Which maker was more highly regarded in 1840?

[D_W]

Here is another one from the same set of chisels. IT's also laminated. I don't believe the owner of these chisels got them all at the same time (they have the same owner's mark on the handle) as these are the two with postage stamp border (this one with serifs) and the others have script only with no background relief, and one is solid cast steel (the narrower one).

This one looks like the stamp was set and then partially hammered or milled off when finishing the chisels. I'd bet they marked these long before the chisel was completely done (which would seem sensible).

To be clear, both of these are finished to the same level and both are laminated.

The other interesting thing about them that's not that interesting to anyone here maybe is that the bevel that's on the chisels is exactly 25 degrees - they were hand finished, but the rough grind probably in a jig somewhere on a wheel. They are off far less than hand setting the angle would have them.

(it comes to mind that perhaps the jig was a holding jig to allow someone to insert the chisel and then lay on or lean against the wheel to do the grinding. I'm not a fanatical follower of historical methods of making things, but I've seen axe makers from the 20th century using a fixture that's attached to them with suspenders so that they can lean against a wheel instead of pressing against it with their arms. The arms are just used for steering).

I suspect my original question will go unanswered, and that's OK (That being, were the roundovers on these chisels from the factory - I think the answer is yes - and in the early/mid 1800s, were some makers regarded as better than others by whatever - majority opinion, etc, or by commanding a higher price). When did the standard price control/list actually start?

Even if it existed, a maker could try to improve their share of the market by making a better chisel for the same price. The materials should cost the same for all makers, or at least close - especially when the chisels were bitted like these two.

 

[D_W]

(I don't want to discount the fact that Andy's comment was helpful that in the early and mid 1800s, detailed literature, etc, is thin on the ground - that's enough to let me know that we're left guessing.

I make my living considering likelihood and materiality. If I move on to other things (like the profile of the to rounding being identical for nearly all long sorby mortisers, especially those that look older - it becomes very unlikely that the roundover was done only after the purchase of the chisels....
.....unless someone brings up a wide selling ironmonger tool that is a jig for rounding mortise chisels).

I have other thoughts from actual use as to why this roundover exists and is more common on chisels that have a taller cross section, but those aren't going to make sense for someone who hasn't made a bunch of mortises with these. Joel Moskowitz here suggested that he thought they were added to prevent bruising of mortise ends, but in actual use, they tend to be much more useful in levering the chisel in a deep mortise as the apex of the cross section doesn't catch and fix the chisel in a very specific spot - moving the chisel easily while rotating it is apparent. A shorter cross section chisel doesn't benefit as much as the bevel is already small and it doesn't sweep through a great deal of radius when breaking chips. A slight adjustment allowing these chisels with the rounded backs to rise until the chip comes loose more easily and then pushing down a little while rotating makes them work like a dream and pull out efficient neat leaves of material. The sharp top chisels won't move up as easily once you start to rotate and you can be tempted to lever far too hard. It's a subtle thing to talk about (there, I did it, anyway), but the difference in use is very large.

There's also some sentiment that these chisels aren't to be ridden on the bevel but are to be pentrated straight into the mortise (otherwise they'd have a wide single bevel), but this is also wrong. reducing the cross section of the chisel that's actually in contact with the wood when riding the bevel makes penetration of the chisel far faster. Riding a very wide bevel out of iron is like riding a bike while applying brakes. I think the long primary bevel makes it harder to bruise a mortise and reduces friction because you only ride a small part, but the rounded back excels at rotation in the mortise, something that's lost if the chisel is turned around to be back side to the cut.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

You have four chisels, all with the same owner's mark. There are three laminated, and one solid. The maker's marks are all different, but all are by I&H Sorby. The different styles of the marks indicate different dates of manufacture; the solid steel suggests 20th century, and the sans-serif mark also suggests 20th century. The grind of the primary bevel is the same on all chisels, and exactly 25 degrees, and all have the same rounding off at the top of the bevel.

Conclusion - somebody liked I&H Sorby enough to seek them out, rather as some people like and seek out (say) Ward and Payne chisels (or, by coincidence, ended up with four from the same brand). The user, or the dealer, ground the primary bevels in the same machine (Sheffield grinders didn't use jigs, they did practically everything offhand). The little rounding off at the top of the bevel was applied by the previous owner or by the dealer. There seems to be a preference among some writers for a rounded bevel, but it was usually more pronounced (a greater radius, if you like) than the example you show.

I don't suppose you'll either like or accept my opinion, as you seem to have Made Your Mind Up, but I don't believe that a set of four mortice chisels from the 1840s, especially with an owner's stamp on them, would remain unused and in factory condition, for 180 years. I don't think all four chisels are of the same date; I do think at least two are much later. I think whatever bevel angles and cleaning they display now is down to either the previous owner, or the dealer preparing them for sale (Tooltique, for example, seem to do this to all their chisels)

You have four perfectly decent previously owed and used mortice chisels - just enjoy using them.

 

[D_W]

That's a fine guess (that a dealer would've ground the exactly) except that three are the same length (exactly) to the top edge, and the identical grind marks are on all sides extending to the bolster.

And then other IH sorby chisels have the same rounding and finish. The two that are unused have no sign of honing, just original milling marks on the back side. These marks are done with silica, and not silicon carbide or another modern wheel.

For your assertion to be correct, unless all of the chisels out there on the internet originated from the same later dealer who ground them all the same (but IH sorby didn't), then it would be a small odds thing that all of the full length chisels seem to have the same exact bevel and roundover profile.

But it wouldn't be very long odds for the factory to have used the same bevel and round over and jigs to grind over a long period of time.

I find it very unlikely that a tool dealer would regrind the bevel on these chisels and then refinish them with a silica-based wheel all the way up to the bolster on all four sides.

The two chisels that I do have that are used have the same roundover profile, but just enough bevel use that the bevel angle has been steepened, and the hardened bit is honed on the flat side (not neatly, but the mill marks are gone).

Interestingly, the assertion on the american forum was that another chisel had been cleaned up by tooltique with a wheel and somehow the versions of the same chisel that jim bode is selling over here magically got the same round over as the tooltique chisels because tooltique used a wheel. That makes no sense.

I think it's a fair guess that all of these are not from the same era and may have been sold to the same person used, but no tool dealer reground them or they wouldn't be the same exact length to the roundover, and then in turn match other low use versions that didn't come through the same dealer.

You're also diverting from the original point of the thread - marples' catalog showed shorter chisels that weren't rounded over in 1862. The sentiment outside of the UK is that's the only picture of catalog chisels from the time and those before by quite a lot were smaller in cross section were also flat. Thus "none of these were ground with rounding on the top at the factory". I think that's unlikely. My original question was whether or not (Since ward and IH sorby generally have this rounding and are better in use than marples chisels) this may have been an artifact of better finish work and more hand time spent on chisels at sorby and ward than at marples. It sounds like the answer is no - marples just didn't make them with a round over on the top.

I've come to find that the neat rounding (which isn't an artifact of hand maintaining the round) is on a whole lot more than sorby and ward, and it continues to appear all the way to 1945
https://www.oldhandtools.co.uk/edge-too ... -g-pearson
(even for a chisel that doesn't look to have been used for mortises - the users reground the nose of the chisels and I would guess these were used on a lathe).

I'm not married to the idea that it's accurate that any of these four may have been middle/early 1800s. The whole point here is a statement that it seems very unlikely that some or even most of this type weren't ground at the factory with a rounded edge at the top.

The real missing part here is that I've used these a bunch, but not recently. You have to have deep and somewhat mortises to make use of them. The reason for the roundover becomes very evident if you grind one of these to a flat bevel and find that they just don't work as well. But I suspect few here have done that. In fact, almost anything I bring up that involves use of hand tools and some kind of perception of efficiency falls on people who don't seem to do much with hand tools or want to argue why it doesn't make sense to do it with hand tools in the first place.

I think your assertion that these were ground by a dealer is extremely unlikely. they may have been cleaned later by a dealer as the original mill marks don't go into the rusted pitting, but the iron has the kind of gray tone that you'd see when something is derusted with acid or electrolysis. They could very well have been derusted by the UK dealer I bought them from (that may be likely as there is no active rust on any part of them, something that would've occurred if they were cast aside in most places).

 

[D_W]

You have four perfectly decent previously owed and used mortice chisels - just enjoy using them.

Jeez. A question about what's well regarded and whether or not these were ground round from the factory, and that's the answer....

I have actually used two of these. The mortises have to be deep to use them properly, they are cumbersome for small mortises.

I'm trying to confirm whether or not ward and IH sorby were regarded as better tools in their early days as in general, they are regarded as better over here now with the few who have exposed themselves to a large number of tools from each maker (vs. marples, etc).

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Well, I did say you probably wouldn't either like or accept my opinion. Got that right! I'm sticking with it (my opinion) though. You have four chisels, all made at different times, which have the same owner's mark. They all have the same bevel treatment because either the owner or the dealer applied it, not the maker. As to some makers being better regarded, we answered that on page 1.

A note on silica wheels. Firstly, how the **** you know what the finish looks like from a silica wheel is anybody's guess, because they were used for rough grinding, not 'glazing' as finish grinding was called in Sheffield. That was done on a wooden wheel with a leather cover pegged on, coated in glue and rolled in emery grit (source - "Memories of a Sheffield Tool Maker" by Ashley Iles). Secondly, silica wheels were banned sometime around the end of the nineteeth century when artificial wheels became available, because the dust they gave off gave the grinders lung disease which significantly shortened their lives.

Look, this idea that some makers applied a fancy grind to OBM chisel bevels and charged more is without basis; some users have modified bevels to their own tastes down the years. All makers worked to the Sheffield List specifications, and as Andy set out, to a set list of prices. Some makers targeted different markets (Robert Sorby had a close relationship with Australia, for example, hence Kangaroo Brand) but they all made - or factored - pretty much the same products to pretty much the same high standard of quality for well over a century.

 

[D_W]

Loose grit makes sense. My point being that the finish isn't applied by a fine modern wheel. You can absolutely tell that it was done by something other than a fine modern wheel because the depth of the scratches is consistent in its inconsistency and some of the grooves terminate like a rasp tooth (where the abrasive dug in and stopped rather than efficiently cutting through as a modern wheel does.

All of my later modern tools display none of those (like early/mid 1900s and later).

I find it pretty unlikely that somehow a tool dealer would've sized these as used all to be the same length when putting the bevel on, and that someone who paid to have them refinished would then not be used.

But you can deal with the unlikely. I'm looking for what's likely.

Now, you've said "without basis that someone would do a better grind and charge more". OK, it's without basis so far that some makers wouldn't do a better job finishing chisels. You're referring to the common price list. When did it start? What would've kept one maker from doing a better job than others and if you've been exposed to more than a little bit, where would the regard for ward have come from vs. other makers? Same for IH sorby? I run a channel on youtube. I don't have that many subscribers (4,000), but once in a while, people will tell me about their favorite maker. If they like really old tools, it's butcher. Everyone else, it's IH sorby or Ward. I've never had mention of any others.

I wonder where they got this notion. When I mention ward to someone who likes IH sorby, they say "I've used both, I like IH sorby better".

Now, the real main issue here that the question was getting at was whether or not the roundover at the top of the thick cross section was done at the factory.

Robert sorby tools are not the same level of quality that IH sorby or Ward are, but they probably continued in high volume much longer. They made the second-rate irons that are in the norris planes, and those irons are poor quality compared to the prior ward irons. Someone without nerve endings may not notice the difference between the two.

The idea that all of the full length IH sorby chisels have the same roundover on them (there are only about 10 pictures available, so the sample size is small) , including versions that are cycling around used her and there - and it wasn't done at the factory, would only be explained by one likely answer - that they all came from the same secondhand dealer. Unless a firsthand dealer did this as a dealer modification.

You're intent on finding an unlikely answer and evading the actual question - was this roundover made on original chisels at the factory, and if not, why do so many of the round overs on full length chisels have the same finish as the rest of the chisel?

Sometimes when you throw a hook in the water looking for fish, a turd floats by and sticks to it, I guess. Thanks for proving that. I'm not looking to catch a boot next, either.

 

[D_W]

Andy's post is still the only one useful at this point - information in the earlier era is thin. That's a fine enough answer.

The evidence elsewhere that the majority of longer chisels has a roundover suggests that it was done at the factory. That's the most likely.

Whether or not it may have been refreshed professionally when chisels were resold isn't answering the question, it's whether or not they were ground like that initially. I haven't seen an explanation for why - use tells me that they first rotate far better in the middle of a deep cut.

Actual use, not reading about use from someone who doesn't use them or hasn't recently. The assertion from a blogger here in the US is that the top round was installed by makers of the chisels to avoid bruising the ends of mortises. Maybe, I don't know. This isn't a problem unless the mortise is so shallow that you are not to the depth of the roundover by the far end of the mortise. That seems unlikely (one would just use a lighter profile chisel for that).

 

[Cheshirechappie]

David - you've taken things said in good faith by more than one contributor on this thread, and misrepresented them on another forum (check what for yourself - I can't be bothered to set it out). You've denigrated people's knowledge and opinions on this forum - reference to cowpats, for example. It's not a great way to make friends and influence people, is it?

I'll leave it at that. If you want to believe your pet theory, despite advice to the contrary, that's entirely up to you.

Next time you have a question about UK handtools or woodworking, I'll let someone else answer it.