Using current chisels

[Shamus]

I tinkered with carving when I was growing up, mainly with what was available around the house (generally blunt carpentry chisels and pine). I tried taking carving classes when I lived in an apartment, but they always seemed to get cancelled from a lack of participants. Now that I have my own house, and space for my wood working, I decided it might be time to try carving a bit more seriously. As both my birthday and X-mas are coming up, now seemed like a good time to get some basic tools and try things out.

My question is this. Can regular flat carpentry chisels be used in place of straight, flat carving chisels? I already have carpentry chisels, and if I can save myself the cost of extra cutting tools, that would be helpful.

[doris]

hi welcome shamus... i do have some old carpenter chisels too, and to me it seems old tools are better than news in that they hold an edge longer... i now do have some new tools, but my favourite is still an 100 year old gouge. it only needed clean up the edge and then sharpened. ... carpenter chisels are a little differnt angle sharpened than carving tools, but you can change that to your need. i did so.

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

carving flat chisels have a thin blade where carpenters chisels have a very steep angle....I do use them for certain things but not the same as a woodcarvers chisel....unless of course you want to grind them down?

[AlArchie]

You CAN use carpenters' chisles, but a fair assortment of good gouges can't be beat, and you can build a collection one piece at a time. The problem with carpenters' chisles is that thay have absolutely NO sweep or radius to the edge. That means that the corners tend to dig in as you carve. Another thing is that they usually are not sharp enough to carve effectively with. Hone them up and they are good to use. I do use them for clean-up and straight cuts, but not that often, and a low sweep gouge works a whole lot better.

The short handles on them make them a little more difficult to control, too. Generally speaking they are designed to do a specific range of work for the carpentry and cabinet making trades. Better off to look for some decent gouges. You might consider looking around at antique shops for some very good old tools. So far the prices for these antique tools hasn't caught up with other "collectable" tools, so you can find some bargains. I've founs some decent ones in the 50 cent to 5 dollar range. a little clean-up, and sharpening and they are good to go.

Al

[Shamus]

Cheers for the replies. It just so happens that next week I was planning on going to a large antique market that happens to sell (among other things) a number of old tools. This certainly is fortuitous.