The Blunt Chisel
The Blunt Chisel
Or “The dark magic of Carter the warlock”
One day, I’ll probably make a plane of some sort, in the meantime I live vicariously watching talented planemakers on youtube. I still remember my reaction when seeing Bill Carter’s video on the “Blunt Chisel Technique”. No way that could work, or if it does, I bet its only good for boxwood, or its way harder to do that he makes it look.
Carter had “blunted” a gouge by running it at near 90 degrees into a grinder, and then demonstrated refining a beautiful boxwood plane wedge with it, leaving an incredible finish.
That night, I took an old chisel, “Blunted” it, and gave it a try. Its witchcraft. It takes a few seconds to prepare, and can leave a great finish on anything I’ve tried it on.
Too see the astonishing demonstration look here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re_bp5Lp0To&t=3s
and his follow up video shows how to create one with stones, for those of you without a grinder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5gqnxh_UH4
and a write up of the technique on his website
So a blunt chisel is not really blunt, it has a sharp corner at near 80 degrees (it does not have to be a specific angle, just very steep), and acts as a scraper. You can use the technique on chisels and gouges, or even an old file. Matthew Platt describe using a blunted old file to refine a mitre plane here:
https://www.workshopheaven.com/blog/mitre-plane
Once you know this trick exists, you start seeing it everywhere, particularly amoung plane makers.
Here is Tom Figden demonstrating it on end grain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRefifBuWWI
Or Stavros Gakos using it to set a planes bed surface
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERJmHbfq9b4
Benchcrafted has even design a tool specifically designed to be used this way. They have described the Benchcrafted Paring Skraper as “pretty much Bill’s tool”.
https://www.benchcrafted.com/skraper
Grab a beater chisel or gouge, blunt it and try it out, I bet it turns into one of your favorite tools.
For those of you who read and enjoy these diversions, we have begun to archive them at https://blog.vintagetoolpatch.com/. Sadly only fairly recent ones have been preserved, if anyone happened to have saved any we are missing, please pass them on and I’ll add them to the archive.
Bill demonstrates a blunt chisel on boxwood
Bill & Sarah Carter, master plane makers
Matthew Platt using a blunted file
The Benchcrafted paring skraper, a purpose made tool for this technique
Bill refining a wedge with a blunt gouge
