I just bought some Granadillo wood for a small project. Cursing the day I did. I’m trying (on some practice pieces thankfully) to make some dovetail joints and I’m nicking the hell out of my chisels. Tried using a mallet at first to work down to my shoulders and quickly discovered the damage to my chisels (japanese dovetail chisels ground to a 25 degree bevel with a 2 degree microbevel). I stopped using the mallet after repairing my chisels (no fun task) and tried paring the wood out. I’m still seeing damage at the end of my chisel. I tried switching to my Lee Valley chisels (also ground to 25 bevel with 2 microbevel) and encountered the same problem.
O.K. I get it. This wood is hard! Should I go for a different joint (ie bevel with splines) or are my chisels the problem? At this point I’m either ‘re-designing’ my box or I’m buying new chisels and increasing the bevel angle. Maybe a 30 or 35 degree bevel will take care of the problem. But I don’t want to invest time and money into new chisels if I’m likely still going to nick my chisels on this wood.
I’d like to stick to my original design obviously and I’ve alerady invested a lot of time and money in purchasing and preparing my wood (jointing and dimensioning). I don’t want to give up on this wood but have I made a mistake in purchasing unfamiliar and tough to work with wood?
Frustrated beyond words…any advice would be greatly welcome.
I’m also un a time restraing as this is supposed to be an anniversary gift. Figures.
Edited 8/3/2008 3:50 pm ET by twotone
Replies
Hi,
Well hardwood can be hard wood sometimes. I generally stick with a 27 degree angle, but if I'm cutting into something tougher, oh say grenadillo, then I can up the angle to 30 with a 5 degree micro-bevel. The only time you can get away with a 25 degree angle is in soft wood. Not softwoods, as southern yellow pine will eat up your chisel as fast as grenadillo, but softer wood. And my Japanese chisels are brittle so a micro-bevel there helps as well. Raise your angle, you'll pound through that stuff. Good luck. Gary
Thanks for the reply Gary. I have purchased some cheaper chisels (Footprints from Home Depot) and have reshaped them to a 35 degree and am in the final steps of honing. Did I go too steep now? I haven't had a chance to try them out yet and thought I would experiment with that before I commit to a steeper angle on more expensive chisels. I have been using my Japanese Chisels and my Lee Valleys at the 25 degree angle on woods such as oak and maple and haven't had any problems however it sounds like your chisels are a bit steeper (27 degrees you mentioned plus a micro bevel). Do you recommend a steeper angle for what I'm working with or should I just leave them as they are at 25 degrees with a 2 degree micro bevel which allows me to use my Veritas honing guide (preset angles being 25, 30, 35 degrees)reliably?And while I have you on the line...should I be bothering at all with cheaper chisels like the ones I purchased at Home Depot? They are made in England so I assume some degree of quality? Yay or Nay?Thanks for any inputMaurizio
Well a bunch of questions here. Let's start with the new chisels. Are they good? They might be fine, but I had a set of high end chisels that I had to send back because I rolled the edge chopping in oak. So you never know. At 35 degrees, they'll be hard to pare with but use a good mallet and see how they hold up in the grenadillo. Because the chisels were made in England this is a guarantee that they will have crossed an ocean. Nothing more. But heck if you roll the edges on those not much was lost and you'll have chisels for cutting through nails or opening paint cans. By the way, I checked grenadillo on the Janka hardness scale for wood species used in flooring just to see if it was listed. It's not. You might try checking its specific gravity and see how it ranks. As for your present good chisels, you can still use the Veritas guide to get 27 degrees. Just set the depth stop on 17degrees on the back bevel scale. [I am presuming you have the Veritas II honing guide.] That detent is right about in between the 25 and 30 degree settings on the standard angle line. Good luck. Gary
Gary,once again thanks for all the advice. Appreciated and noted! Also thanks for the new tip (re the 27 degree bevel on the Veritas II honing guide, which you assumed correctly is what I'm using.) I don't believe I read that in the instructions. Take careMaurizio
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled