Rehabing Orvil's Chisels, Part 2

Part 1 of this topic is here.

I remember a few years ago when I first saw the "London-pattern" chisel handles.  I thought they looked so dang good.  And I love the fact that they don't tend to roll off the bench.  Orvil's chisels needed some classy handles, so I did some research on the London pattern.

I didn't have a clue about what diameter to start with, what overall length to shoot for, how long the octagonal section should be, how long the curvy section should be, etc.  The interwebs provided some clues and I made some assumptions to make a couple prototypes.

First pass at some dimensions for the largest chisel handle

Large and medium prototypes next to the original handle from the 1 1/2" chisel

The larger one above started from a 1 1/4" square piece, so it was 1 1/4" flat-to-flat in the octagonal section.  From the top (largest part) of the taper to the back end was 5 1/2".  The smaller one was 1 3/16" flat-to-flat and 5" long.

1 1/2" chisel with original handle next to the fitted larger prototype handle

I liked the diameter of the large one for the 1 1/2"chisel, but it seemed a bit too long.

At the same time that I was trying to figure out all this stuff, Ralph over at the Accidental Woodworker blog had bought some London pattern handles.  He was nice enough to post some dimensions of his handles for me here (thanks, Ralph).

This was a good reality check that I was in the ballpark.  I was bang-on with my choice of square blanks to start with, but I was a bit off in some other dimensions.  The main difference for my handles was that, rather than make a large handle for the largest chisel, medium handles for the 5/8" to 1" chisels and small handles for the 1/4" to 1/2" chisels, I wanted to make progressively smaller handles as the chisel size got smaller.  So I worked out some numbers and got started.

Chisel handle dimension sheet

First was to square up some blanks and then take them to octagonal.  My method uses a spreadsheet to tell me where to mark lines on the blank based on it square size.  The Incra rule is great for this.

Marking the lines for octagonizing (a word coined by Greg Merritt)

Before planing, important to remember to mark the centers on each end

Planed to octagonal with jack and smoothing planes

A bunch of octagons ready for turning

The first thing to do is to turn the taper for the socket - without a good fit everything else is meaningless.

A dirty socket before cleaning

Before taking measurements, did my best to clean out the inside

Got measurements by inserting dowels of known diameters and noting how far they go in

Taper turned and fitted

Inserting the taper into the socket and twisting a bit shows where more material needs to be removed.  There were a lot of iterations of turning and fitting to get them right.  This was complicated for some of them because some were not round.  The socket shown a few pics above was oval - about 1/32" out of round.  Others had large scratches or other metal anomalies inside the tapers or at the opening - just to make it less easy for me.  I had wondered if anybody purposely made scratches on the inside to grab the wooden handle better.

This one had major marks on the inside and a small peened over area at the lip

The 1/4' chisel (that became 3/16") had a good sized flat

I did a little filing of these things to help the tapers fit the sockets better.

For the turning, I used one of my prototypes as a guide for general shape of the curved area.

Comparing prototype to one ready to be turned

And here's in progress - not quite there yet

Due to my lathe's limitations, I needed to turn the handle around to shape the back end.

Ready to work on the rounded back end

Back end done and ready to have the waste cut away

Since each handle is fit to a particular socket, I marked them so as not to get them mixed up

A finished handle

And after three coats of BLO, here they are.  The handles for the four largest chisels are made from red oak, the rest from maple.

Glamour shot #1

Glamour shot #2 - hopefully you can see the graduated sizes of handles

The line-up

A note to self here: because some of the sockets were marred or out-of-round, I made a small mark on the handles to indicate which side of the octagon is parallel to the bevel edged side of the chisel.  That way, if I ever need to take the handle off (or if it comes off on it's own), I can put it back in the same orientation.  Otherwise, the interior scratches might wear the taper over time and result in a poor fit.

A small mark indicating the orientation of handle to the bevel side of chisel

And finally, I needed to update my chisel rack for these.  I don't want them banging around in a drawer and I want them to be my daily users, so they needed to be easy to get to.  My chisel rack is on the back of a rolling cabinet, very close to the workbench.

Previous chisel rack

It held my Irwin blue-handled chisels, some really crappy hardware store chisels, and two Japanese saws

Here's the new situation.

Made a new rack for Orvil's chisels that also holds my three gouges

And made a second row that holds my old Irwin chisels and 4 mortise chisels

Another view

I have since added back the two Japanese saws to the right side of the cabinet.  Also, I enclosed the area below the chisels so that no curious little hands or paws can accidentally brush against sharp edges.

I'm stoked about the new handles.  I feel like I'm finally giving Orvil's tools the respect they deserve.  I've been using them and have been loving it!