[Cherryville Chuck]

At first I thought this was a mortise chisel but the more I look at it the more certain I am that it isn't and I'm not sure it is even a chisel at all. I bought this in a lot of chisels I purchased from a seller on ebay in the UK. There is no makers name on it.

The pictures are poor but the best my cheap camera will manage. They do show that the blade is 3 sided and that one side is convex. The convex side has striations on it that are similar to a sharpening steel. In fact I tried sharpening a chisel from that lot on it and it worked. If it were a mortise chisel then the end of the handle should be hooped to withstand mallet blows. The last picture shows that there are no signs that the handle has ever been struck.

The tip doesn't appear to have ever been sharp. It is almost uniformly dull in fact with a slightly rounded flat that has a slight taper from one side to the other that is around 1/32 at the thickest.

I thought for a while that maybe it was a burnisher but the two bottom edges are fairly sharp, more so by quite a bit than the tip. A burnisher should have rounded edges. So I'm at a loss to figure out what it was meant for and I've never come across another like it or or have seen a picture of it anywhere. Anyone know what it is?

 

[Cherryville Chuck]

It may have been a prototype of something that didn't turn out as very practical and it doesn't have any of the indications of hand made and all the indications of factory made. The real head scratcher here is the convex side with the striations in it. They are too uniform in my opinion to have been hand cut. And they are exactly like the ones on a sharpening steel. And likely put in while the steel was soft and then hardened after. But if it was only for sharpening then why triangular instead of the standard round? And why the sloped nose? Keep in mind that I got it from the UK and the origin is likely the UK (although one of the chisels is stamped China) and that Sheffield was the chisel making center of the western world at one time.

 

[Cherryville Chuck]

It looks like it was used for cleaning out mortises, whatever its origin. I recall that for a very long time, German machinist apprentices first effort was making their own basic tools. The age on the handle and patina on the steel sure looks like it has some serious age on it.

My original thoughts Tom but as I stated, it doesn't appear to have ever been sharp or sharpened after manufacture for that matter. Very few amateurs sharpen without leaving a scratch pattern that shows it. This doesn't have that anywhere on it. It also doesn't have a hooped handle that I would expect to see on a mortise chisel. The straight chisels are expected to be struck, hence the reinforcement on the handle to resist splitting it.

 

[Cherryville Chuck]

dovetail chisel...
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dovetail+chisels&t=ffsb&atb=v91-2_j&iax=images&ia=images

That still doesn't explain why it has one convex side, the striations, or the fact it doesn't appear to have ever been sharp.

Doesn't match the configuration for a pigsticker either. All of those I've seen tend to wider than they are thick and usually taper across the width, getting wider as they go to the handle. Also would not have a convex side.

 

[Cherryville Chuck]

Not serrations, striations as in grooves. The convex face is grooved like a sharpening steel and it will sharpen. I tried it on one of the other chisels although it would more suited to something like a knife, or maybe a card scraper. For a while I thought it might have been intended as a tool for removing a dull hook and burnishing a new one but if that was the case the corners would be rounded instead of sharp. The edges are much sharper than the tip is. If this tool was home made then the maker had some impressive equipment for his time. I estimate that it is at least 50 years old and may be much older. I have quite a few old Sheffield origin chisels and this one is indicative of that era.

 

[Cherryville Chuck]

Here are some better pictures that my daughter took for me. It's possible it was meant to be a file but I can't imagine why there would be no teeth on two sides. I have chainsaw files with no teeth on the edges and I've seen files that have only teeth on the edges and none on the flats but why only one side of a semi-triangular file? I've also repurposed files as Gerard suggested but if someone repurposed this tool he had both impressive skills and tools to do it with.

I tend to rule out the possibility of this being a mortise chisel. Even without considering the convex side with the striations on it, the end doesn't go to a sharp edge (still no good picture of that). There is a sort of micro bevel but it's thick and slopes the wrong way. Also the handle isn't hooped and there is still the tiny pinhole in the end of the handle from when it was turned on the lathe. It's never seen a mallet blow and with the geometry of the tip it would have to be struck to work.

 

[Cherryville Chuck]

Hello!

By the new picture i can see this convex and lined face.

And i think this was made out of a sharpening steel .

This is popular in France , cooks and butchers use them

When new, they are round and a little conical, with lines all around them.

A sharpening steel is what the lines reminded me of too Gerard and I have one that I'm not very good at using. But all the sharpening steels I've seen are around 12-14mm in diameter. According to the radius on the side the grooves are on it would have been over 30 mm in diameter if this had been made from one. The direction of the grooves is why it wasn't made from any type file either because the grooves are 90* to those of a file.

 

[Cherryville Chuck]

The files with teeth on two sides and one flat are used to cut dovetails in gun barrels or other metal items. This allowed the dovetail to be enlarged to fit a front or rear sight but not deepen the dovetail.

That's interesting John. I know gunsmithing has some pretty specialized tools. Are those files straight or tapered?