All about chisels: varieties, design and recommendations for selection

Every woodworking craftsman has several types of chisels in their toolkit that have their own purpose. A chisel is an indispensable tool when working with wood blanks. With its help you can make carvings of varying complexity.

Specialized stores offer the purchase of both ready-made sets of chisels and single copies of various models.

Typing chisels

A chisel is a cutting tool necessary for making wood blanks. The chisel is used when performing expressive or silhouette carvings. The tool varies in type, configuration, parameters and purpose. When performing a particular operation, it is important to choose the right chisel. Working with a chisel is done manually.

Using a chisel you can perform the following operations:

• chamfer;
• clean the groove;
• cut out the ornament;
• gouge out a hole;
• remove excess material from the nest;
• remove excess wood layer.

Purpose of a chisel by type of work performed

• A flat chisel is used more often than other types. The blade width of a flat chisel ranges from 6 to 30 millimeters. The angle of the sharpened blade is 15-25 degrees. It is used for final processing of workpieces.
• Use a round chisel to process the workpieces and cut out simple recesses.
• A bevel chisel has a blade that is beveled at a 45-degree angle. It is used in the manufacture of longitudinal recesses and pre-processing of parts.
• The corner chisel is shaped like a Roman numeral V. Two blades folded at different angles are designed to make V-shaped recesses.
• A semicircular chisel is designed for cutting ornaments of varying complexity.
• In “clukarza” the cutting blade is round, straight or angled.
• “Caesariki” is a variant of a semicircular chisel with a narrow blade. Their main purpose is to cut narrow recesses and thin ornamental elements.
• The universal chisel has many attachments, various configurations and sizes.

Read here: Which file to choose: classification, types and rating of the best models

You can get acquainted with the types of tools in the photo of the chisel below.

Other tools

1. A wooden or rubber mallet is used to remove wood with a chisel across the grain. Blanks can be large in size, made of hard wood. The mallet has a rounded head that allows you to hit the cutting tool at any angle. The standard diameter of the mallet striker is 75-150 mm.
2. Tesla is used when it is necessary to quickly remove wood during rough work with the product. Has a round or flat cutting edge.
3. Embossing is convenient for pressing out small depressions in the workpiece, creating speckled patterns and applying ripples to the surface of the product.

Mallet, chasing and adze

Cutting tools

1. A cutter is a sharp blade fixed in a handle.
2. Hand or electric saw, jointer, one-handed plane, etc.
3. All types of cutters, including tools for applying patterns.

Patterning tools

1. A jamb knife is a universal tool.
2. Chisel – for cutting out notches.
3. Klukarza is a chisel with a curved blade for relief carvings with a recess.
4. A spoon cutter is a special tool for making spoons. Equipped with a blade in the shape of a ring or half ring.
5. Disc, face, manual or electric milling cutters.
6. Engravers.

Engraver

Grinding tool

Workpiece fastening tool

1. Swivel clamp.
2. Bench vice.
3. Carpenter's quick-release clamp.
4. Bench stops.
5. Wood carving vice.
6. Model (copying) vice.
7. Bench screw for wood carving.
8. Stand for wood carving.
9. Bench mounting screw.

Finishing materials for carved products

1. Varnishing the finished product for an even shine. Paints and varnishes: shellac, polish, oil, copal, amber varnishes, rosin and its derivatives.
2. Polishing with pre-grinding. Polish the product with a cotton swab in polish, there should be 2-3 repetitions.
3. Oil and enamel decorative protective coating with preliminary priming of the surface. Primer composition – drying oil or glue, primer varnishes.
4. Puttying with preliminary primer. Material for putty: chalk, glue and drying oil in a ratio of 3:1:5;
5. Gesso-plating, silvering, bronzed or gilded.

Decorative impregnations

Sharpening procedure

A sharp blade on any tool is much safer than a dull one. Such tools include a chisel. The frequency of sharpening depends on the frequency of operation of the tool, but in any case, the chisel must be sharpened at least twice a year.

Even a purchased chisel is not sharp enough to perform woodworking. Therefore, before starting work, it must be sharpened.

Used chisels develop irregularities and burrs on the chamfer, which are corrected on a grinding wheel. The damaged chamfer is held near the circle, thereby removing irregularities, chips and rust. The sharpening stone, which has three levels, allows you to achieve maximum sharpness of the chisel.

Quality check

We determine the quality of a chisel by the duration of its service and the level of processing of the material. In fact, in addition to the handle, the main thing here is the hardness of the metal itself for the working part of the tool and its hardening.

The first step in choosing a good chisel is determining the appropriate type of steel.

The following types of materials are available on the market (sometimes only processing methods are indicated):

• forged
  - drop forged;
• CrV
  – made from chrome vanadium
• CS
  – tool steel

We offer a way to determine the type of steel of a tool if for some reason it is not indicated on the chisel.

Try sharpening a chisel on a stone. The point is that on well-hardened steel, burrs appear from sharpening; they are then easy to remove. Steel that does not produce burrs is overheated and too hard. There is a possibility that the steel will split during operation. This may cause injury. And the third case - the steel produces burrs, but they cannot be removed. This indicates that the steel is too soft. When cutting into wood, steel will crumple.

In general, the more information the manufacturer leaves on the packaging of the chisel about materials and sharpening, the better.

How to sharpen a chisel

Begin sharpening the chisel on the flat side. The chisel must be moved up and down along the stone. The instrument is held with both hands, making smooth and leisurely movements.

After grooves appear on the surface of the stone, sharpening should continue on a medium-grained surface and finish on a fine-grained surface. Sharpening can be considered complete when the smooth side takes on a mirror-like appearance.

Sharpening a chisel using a whetstone is a complex and painstaking procedure. It is easier to use a special sharpening device.

Making blanks on a machine

Turning chisels are divided according to their functionality into the following groups:

• Rough processing. The chisel has 2 cutting blades located at an angle relative to each other.
• Meisel finishing treatment. Meisel is a smooth flat cutter with an angular sharpening on one side.
• Semicircular chisel for processing non-standard products.
• Cutting blade for removing excess wood when making patterns.
• Round chisel for processing round parts. Its blade can be either smooth or serrated.
• A file that processes the ends of workpieces.
• Cutter limiter that regulates the turning depth.

Device and characteristics

Structurally, a chisel is a metal sheet with a sharp blade located at the end.

On the reverse side there is a wedge-shaped shank, reminiscent of an ordinary nail, onto which the handle is driven.

In the classic version, the handle is made of wood, and a metal cap is installed at the point where it joins the blade.

Its purpose is to tighten the wood fibers and prevent the tool from breaking under pressure.

There are hand and impact chisels.

In the first case, cutting into the material is performed by hand pressure, and in the second case, by light blows with a mallet on the end of the chisel.

On the handles of impact mallets, in addition to the main cap on the back, there is a metal ring that acts as a headband and prevents cracking of the wood under impact loads.

Material

In the production of chisels, a durable but not brittle alloy is used.

All the requirements are fully met by tool steel grades KhVG, 9ХС and 9ХФ.

It is permissible to use steels with similar mechanical properties.

According to the method of manufacturing the canvas, they are distinguished:

• Stamped chisels.
• Forged - with increased blade thickness for processing materials with increased hardness.
• Punching – provide significant precision in processing products that have lower characteristics in terms of hardness and density.

As for the handles of chisels, in the classic version the material used for production is tough wood, for example, maple, ash, hornbeam, oak.

In addition, impact-resistant plastic or other material with similar characteristics is used.

In modern versions, the handle comes in:

• Two-component - it is based on impact-resistant plastic with rubber inserts for easy holding and to prevent hand slipping.
• Three-component. A combination of impact-resistant plastic at the ends with a softer appearance in the middle and rubber inserts or rubberized coating.

For percussion options, a metal butt plate is installed on the handle.

Dimensions and weight of the chisel

The standard length for chisels is considered to be 125 - 280 mm, where 110 - 145 mm falls on the blade, the width of which ranges from 4 - 50 mm.

Weight is 100 – 400 g.

GOST

Technical requirements and basic dimensions of flat and semicircular chisels are regulated by GOST 1184-80, which, in turn, contains references to GOST 14959-79, GOST 5950-73 and GOST 1435-75 (technical requirements for blade steel grades), as well as to GOST 2695-83 (regarding wood for handles).

Marking

Considering that tool steel is used in production, the marking on the product looks like the inscription “chrome vanadium”, CrV or drop forged.

In this case, a mandatory condition is the presence of a mark about the manufacturer, which is a kind of guarantor of quality.

On high-quality carving chisels, the steel grade is indicated directly on the blade using the electrographic method.

Attention!

Labels like “Hardened steel” should not be trusted.

Foreign manufacturers almost always indicate in the marking the elements present in the alloy, conventionally designated, for example, as W+Cr+V, or Cr+W, simply Cr or W.

The steel grade itself is also often indicated, for example, 86CrMoV7 or 62SiMnCr4.