Four chisels and a handle that fits your hand

Quick answer: Buy four bevel-edge chisels in 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and 1 inch. Pick them by how the handle sits in your palm, not by the steel's marketing. Flatten the backs, sharpen them, and you'll have a set that does hinges, dovetails, dados and cleanup for decades.

The door that wouldn't close

You hang a door on a Saturday. The hinge leaf sits proud by a sixteenth of an inch, so the door rubs the jamb and won't latch. You need to take off a sliver of wood, in a recess three inches long, without splitting the frame.

A screwdriver won't do it. A utility knife won't either. A sharp 3/4-inch chisel does it in about four minutes and leaves a floor flat enough to set a hinge on.

That's the job chisels were made for. Fitting, adjusting, cleaning up what the saw left behind. Most of what you'll ask of one is small and fussy. You don't need a dozen of them for that.

Why four is enough

Walk into a store and you'll find rolls of ten or twelve, sold as if more sizes mean more skill. They don't. You'll reach for the same three or four every time.

• 1/4 inch for narrow grooves, the corners of small joints, and tight spots.
• 1/2 inch for the most general work. If you could own only one, this is it.
• 3/4 inch for hinge mortises and mid-sized joinery.
• 1 inch for paring wide flats and cleaning up shoulders.

Add a 1/8-inch or a 1-1/2-inch later if a project demands it. Don't buy them in advance. A chisel you've never used is just a rack ornament.

Get bevel-edge chisels. The sides are ground at an angle, so the edge slides into the acute corner of a dovetail or a tight shoulder. The heavier square-sided firmer pattern is stronger for hard chopping, but it can't reach where you'll most often need to go. That's the trade-off. For furniture, trim and general house work, bevel-edge wins.

The part nobody tells you: they arrive dull

Even a good chisel comes with a back that isn't flat and an edge that's only rough-ground. Out of the box it'll tear the wood instead of slicing it.

Spend an hour on each one. Flatten the first inch of the back on a coarse stone until the scratches run unbroken across the full width. Then grind or hone the bevel at roughly 25 degrees, and raise a burr, which is covered in raise a burr, and the rest of sharpening follows. If you've never done this, read learn to sharpen and every tool you own gets better first. It'll change how you shop.

A cheap chisel with a flat back and a keen edge beats an expensive one that's never been touched. Yes, steel matters over the long haul. Sharpness matters tonight.

The handle is the whole conversation

You'll hold a chisel for an hour at a time. The blade does the cutting, but the handle decides whether you want to keep going. A bad one gives you a blister on the pad of your thumb or numb fingers by the third mortise.

Here's how to judge one in the store, or in your own hand if you already own a set.

Pick it up the way you'll use it. Grip it in your fist, thumb on top, as if you were pushing it forward with your palm. The butt of the handle should fill your palm. If it digs in at the edge, it'll hurt in an hour.

Then pinch it near the blade. That's the paring grip, with your other hand guiding the steel. A handle that's too thick or too short makes this clumsy and you lose control of the cut.

Look at the shape. Oval and slightly flared handles sit well and don't roll off the bench. Perfectly round ones are comfortable but wander. Sharp-edged octagonal handles can feel crisp, but check that the corners aren't biting.

Check the end. If you plan to hit it with a mallet, the top needs protection. A wood handle should have a steel hoop, or at least a tight, stout grain that won't mushroom. Plastic handles, the tough polymer kind, shrug off mallet blows and don't care about a damp garage. Wood feels better in the hand and is easier to repair.

Neither is wrong. It's a choice. Wood is warmer and more forgiving. Plastic survives a job site truck bed. Pick the one you'll reach for.

Socket or tang

On a socket chisel, the handle plugs into a cone on the steel. It takes mallet strikes well and the handle can be swapped out when it splits. On a tang chisel, a spike on the blade is driven into the handle, usually with a collar. They're lighter and often feel livelier in paring work.

For a home shop, either works. If you expect to chop more than pare, lean socket. If you'll do mostly fine fitting, tang is a pleasure.

If a handle ever splits or never felt right, you can fix it. A blank of ash or hickory, a drill, a rasp and an evening will give you a handle shaped to your hand. Plenty of men do it once and never go back.

What to buy, what to skip

Buy:

• Four chisels in the sizes above, from one maker, so the handles feel alike.
• A handle you picked up, held and liked.
• A flat back you can fix, and steel thick enough to take a mallet.
• Old chisels at a flea market if the back isn't pitted near the edge and the blade has plenty of length left. Cheap handles can be replaced.

Skip:

• The twelve-piece roll. You'll use four.
• Any chisel you can't hold comfortably for ten minutes.
• Chisels used as pry bars, paint scrapers or screwdrivers. You'll notch the edge, and it'll take an hour to grind out.

Pair them with a plain wooden mallet or a dead-blow mallet. Never a claw hammer. If you're building your kit from scratch, build a tool tote first, and buy these five tools is the place to start, and the chisels slide right into that list.

Don't bleed on your own project

Chisels punish carelessness. Clamp the work down. Keep both hands behind the cutting edge, always. Cut away from your body, not toward it. If you want the full list of mistakes that cost one man stitches, read everything I do differently after the shop hurt me.

One more habit, and it's an old one. If you lend a chisel, it may come back dull. If you borrow one, hand it back sharper than it left. Do that and you'll never be short of a neighbor willing to lend you the next one.

Put the four away in a rack where the edges don't touch. Then go fix that door.