pig stickers

[dannyr]

Back to the chisel, and out of the pig slaughter-house:

Although Ashley Isles (sp?) of Lincs UK do still make a fine version of this tool, its heyday was surely late C18th to about 1940, and because it's such a tough lump of steel, plenty have survived. The smaller mortice/mortise chisels are often called sash-mortice.

The 'classic' Sheffield (and Glasgow and ?) heavy duty mortice chisel was made by forge welding a 2-3mm layer of cast steel (fine 1-1.5% carbon steel) onto one side of a deep, near rectangular, but with a slight taper, bar of wrought iron (near pure iron, but with silica 'stringers' - giving a wood-grain effect if etched or corroded) and then having a thick bolster welded on (as opposed to most tang chisels where it was 'upset' into the one-piece body). The tang itself is different, being a sharp pyramid. The handle was almost always a very thick beech oval, nicely shaped to match the bolster, and without any ferrules.

These beech handles do crack and split if hit only a little too hard, and you often find heavy mortise chisels with replacement handles in ash, sometimes with leather washers, sometimes with oval steel ferrules.

An even tougher version of the mortise chisel was made as a socketed (often 'ship-builders' or 'framers') mortise chisel, sometimes with a deep section as the 'sticker' and sometimes less deep like a very heavy registered chisel. These have much larger sockets (hand forged hollow cone welded on to the blade part) than later cabinetmakers socket chisels.
(They're my favourites).
I'll try show with attachments on further post/s.

- As you can tell -- a chisel (nut), sorry aficionado.
danny

 

[dannyr]

attached, I hope, picture of 1/2" 'sticker' stamped 'Marples & Sons Cast Steel' - with what looks like original beech handle and a visible hammer welded steel edge - just wire-wooled, not restored, sharpened yet, handle holding up but small cracks
danny

 

[dannyr]

And this is a medium-section 5/8" heavy framers (?) mortise socket chisel with (replaced ) ash handle - stamped '----cas -----Farfa' (???) with very visible steeled edge and the wood-grain type of look you get when the wrought iron wears/corrodes - very visible in this case.

this is just the look some very expensive Japenese smith-made chisels have when they purposely acid-etch the old anchor chain wrought iron on their steeled chisels

danny

 

[dannyr]

this one is much more the socket equivalent of the 'sticker' with a deep section to stay 'square' in the mortise. Again a replacement ash handle. This one stamped '----Firth----sons'. again large welded-on socket and steeled edge -1/4"

 

[dannyr]

This is a shallower, but still very heavy socketed chisel - could call it heavy-duty, framing, marine or mortise? with probably original handle - ash, ferrule or hooped and has survived some heavy beating - stamped 'Kenyon Sheffield' -- 7/8" wide - could be forged from one piece - neater than the older socket chisels above - or welded on socket. If forged from one piece need a big lump on the end which is then flattened and hammered into a cone which is hammer welded to close the side seam.

 

[dannyr]

Sorry about all the separate posts, but this tablet is not very file handling friendly and the two options for downsizing my camera photos are thumbnail or 2M and the latter is just too big for UKworkshop posts - prob not a problem if I bought the latest smartphone.

I hope that the two attachments here show more clearly the cast steel edge and differentially corroded wrought iron backing and the join of socket to blade (usually done more neatly than this one.

On that note:- I'm done now - show us your sticker mortise chisel (or similar)

 

[nabs]

The 'classic' Sheffield (and Glasgow and ?) heavy duty mortice chisel

also ancient Rome

these were found in Regensberg - 1st/2nd century AD:

 

[dannyr]

yes Nick -- like your post - see also Roman chisels in Vindolanda and Bordeaux, and medieval pictures.
Looks like the owner of the top one did the classic -- handle breaks, can't be bothered to replace, start hitting the socket.



I suppose that the by classic era I really mean of the ones still available to us now -- even though hand forged, made in huge numbers for catalogue/retail/export etc

and by the way, I do have quite a good refurbished user set, but doesn't show how they were made, unlike the unrestored ones above