#HTE
Tools & Craft #11: Different Design Solutions for Making Tools Last Longer
I guarantee that right now, you have some problem in your life, and someone on the other side of the planet has the exact same problem. With no way for you two to find each other and collaborate, you’ll each come up with your own solution. And that can be fun to watch.
Let’s take chisels and mallets, for instance. Japan and Europe both had them centuries ago, when there was no communication between the two, and they both had the same problem: When you hammer the butt-end of a chisel to drive it into the wood, over time that butt-end starts to mushroom and/or split. Because making tools was such a pain in the neck, you wanted the tool to last for as long as possible.
The Japanese solved this problem at the blacksmith’s. They had him forge a metal hoop, which they integrated into the handle. By encircling the butt end, this hoop prevents mushrooming when you pound it with the metal hammers the Japanese prefer. These are referred to as “hooped” chisels.
Westerners solved this problem in the wood shop. Rather than coming up with hoops, they simply made mallets out of wood that was softer than the chisel handle.
Which doesn’t mean these softer mallets don’t last. Look at the photo below.
Mallets seem to stabilize with a few dents, and it’s typically years before the big cracks start. So you get a lot of good use out of these things, and it’s cheaper to replace an English joiner’s mallet every few years than it is to re-handle a chisel.
Some of you may have observed that Western carvers will occasionally use mallets made out of lignum vitae, the densest wood on Earth, to hit un-hooped chisels. So what gives, doesn’t that contradict what I just wrote? Well, it’s to do with the nature of the striking:
If you’re using bench chisels, and especially mortise chisels, you’re looking to whack with power. In order to get that power using a soft mallet, you take a longer stroke with the mallet. What you give up there is precision and feedback, since the face of the softer wood mallet distorts slightly on impact.
But if you’re carving, precision is everything. A shorter stoke with a heavier, smaller mallet gives you more control. Even if you are removing lots of material you want to do it in a series of controlled strokes, so you don’t split away the wrong wood. So a denser, harder, mallet gives you more feedback, you can use a shorter, more controlled stroke, and overall you use less power per-stroke. The tool handle is in much less danger from a carver than a joiner.
So, some of you may be wondering: Which is “better,” using a metal hammer and a hooped chisel, like the Japanese, or using an un-hooped chisel and a softer mallet, in the Western tradition? I’ll tackle this topic in a future entry, so if you’ve got specific questions about this, please let me know in the comments below.
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This “Tools & Craft” section is provided courtesy of Joel Moskowitz, founder of Tools for Working Wood, the Brooklyn-based catalog retailer of everything from hand tools to Festool; check out their online shop here. Joel also founded Gramercy Tools, the award-winning boutique manufacturer of hand tools made the old-fashioned way: Built to work and built to last.
http://www.core77.com/posts/53814/Tools-n-Craft-11-Different-Design-Solutions-for-Making-Tools-Last-Longer