Marv Paisner wrote: "I think fitting the wood handle to the tang chisel would
be more labour
intensive than fitting a turned handle into a socket.
"With the tangs being hand forged they could have a slight bend as well as
varied thickness on the taper, leading to more time necessary for each
fitting.
"The sizing of the sockets might be more uniform as I believe they are shaped
on a cone...."
My experience has been just the opposite, that fitting a handle to a socket
chisel is much more fuss and work than fitting a tang chisel. The inside of the
socket is rarely uniformly tapered, so measuring and turning the tenon has to be
followed by a twist-and-scrape process to get uniform contact between wood and
metal. If you don't have uniform contact, the blade will fall off the handle.
You can try to shortcut by using a softer wood for the handle, but then the
tenon snaps. And if the socket was formed by a weld and it wasn't prettied up on
the inside, then you have a big step where the layers overlap and that
multiplies your problems.
I've fitted tang handles by burning in and by reaming with the tang. And I've
fitted socket handles where I whittled the tang, where I did the basic shape on
the lathe, and where I had a pre-made NOS handle where the tang had to be
whittled or scraped to fit. Every one is different and takes a different amount
of work, but overall I think the tang handles easier to set in place.
Tom Conroy
Berkeley
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