Greetings, My LV skew chisels are still only at the drool stage. In the meantime, I got a $2.29 Ace throwaway 1/2" chisel and reground it. Cuts fine, but the very tip bent after a couple of strokes. Now, I admit I might have blued that part during the grind, but I don't think so. (left lots of thickness, and spent a very long time on the 800 waterstone.) And yes, this chisel is probably made of recycled soda cans.
So, anybody have such a problem with "real" skew chisels?
the point on a skew is relatively fragile. expect it to need more sharpening than a straight chisel.
I use 12 inch flat diamond stones and a roller guide. The black stones are very coarse and are used for preparing the tip and removing knicks. I work down to the extra fine stone and then use a Japanese water stone at 6000 grit and get mirror polish. It takes a little longer but I get an edge I can shave with and never blue the steel. I have tried everything from a Tormac wet stone to a bench grinder and decided the diamond stones are the way to go. max
I'm not happy with the bevel angle, anyway. I'll chop off an eighth or so tomorrow and see how it goes.
No. My bench chisels are all either decent Japanese ones, or very old English cast steel ones. I can pick these up for pennies each, ruined and without handles, but the steel is still good. Some of them have lost their temper, either by abuse or by having been shortened beyond the hard tip - but being a simple high carbon steel, it's no problem to re-harden and temper them again.
It's quite common to find a really old shed survivor that has rusted at the ferrule and lost its tang. Useless as a chisel, as there's no way to put a handle on it, but it will still harden up as an engraving graver or punch.
Read the FAQs for rec.knives if you want to know more. They're an excellent set on steels and hardening.
BT,DT. Got lots of great advice from the knowledgeable folk at rec.crafts.metalworking, too. Just made spiffy 1/8" O-1 irons for my prod Stanleys, with a lot of help from r.c.m.
One idea is to hack away the polyethylene handle and heat treat the cheapie chisel from go. I'm also ripping, by hand, the rest of my O-1 bar to make skews from scratch. Yuck.
There's more to my skewed story. My other-handed skew is ground from a 40- year-old Fuller chisel that appears to be case hardened and has _never_ held an edge. (That's why it got experimented on.) Its tip curls up, too.
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