Inletting Chisels

[Greg Pennell]

After reading some of the carving tutorials, I decided to make some tiny inletting chisels. I’ve never tried “stabbing” a carving outline in, but want to try the technique. So this morning I made some out of a piece of 1/16” x 3/16” 1075 spring stock.



I first cut the stock into 3” lengths, and rough shaped the blades and tangs on the belt sander. I left one 3/16” wide, and made one 1/8”, and one 1/16” wide. Here are the roughed out blanks.



Then I hardened the blanks by heating to cherry red and quenching in ATF.  The blanks were then polished with a piece of 400 grit paper, so I could watch the tempering colors, and tempered to a brown/straw on the cutting edge.



For the handles, I used some maple “coffee mug” pegs.  My late father and I made some coffee mug trees for Christmas gifts several years ago, and I still have a bunch of these pegs...they make great little tool handles. Just a few minutes work on the end of the peg, and some of those brass things that you find all over most shooting ranges make a nice ferrule. Just cut off the excess with your jewelers saw.









Here are the hardened, tempered blades installed in the handles...ready to be stoned to their final shapes.



Greg

[David R. Pennington]

Looks good Greg, let us see how they work!

[stubshaft]

Ditto!  They look great.

[Bigmon]

where do you get that spring stock?

[Greg Pennell]

Bigmon, the spring stock came from Brownells, it’s one of the spring assortments they sell...several different widths/thicknesses of 1075 in 12” pieces. Having good spring material comes in handy working on old guns...I wind up making a lot of parts that I just can’t find.

Greg

[Nordnecker]

Nice job. I would flatten one side of those handles.

[Jackp]

which side 

[Mike Lyons]

Those look nice Greg.  Won’t be long and you’ll have to get a table at the CLA show.  . This stuff starts adding up in short order.

[shortbarrel]

Great job on chisels. Never bought but 3 or four chisels and they were from a flee market and I redid them. The other chisels 20 or 30 of them is made from old files and other HC steel, If a man can not build his tools and can build a good rifle, more power him. But I have the satisfaction that my tools made the rifle .Keep up the good work.....Dick                             

[Craig Wilcox]

JackP - doesn't really matter which side, as the purpose is to keep them from rolling, perhaps right off the work bench to land pointy side down on your  foot.

[longcruise]

Nice job. I would flatten one side of those handles.

JackP - doesn't really matter which side, as the purpose is to keep them from rolling, perhaps right off the work bench to land pointy side down on your  foot.

Mine ALWAYS land on the concrete floor and always on the corner. 

[Mikeh]

You stabbers out there, i have a set of those and they are really nice. Greg does a fine job on them.  Mikeh

[waarp8nt]

Good job on the Inletting Chisels!

Looks like Brownells is out of flat spring stock. It can also be purchased from Dixie Gun Works, however the price recently jumped from $3.50 per 12" piece to $4.95

[Maineshops]

I just started to make some chisels too an playing with my sawmill blades. Hardened one yesterday to glass hard. We’ll see how well they stay sharp. Handle is 1/2 square steel with a shoulder and screw to hold the blade. Going to try doing some radius blades next.. going to inlet ramrod pipes so I’ll make a chisel to stab in kinda. New at this so I don’t know all the jargon/terminology yet. Dan

[rich pierce]

If you don’t temper to at least dark straw the edge will not likely hold up well in use if it has a shallow edge angle.

[T*O*F]

A tip that Randy Hedden passed on to me about 30 years ago.  If you've got some old flat needle files laying around, grind your angle on a belt sander, then hone them sharp.  No fooling around with heat treating.

[Bob Roller]

Great job on chisels. Never bought but 3 or four chisels and they were from a flee market and I redid them. The other chisels 20 or 30 of them is made from old files and other HC steel, If a man can not build his tools and can build a good rifle, more power him. But I have the satisfaction that my tools made the rifle .Keep up the good work.....Dick                           

Yes indeed,there IS a great deal of satisfaction making tools no matter how
simple and use them for whatever purpose they are made for.
Bob Roller

[B.Habermehl]

I have a number of heavily used small flat chisels I’ve forged from heavier sizes of music wire. I’ve used the same method of heat treatment as you no trouble. Mine are not as pretty. Need and expedience came first. BJH

[will payne]

Wow those look nice I wonder how sharp those are.

[Maineshops]

 Here are the ones I’ve been working with. Metal is bandsaw blade off my sawmill. About.050 thick. Hardened just the end and didn’t draw it back any. The edge is holding up as well as my flex cut blades. The two steel handled ones do well with the little hornbeam mallet I use. The two with the round ball handles work well by hand but not with the mallet. The curved one I just formed in the press using end grain hardwood for the die and a 1/4 in bolt longways for the punch formed cold and then hardened. Dan

[Maineshops]

Ma just bought me a ryobi carving tool to try. Tried it briefly and like it. After I deal with this snow I’ll give it a workout and see how it will help these old hands. I guess flexcut blades fit it and it came with 8 blades. One of my biggest issues is the curl chipping out and the hammer tool seems to help a lot. Dan

[Not English]

There used to be a guy who advertised needle file chisels and gouges in the back of Muzzle Blasts like TOF does. I don't know his name or even if he's still kicking. I bought a set of 5  in '90 and there still going strong. For narrow flat chisels, I grind down cheap old Craftsmen screwdrivers. They had good steel and didn't need retempering if you were careful when grinding.