doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Stock Making Chisels

Does anyone know of a real good brand of. Stock making chisels.Or even a good used set. Please Pm or email whanson@plainstel.com

Ebay has some good chisels of all types up for sale. The older Buck Brothers and some of the other english makes are good. Stockmakers usually modify or make their own special purpose chisels. The dog leg chisels used to get in really tight spaces and scrapers used in the barrel channels. You have to be fearless enough to take a good chisel and make it into something that will really do what is needed. Jerry Fisher used to sell some special purpose chisels or maybe they were scrapers. SDH would have a good handle on what is needed.I have about 200 that I have collected over the years and some were from gunsmiths that had modified them in novel and job specific ways.

Long paring patternmakers chisels and dogleged ones work well.
They were used in the BSA stockmaking dept in Birmingham UK when I was learning there in 1966.
Martin

Mot sure what you mean by "good stock making chisel". A good chisel is about as good as the guy sharpening it. I've got cheap and I've got expensive and there is not much difference when they are sharp. I just have to sharpen the cheap ones more often.

I have made a number of chisels for special applications, but none of them are any good if they aren't very sharp.

A good place to buy chisels is at local auctions. You can generally buy them cheap and alter them to suit your particular purpose. But again:....they must be sharp, really sharp.

If you are doing a lot of gunstock work, a couple of "cranked" chisels are very handy.

The chisels being referred to as "doglegged" are actually called "swan necked". The title stems from their use, as they were first develeoped for clearing waste from the bottom of mortices.
I have Witherby chisels from 1/8th through 2", and a number of Japanese pairing chisels, and I prefer a medium length chisel with a decent length handle, and an ultra sharp blade.

Most of mine are socket handled.


The old harangue attributed to Abe Lincoln goes, " If I were given 6 hours to fell a tree, I would spend the first 4 sharpening my axe." And so it is with chisels and hand work.

Actually, "doglegged" refers to the crank necked chisels used by patternmakers or the similiar ones produced in Japan that have a steeper angle.They come in all sizes from 1/4" up to 2" and in straight chisels and in and out cannel gouges.Buck Brothers was the big producer of these at one time. Lots of them show up on ebay.

There were many early manufacturers of chisels RHD45. The nomenclature depends on where you stem your training from. And where your teacher stemmed their's from. Shipwright, sashmaker, carpenter, lutier?.
Before I placed an order somewhere, I would go to a flea market and buy a bucket of junk chisles. I would learn to shape and sharpen them, and then visit a Woodcraft, or other woodworking store on a saturday morning and meet the chisel devotees.
It is the same amount of work to transform a $1000.00 blank into sawdust as it is a $25.00 piece of walnut. YMMV

There are so many different types of chisels you may need to complete a gun stock that it's hard to make a recommendation. If you are interested in inletting chisels, I prefer very small ones. I bought several many years ago, when I was building muzzleloaders, for inletting locks (sidelocks, very similar to shotgun sidelocks), stock inlays, etc. at Friendship, IN at the NMLRA national matches from a fellow that made them by the name Van Dreische, I think. They are very small chisels of all shapes that are easily sharpened to a razor edge and are easily controlled for fine work. They are palm chisels. I'm sure there are others for sale that are as good or better.

Let me stress that I am not a professional stocker, but have done some in my time and really like the tiny palm chisels for inletting. Others more qualified may well disagree. I am certainly no authority on stocking.


Stan

P.S. I'll try to get a photo of some of them today and post it on this thread.

Thanks fellows. Whitey

Find,borrow or by what ever means possible get the book "The making of tools" by Alexander G. Weygers. This will give you a flying start into making your own in the manner and style that will fit your needs.