Comments on: More on Narex mortising chisels

By: Paul Sellers

Paul Sellers — Mon, 13 May 2013 22:09:00 +0000

No, It should be 1/2″ exactly if you ordered a non-metric half incher. Contact them, they will resolve any issues in a heartbeat. They have the best customer service of any catalog company I know of.

By: Woodworker

Woodworker — Mon, 13 May 2013 03:15:00 +0000

My “1/2 inch” narex actually measures 7/16 inch wide. I got it from Veritas. Is this normal?

By: Miles Thompson

Miles Thompson — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 13:30:00 +0000

Paul,

Thank you for your complete and thoughtful answer.

Dominant hand may well be the problem – there was certainly a good buildup of abrasive in front of the chisels cutting edge. I’m also left handed and will work more on a straight pull, or slow figure eight with my hand intentionally relaxed. After all, I can do it while driving so I do not unitentionally “go where I’m looking”, why not here?

Now I’m off to Home Depot for a granite tile – should be more rigid than my piece of 1/4″ glass, and if polished correctly it will be flat.

I’ll also try wet and dry sandpaper – I’d been using aluminum oxide dry, open coat. W/D will closed and should cut more effectively, and as you observe I can keep it wet.

I use 3M Spray contact adhesive (used for dry mounting prints, etc.) to fasten the paper to the grinding plate.

— START ASIDE—
So why am I doing all this? Well I came across your plate glass/mortise chop YourTube video last Wed – it was a revelation. So I went looking for my chisels and came across the old Marples set. Didn’t touch the 3/8″ – just marked out a mortise in a piece of old spruce and chopped away, going back and forth to the video.

Cripes! It worked! I’ve tried: boring out the waste and paring the sides, using my non-plunge router (carefully easing it into the wood) and a drill press mortiser (47 yr ago in high school). I’d become resigned to buying a proper mortising chisel, or maybe a plunge router and a complex jig, and now I don’t have to. I mean really, the idea of creating a mortise had me cowed, but no longer.

They won’t be perfect, but your demo showed it can be done.

What a revelation, took the block upstairs and showed my wife. She asked for a footstool for Christmas. Excellent starting project: Taper the legs for elegance, curve on the underside of the rails, rabbet for the ply panel that will carry the upholstered top, and the tufting, etc. for the top.

Want another example? About 6 years ago Rob Cosman was doing his “airy shavings” and dovetail demo at the Atlantic Woodworking Show here in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Wow – what plane! What a price!

All I had was my father’s early 1950′s Miller Falls smoother – probably #4 or thereabouts. So I thought a bit – what is a plane? A sharp blade, rigidly supported to control depth of cut, in flat base that provides a reference surface. Move the assembly across the wood and the blade cuts off ( shaves off?) the set amount of wood, according to the projection of the blade.

I’d never fettled a plane – so took the whole thing apart and cleaned out the “gunge” – it wasn’t bad. Ensured the frog was flat, did the Scary Sharp thing: flattened chip breaker (it was pretty good), flattened and sharpened the iron. No adjustable mouth so I moved the frog up, set the chip breaker to the very edge of the bevel and started off – slowly advancing the iron.
Yeah – it did whispy shavings. Not a Lie-Nielsen, but a good 95-98% of a Lie-Nielsen. I could almost see through the pores. — END ASIDE—

Thank you for the encouragement.

Regards – Miles Thompson

PS My father, although born in Edmonton, Alberta, grew up in Stockton-on-Tees. /mt

By: Paul Sellers

Paul Sellers — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 04:35:00 +0000

Miles,
A couple of things. I generally use plain ol’ wet-n-dry and start with anything between 180-240 grit. A squirt bottle with water keeps the surface from clogging. An important point here, and this can well be your problem, is that, when you push the chisel on the forward stroke, there will be a tendency to hold the chisel with the dominant hand, pushing the chisel on the surface at an angle so that one corner or the other enters the abrasive before the remaining long part of the edge. Thus you can cause a build up of abrasive on the fore corner of the chisel with each successive forward push. This then also tends to be the more aggressive and productive stroke. Because this is the leading edge it becomes more like a bulldozer causing a buildup at that corner point. Any stroke, and there will likely be many, that goes over this rise will receive a mega dose of particulate at that corner and in a matter of seconds you have created your own problem of rounding the corner and even the leading edge of the flat face of the chisel. Try trailing the cutting edge more so rather than pushing the important cutting edge into the particulate you are pulling it. Also, don’t just wet the wet-n-dry, flush it with water so that abrasive and steel particles are flushed more evenly over the surface or even off the surface for that matter and not allowed to build up where the push strokes stop. Remember that the abrasive is very hard and aggressive and doesn’t stop cutting when it surface fractures from the substrate of particulate below.
Another concern to seriously consider is that the plate you sharpen on is truly guaranteed dead flat and not even slightly undulating and also thick enough or supported enough not to be flexing with the pressure of the stroke. For instance, unless float glass is fully supported, it will flex. Even double sided tape allows a measure of flex in glass. Any of this will cause rounding on the fore corner of the cutting edge. Of course the worst scenario will be if the platen, slab, tile, glass, granite or whatever you use is itself indeed hollow.
All of the above has not so much to do with the size of the abrasive particulate although large grit particulate will round more. You must take care throughout each level.
I will post this as a blog to help those who might not see it here too. It was a good question.

By: Miles Thompson

Miles Thompson — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 21:26:00 +0000

What did you start with? I have an older set of Marples and am about ready to use LV’s 90x silicon carbide to flatten the 1″. It seems to have a belly and I can’t get one corner near the cutting edge to flat.

I was using 80 grit sandpaper, switched to medium emery cloth – that was better. But when I started polishing it out through finer grits – no joy.

By: R. Persad

R. Persad — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 17:45:00 +0000

I have a full set of Narex chisels: all six mortise chisels, ten bevel edged and four skew and im very happy with the quality and price of the chisels. I have them for over a year and used them in woods ranging from pine to mahogany to greenheart and they worked well and kept a great edge even in the greenheart and purpleheart. All the backs of my chisels were ground very slightly hollow and flattened easily except the 2″ had a very slight crown that took a few extra minutes but it wasnt bad. To flatten and sharpen i use abrasive bonded to glass plates and it worked well. I cant see myself buying a new set of chisels anytime in the future.

By: Paul Sellers

Paul Sellers — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 14:38:00 +0000

They did vary from chisel to chisel. We were using EZE Lap diamond plates, 3″ x 8″, which cut quickly and started with the 250 coarse stone and then went to their fine and superfine. From there we used wet and dry to 2000 and then buffed on wood to 15,000. This is a one shot deal and needs doing periodically, perhaps once a year.

By: Bill Schenher III

Bill Schenher III — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 01:50:00 +0000

That is why I asked. The first time I saw these was on highlandwoodworking’s site and they were metric. But I see that at lee valley, the dark handle style ones, are imperical sizes. very interesting.

By: Ken Haygarth

Ken Haygarth — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 10:42:00 +0000

In the UK we have a choice metric or true imperial sizes

http://www.workshopheaven.com/tools/Narex_Mortice_Chisels_Imperial-8882.html

By: J Guengerich

J Guengerich — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 07:54:00 +0000

Paul, you bring up a good point about Veritas/Lee Valley and their requirements of tool vender/suppliers. Bill’s question makes a good point. If a person searched other sites for the Narex mortise chisels, they will come in approximate metric:standard/imperical sizes.
http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/narex-set-of-5-mortise-chisels.aspx