Chisels

If you work with wood, stone, or metal, you’ll need a chisel sooner or later. Chisels are essential for making furniture, installing doors and trim, shaping stone for a foundation or fireplace, or working with logs to build a timber-frame structure. Few tools offer so much utility in such a simple package. But there’s a catch: Even the best chisel isn’t worth much unless you use it appropriately and sharpen it well.
Woodworking Chisels
If you’re starting with woodworking and cabinetry, a general-purpose set of “bevel-edge” chisels in quarter-, half-, three-quarter, and one-inch widths makes the most sense. This design has a relatively long blade with a flat bottom surface and angled corners along the top edges, making it perfect for creating hinge pockets, cutting woodworking joints, and installing door handles and latches.
A good set of bevel-edge chisels like these are perfect for woodworking.
Are your hands small? The “butt chisels” blades are shaped like bevel-edge chisels in cross-section, but they’re roughly half as long. This makes them easier to control, especially when chiseling along a critical line. Butt chisels get their name because they’re well suited to cutting pockets for butt hinges, which are used on everything from fine cabinets to barn doors.
The key to quality in a woodworking chisel is the steel. It’s got to be hard enough to hold an edge but not so hard that it becomes brittle. And sadly, you can’t buy excellent wood chisels just anywhere. Specialty woodworking supply outlets, such as Lee Valley, GarrettWade, or Traditional Woodworker, are the best places to find woodworking chisels of good quality.
Other sources are yard sales and auctions. Antique chisels are almost always made of excellent steel; you can often get them for reasonable prices. Keep your eyes open; you might be lucky to find a valuable piece of history today. It will need sharpening, but you’ll need to hone most new chisels.
Carving Chisels
Living the good life is about more than just practicality. It’s also about making beautiful things with your hands in partnership with natural materials. That’s the philosophy behind the woodcarvings I add to things I build. Sure, decorative carvings take extra effort, but I consider it time well spent. What else can you say about visual details that make you feel good whenever you see them?
Unlike bevel-edge chisels, carving chisels have angled or curved blades. You’ll need just three to get started in woodcarving: a vee-shaped, three-eighths-inch, 45-degree parting tool; a half-inch #5 straight gouge; and a more curved, three-eighths-inch #7 straight gouge. Don’t be intimidated by the fancy names. These are essential tools the woodworking suppliers mentioned earlier offer. You can tackle a lifetime of classic carving designs with a good set.
Timber Framing Chisels
If you have access to a woodlot and plan to harvest timbers for building frames, you’ll need a big chisel to create the interlocking mortise-and-tenon joinery that holds the timbers together. You can cut small timber frame joints with large bevel-edge chisels, but for most timber work, you’ll need a “framing chisel.” Mine measures 2 inches wide, and it’s made to be struck with a large wooden mallet. This tool isn’t cheap, but it’s such a specialized tool that the available supply is high-quality. Anyone you buy will be an excellent, durable tool.
Chisels for Stone
Masonry chisels are entirely different from wood, and the differences begin with the shape of the point. In contrast to wood chisels' slender, razor-sharp edges, masonry chisels are more rigid and more blunt. This allows them to withstand harsh, abrasive conditions and hard pounding.
If you’re smoothing lumps of concrete or cutting a hole through a block wall, you need a 1-inch-wide “cold chisel” (so-called because they’re also used to cut cold metal). You’ll find them at hardware stores; they come sharp enough to use. Remember to look closely at the tip's angle before using the chisel. It won’t be long before you must re-establish that edge with a bench grinder. General-purpose cold chisels should be sharpened with a 60-degree bevel on the cutting edge.
Sledgehammer and masonry chisel
Will you be cutting some bricks? The best brick chisels have a thin, 4-inch-wide blade and a rubber guard at the top of the handle. In case you miss with the hammer, this guard protects the back of your hand. You can buy brick chisels, often called “brick sets,” for relatively little.
Working with natural stone is one of my favorite building techniques, but you must hunt down the right tools to succeed. To shape the faces of building rocks, look for a “pitching chisel.” These have a blunt, nearly squared-off working edge that’s sharp enough to remove large stone flakes. You’ll get the best results using a 4-pound one-hand sledgehammer instead of the more typical 2-pound size.

Chisels look simple enough, but it takes experience to carve a perfect hinge pocket, trim out a tight mortise-and-tenon joint, or split a brick just so. To master chisels, you really must practice. Once you’ve gained those skills, though, you’re set for life. It’s like riding a bicycle — you never forget.