I inherited an old paring chisel from my dad who was a carpenter by profession. The family has some very nice old furniture that he made, possibly using this very chisel.
The blade is 220mm from the tang which provides very good control over the chisel and it has a primary bevel of about 18 deg and a secondary bevel of 20 deg. This makes it very hard to sharpen. The handle was made by me a long time ago on an old bargain basement mini lathe (which has since gone to join the choir invisible). the tang ferrule is a piece of copper tubing and the end ferrule is some chrome tubing from a bed that I used to sleep in as a child. Why I thought a paring chisel needed an end ferrule is beyond me.
I think it may be time to make a much nicer handle for it but after I clean it up some more.
In any case I set to yesterday to try to give the edge some much needed TLC and I managed to get a very nice edge to it as can be seen form the photograph below. I have not yet had a chance to use it in anger but i tested it by taking a sliver of of a piece of scrap and it came away very nicely indeed.
After many years of being used as a paint tin opener I think that this nice paring chisel is very pleased to be used for what it was designed for. In truth it has probably never been sharper.
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