisel. There are enough chisels on your side of the pond that if you get ten out of car boots and keep the best five, you'll likely have excellent chisels without doing anything other than dumping the low five.

So, how do you tell if older tools are substandard? You learn to reharden known spec steel and then do the same to older tools - if they come back to mediocre with proper hardening, then they're mediocre. (ohio tools and auburn irons in the US fall into this most of the time that I've rehardened them - they're not that good and Ohio tools apparently advertised making irons out of spring or strip steel - a lower cost grade).

Other failures that aren't likely would be something like having a good high carbon steel, but shorting the alloying elements (maganese, chromium or nickel or some combination) that make it hardenable. That would just be careless, but could happen.

I would say your odds of getting a 25quid chisel set and having it be usable are OK. Having them be better than undamaged or unmodified chisels from sheffield 100 or so years ago is very small. It would be possible at low cost, though, if someone actually wanted to do it in china as the per-tool cost for a die forge bench chisel is not more than about $1 manufactured in china, even with high carbon steel.

 

[diytoolbox]

No - it means you'll get whatever they decide to make, which could be a good chisel for 25 pounds (or set) or it could be a lower carbon steel that is also not even hardened to its potential.

The older main line sheffield tools should be better, but there's no guarantees there either.

1% chrome vanadium drill rod (which most chisels are die forged from these days - at least anything not costing mounds of money and machined out of bar stock at a CNC boutique factory) is so cheap that there's no reason that you can't get a great set of chisels for 25 pounds from china, but the commitment to make use of inexpensive stuff and turn it into good tools is less consistent than it would've been in sheffield.

I would be surprised if brades used a middling (lower) carbon steel, but one never knows until (like in the case of the OP), they reharden the chisel. There are enough chisels on your side of the pond that if you get ten out of car boots and keep the best five, you'll likely have excellent chisels without doing anything other than dumping the low five.

So, how do you tell if older tools are substandard? You learn to reharden known spec steel and then do the same to older tools - if they come back to mediocre with proper hardening, then they're mediocre. (ohio tools and auburn irons in the US fall into this most of the time that I've rehardened them - they're not that good and Ohio tools apparently advertised making irons out of spring or strip steel - a lower cost grade).

Other failures that aren't likely would be something like having a good high carbon steel, but shorting the alloying elements (maganese, chromium or nickel or some combination) that make it hardenable. That would just be careless, but could happen.

I would say your odds of getting a 25quid chisel set and having it be usable are OK. Having them be better than undamaged or unmodified chisels from sheffield 100 or so years ago is very small. It would be possible at low cost, though, if someone actually wanted to do it in china as the per-tool cost for a die forge bench chisel is not more than about $1 manufactured in china, even with high carbon steel.

When a honing guide sells for about £10, and oil stone for another £10, I thought a full chisel set with 6x chisels, a honing guide and an oil stone in hard case including next day delivery was a good deal. But how good the chisels could be a bit of gamble I suppose. I placed order for one. Will update how good they are.

 

[D_W]

You can always return them if they're not good. It's possible to make usable chisels for that price, though.