Crown German Skew Woodturning Chisel 32mm M2 Cryogenic Steel

Crown German Skew Chisel - Cryogenic Steel

When picking up a Crown tool you can instantly tell this is not some mass produced tool to be used a few times and thrown away. These lovingly crafted tools are the same tools you will be using the day you hand them down to the next generation of turners. Beautifully balanced and finished, these tools have been made for people who appreciate good workmanship and demand quality from their tools.

Crown Cryogenic Steel German Skew Chisels are developed with a skew chisel is the tapering blade, being wider at the cutting edge and narrowing towards the ferrule. The design originates from the area around Seiffen in Saxony, Germany. For centuries, these skew chisels have been the preferred tool of the famous toy makers in the region.

The shape of the skew comes originally from hand forging with a hammer. The splayed working end allowed the smith to make a wider skew from a relatively small piece of steel. The shape results in a number of benefits for the turner. These skews are easier to handle, with the flared tip counterbalancing the handle. The handle is intentionally shorter than normal. This puts your hand closer to the cutting area, giving you greater control. The tapered profile means less steel, which results in less weight, giving a far more sensitive response from the bevel when making planing cuts. The rolled edge helps to glide along the tool rest smoothly and rolls over nicely for bead forming.

• Hardened to 66/69 HRC, massively out performing standard HSS tool
• Cryogenically treated giving a huge increase in performance over standard M42
• Beautifully balanced 'Copper black handles'
• Triple tempered for Ultra high performance
• Hand Honed to a Razor Edge
• Hand crafted in Sheffield, England

So what makes Crown special?

Crown realised that you could buy an M2 steel chisel from any number of tool makers. They decided to be the first to push the status quo and use their knowledge of metallurgy to become the innovators of their field. They wanted to be on the forefront of high performance when it came to turning tools and that is exactly what you get when you buy a Crown cryogenic steel tool; a high performance, innovative and top of the range tool.

Crown Hand Tools

As a family owned company, Crown Hand Tools and their loyal staff have been proudly manufacturing traditional woodworking hand tools for over fifty years. Handmade to the finest quality, Crown has found the perfect equilibrium between tradition and innovation, making their tools beautiful as well as functional. Master Craftsmen hand forge, temper and grind their tools as their ancestors did, whilst also using modern processes and materials, such as Cryogenics and Powder Metallurgy. This combination of old and new techniques ensures Crown are giving their customers what they consider the best quality hand tools available.

About Crown Cryogenic Steel

The Crown Cryogenic range are high quality turning tools with a difference. Using cryogenically treated tools means that now you can turn more and sharpen less often. The tools are made from M2 Steel that are heat treated normally then taken down to temperatures as low as -185°C which changes the molecular structure of the steel.

The two main crystals in tooling steel are the larger and softer austenitic and the smaller, more stable martensite. Normal heat treatment seeks to transform the austenite to martensite to produce steel with good wear characteristics and an amount of ductile properties.

The cryogenic process greatly enhances and accelerates the austenitic transformation. Another benefit is that at these extreme temperatures, fine ‘eta’ carbides are formed within the carbon structure. Growing very slowly and only at these very low temperatures, ‘eta’ carbides are extremely small and act as a ‘filler’ between the other crystals in the metal.

The combined effect of heat treatment and cryogenic processing is to produce a refined crystal structure in your hand tool that will give a lifetime’s service by producing a blade that will retain its edge longer and give a superior ‘feel’ in use.