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Thread: Cold Chisels - I had no idea
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6th May 2019, 10:27 PM #1Golden Member
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Cold Chisels - I had no idea
Decided to start learning about cold chisels.
Am puzzled that I rarely see them mentioned in the various posts that I have read over the last 5 years. Am guessing that angle grinders have ousted them to some extent.
Thought this video is a good eye opener if, like me, you know nothing about them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7umWmyjkGI
.... has anybody got any favourite stories, videos, links, memories, books, best thing you ever made etc regarding cold chisels ?
Am aware of the apprentice task with file and hacksaw and 1" cube of metal is there an equivalent apprentice exercise regarding cold chisels ?
Bill
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7th May 2019, 12:07 AM #2Most Valued Member
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Thanks for this Bill, I knew that the Blacksmiths of olde, used them but was unsure of how.
Now I know.
Apprentices were probably given a piece of square bar and told to make it round, using only the chisel.
KrynTo grow old is mandatory, growing up is optional.
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7th May 2019, 10:15 AM #3Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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I remember making a small cold chisel at high school that turned out to be quite useful at home the time as we had few metal working tools. It might even be somewhere in the bottom of one of my tool boxes. At the blacksmiths tool makers course I attended some 6 years ago we started by making a few simple tools like cold chisel, centre punch and regular drift punch etc. IMHO centre and drift punches are much more easily made on a lathe so I just made the chisel and skipped the others and went onto making a set of tongs. I still have that chisel laying around somewhere on my bench but have never used it.
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7th May 2019, 10:52 AM #4Golden Member
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Back in the late 60's when I was a lad in high school my mate and I would scour neighbourhoods looking out for car wrecks parked down the side of houses, we would approach the owners and offer to rid them of the unsightly wreck, tow the wreck to his back yard and cut the car into 4 with a cold chisel and hacksaw separating the non ferrous stuff as we went, once cut into bits we loaded them into his father's 6x4 trailer and off to Brown's scrap metal.
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7th May 2019, 07:38 PM #5Golden Member
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we had the apprentice task with the block of steel that we had to file and then scrape square to withing a couple of hundreths.
Also had a cold chisel task of cutting large chamfers around edges of a thick rectangular piece of steel all done to marking out. also had to cut a large cross on the main surface with a cape type chisel.
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7th May 2019, 08:28 PM #6Senior Member
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Well dad was a blacksmith, the workshop was our backyard and forging chisels was my job. Sadly I am colourblind so I can't temper steel, so I could not follow him in the trade. I still have quite a few bars of Swedish oval steel we used to use, the best ever for cutting steel, but no good for concrete. I still find uses for them where you can't get a grinder in.
Rgds,
Crocy.
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8th May 2019, 10:28 PM #7Golden Member
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Thanks for replies. After reading about cutting cars into quarters and chamfering around big blocks I had to have a go. Managed to grind a reasonable sharp edge and was able to put small chamfers on a scrap piece of 6mm thick hot rolled steel plate. Quite chuffed with that. With a bit more practice might be able to do something useful. Maybe I need a bigger more substantial vice - workpiece slipped and moved a lot.
Bill
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11th May 2019, 08:56 PM #8Member
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One of my memories of using them, not good memories, but memories all the same. When I was a first year apprentice sparky we did a re-fit of an accommodation block on a RAAF base. The bottom floor had concrete ceilings and it was decided to change the layout of the room, which meant moving the light fitting. I had to cut 2 parallel cuts in the ceiling using a diamond blade in a circular saw for the conduit. We had a circular saw that we 'modified' with a water coolant hose, but the boss determined that was an OH & S risk, even though it was protected by an ELCB box, so he suggested using the petrol powered one inside the building??? Anyhoo, using the dry saw set up I made all the cuts which were about 1 metre each side, for each of the 24 rooms, so 48 metres of reinforced concrete was cut and I then had to 'chase' the ceiling between the cuts with the trusty cold chisel.
I spent a lot of time swearing each time I hit my hand with the hammer (which was lots as I couldn't see properly due to my goggles constantly fogging up), grinding the mushroom head off and resharpening the chisel. I eventually finished the job and by then, I was a second year .
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14th May 2019, 01:12 AM #9Senior Member
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Ah the memories of chiselling the block as an apprentice. To me it was a great exercise in the use of hand tools and I loved every part of it but a lot of the other blokes really struggled, especially when it came to hitting the end of the chisel.
The block we were given was cast iron with a base size of about 80mm x 60mm and maybe 50mm high and with three steps. The exercise was to chisel a 3mm chamfer around the base and edge then remove both of those faces with the same chisel. After that it was time to file those faces flat & square. That completed, those faces were then scraped flat & square.
Then the chisels came out again but this time we had to cut grooves across the steps in vee, round and square shapes. The only thing to do now was on the lower step you then had to hacksaw a 90 degree "V" and file it square to the base.
As I mentioned before ... a great exercise in the use of hand tools but I wonder if today's apprentices do similar. I'll bet they don't.
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14th May 2019, 10:26 AM #10Gear expert in training
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14th May 2019, 12:00 PM #11Senior Member
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We said the same thing 57 years ago but many times in those years my basic training in the use of hand tool has come in to play. Quite often when in the field & away from all the nice machines you have to get the job done with what little you have on hand.
As with most trades whether it's engineering, automotive, etc the skills us old fellas learnt over the years are sadly dying with us.
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14th May 2019, 12:22 PM #12Gear expert in training
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Yep. I was fortunate to learn my furniture trade from a 4th generation tradesman, so I got to learn some of those dying skills, and there are some older blokes at my new place as well so hopefully I'll get some of the old engineering skills too (even if they are becoming somewhat redundant)
Sadly, I think my generation will be the last to have the chance to learn them first-hand.
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14th May 2019, 09:40 PM #13Member
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cold chisels still taught at Tafe
I worked at Tafe until recently and in F&M we still taught hand tools to first year apprentices. As others have mentioned, one exercise was cutting a slot across a metal block using cold chisels. In different exercises we had them use flats, diamond point, cross cut & half round chisels. Many students now have limited or no experience with hand tools so we tried to give them a basic manual competency. Even a simple hacksaw could be a major challenge.
Each year Tafe carpentry used to replace their handsaws and of these, many had only 100mm section of worn teeth while the remainder of the teeth were pristine. I still use different cold chisels in my home workshop. They’re invaluable for some tasks.
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14th May 2019, 09:48 PM #14Gear expert in training
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Hand tools are still covered in 1st year F&M, but chisels just get a cursory look at, most of it (at least in VIC) is files and hacksaw
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15th May 2019, 03:58 PM #15Intermediate Member
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I still have the cold chisel that I made in high school back in 1964 in welding shop. I still use it occasionally, as well as some of the other cold chisels that I own.
David
Desert Hybrids Precision
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