Marv Paisner wrote: "I think fitting the wood handle to the tang chisel would
be more labour
intensive than fitting a turned handle into a socket.

"With the tangs being hand forged they could have a slight bend as well as 
varied thickness on the taper, leading to more time necessary for each 
fitting.

"The sizing of the sockets might be more uniform as I believe they are shaped 
on a cone...."


My experience has been just the opposite, that fitting a handle to a socket
chisel is much more fuss and work than fitting a tang chisel. The inside of the
socket is rarely uniformly tapered, so measuring and turning the tenon has to be
followed by a twist-and-scrape process to get uniform contact between wood and
metal. If you don't have uniform contact, the blade will fall off the handle.
You can try to shortcut by using a softer wood for the handle, but then the
tenon snaps. And if the socket was formed by a weld and it wasn't prettied up on
the inside, then you have a big step where the layers overlap and that
multiplies your problems.


I've fitted tang handles by burning in and by reaming with the tang. And  I've
fitted socket handles where I whittled the tang, where I did the basic shape on
the lathe, and where I had a pre-made NOS handle where the tang had to be
whittled or scraped to fit. Every one is different and takes a different amount
of work, but overall I think the tang handles easier to set in place.

Tom Conroy
Berkeley