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Read Article Ray Iles revives a long-vanished, traditional mortising chisel.
Photocopying is when a toolmaker creates something that looks like a bevel-edge chisel you'd see in a catalog, but the chisel lacks critical details that make it do chisel-like things. And with each generation of tool, the photocopy degrades in quality until you finally find it in the home center's tool crib by the laser levels. Chances are the unbeveled side of the tool will be horribly out-of-flat. The chisel's side bevels will be entirely too thick to allow the tool to cut a dovetail. The handle will have the silhouette of a wooden handle, but it will be made with a heavy plastic, making the chisel too top-heavy to control when holding the tool by the blade. So it's no small wonder that beginners get frustrated when their home-center chisels don't work. After a failed chisel session, beginners either turn to old chisels that were made correctly, or perhaps they find one of the few modern makers that haven't forgotten how to make a chisel, or they give up on handwork.
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With
all the fancy steels and CNC equipment available these days,
it's both amusing and pathetic that some toolmakers cannot
manufacture a functional hand tool. The problem, I believe, is a
phenomenon called "photocopying."
