15 Piece Chasing Tool Set

This will probably not be an exciting post for most people. For the vessel chasing workshops I occasionally teach I make a minimal set of 15 chasing tools for each student to use during class. If they’d like to buy it afterward they can. Not all sets get purchased and so I sometimes have them available for anyone to purchase. However, I need a place I can direct interested people so they can see what’s in the set. That’s what this post is going to be, a reference point for information about the tools. If you are interested in chasing work you might get something out of this as I’ll be describing what I generally use each tool for.

At this point I’m not really intending to get into regular tool production, though I might if there is enough interest. However, when I do have sets available you will be able to find them for purchase on the new e-commerce section of my davidhuang.org website. Here is a link that will take you straight to the chasing tool area. Since I know people will wonder, the price for a full set is $260 (plus shipping and tax were applicable).

If I have odds and ends I will sell the tools individually as well with prices based on the diameter of the tool stock. Tools from 5/16 inch stock will be $25 each. Tools from 1/4 inch stock will be $20 each. Tools from 1/8 inch stock will be $10 each. At the current time I do NOT have this set up in the e-commerce store. If you were interested in individual tool availability please Contact Me to inquire and I’ll see if I have what you want.

With that out of the way let me get into a bit more of what these tools are. My goal was to put together a minimal set of tools for students, but ones that could work for a wide range of chasing designs. These are also designed mostly for chasing (working from the front) and not repousse (working from the back).

I will say that in general most people find my tool set to be sharper edged than many other chasing tool sets available. I find that having a sharper edge allows me to get crisper lines. However, the downside is that one has to more careful in holding them at just the right angle or the edges will dig in and make chatter marks. If you find the edges too sharp for the way you work you can fairly easily round them out more with abrasive paper. It’s easier to round and edge than it is to make it sharper.

Ok, on to looking at the specific tools.

My special liner tools

These are the two tools that I believe are the most unique in my set. They are what I use for doing lining work. I call them the “Round Liner” and “Flat Liner”. They aren’t like traditional liners. I find that in my designs when I plan out a line I intend for it to become an intersection of two planes or visual layers. This means that I will need to make one side of the line be higher and the other side lower. So I developed these tools to help me do that right from the start.

If you look at the image of the tools you will notice that one side of each rounds down into the shaft of the tool while the other side pretty much does a right angle into the shaft. The side that rounds down will become the lower side of my line while the right angle side will be the higher side. I find I use both these tools a lot and for pretty much all my lining work.

These tools are both made from 5/16 inch round stock.

Flatters

These are fairly basic unassuming tools. I call them the large and small square flatters. Some people call these tools pushers. These are the main tools I use for doing what I call pushing the planes. This is where I work to push back broad areas, sculpting the planes of a design after I have established the lines.

Without a doubt the large square flatter is the tool I spend the greatest amount of time using. I actually have an old one I’ve had to retire after it got too short from all the use. (The end you hammer on will mushroom out some over time and start to crack at the edges. You need to sand/file this off periodically. This mushrooming and sanding process is what shortens a tool over years of use.)

Anyway, I use the large square flatter to work over most of my surface areas. The small square flatter gets less use, but many designs will have areas which need flatting that the large one won’t fit into. So the small one will get into more of these areas.

They are both made from 1/4 inch round stock.

Narrow and Fat Liners

I don’t really have great names for these two tools. It seems like we make up new ones in each workshop. I guess here I’ll simply call them the narrow liner and the fat liner. The narrow one is more like a traditional liner, while the fatter one is sort of like a cross between a liner and a flatter. Another way to visualize these tools is to think of the heads as being rectangles. One is a very narrow rectangle such that it ALMOST qualifies as a line. The other is a wider rectangle. On each of them the short sides of the rectangles are rounded down into the shaft, while the long sides have a much sharper transition into the shaft. This means that when chasing they will tend to slide along the short rounded sides making few marks and make sharper marks on the long sides.

In using these for my own work I find the narrow one tends to get more use establishing lines while the fat one tends to get used more as a narrow flatter. I don’t use either as much as I do the other liners and flatters in this set, but I seem to run into many places in my work where they are just the thing to get into spaces or make the marks I want.

Both these tools are made from 1/4 inch round stock

Texture Tools

One of the wonderful things you can do with chasing is make textures on metal. Any and every tool will make it’s own texture, so all tools can be texture tools. However, these two tools in the set are ones I use pretty much exclusively for texture. One I call the Dot Tool, the other I affectionately call my Fur Tool.

The Dot Tool is basically like a steel pencil point. It makes one dot at a time. If you keep making many many dots all tight next to each other, or even overlapping some, to fill in a space you can get a really wonderful texture. I use this frequently in my work. The Dot Tool in this set is pretty sharp, making a tiny dot. This can create a wonderful, but very time consuming texture. Similar tools with progressively blunter ends will make slightly different textures. The bigger the end the larger the dot, the more surface area each dot covers, and thus the quicker a surface is covered. In my own work I use many different sizes of this basic tool, working all the way up to regular dapping punches. Some fun stuff can be done by setting a fine dot texture off against a slightly larger dot texture.

The Fur Tool is the tool I use to make the fur like texture of my Whorled Flow design style. The tool is basically a sharp V shape, similar to the end of a flat chisel. It simply makes a narrow surface line. When you build these up tightly next to each other a fabulous texture emerges, especially when you progressively change the angle of the lines when filling a space.

The Dot Tool is made from 1/4 inch round stock, while the Fur Tool is made from 5/16 inch round stock.

Rounded Rectangle Tool

This is the latest edition. The tool set used to be just 14 tools, but I found in workshop after workshop students were constantly borrowing and wanting this tool from my much larger collection of chasing tools. So I’ve added it to the set.

Because the edges are all rounded over this is the one tool in the set that could be used like a repousse tool to work a piece from the back and push metal out. If you tried this with the other tools you would likely find the sharper edges would be digging into the metal all over the place.

Anyway, in my workshops I show a technique I call hammer chasing where just using hammers you can develop a raised ridge line. Often in a later course of chasing I will then go back to really crisp up that ridge, making a pretty sharp line. This is the tool I use for that, working it up to the edge from each side. The nature of the curves involved in the depressions next to the ridges generally means the normal square flatters don’t work well. The sharper edges on the tools are often digging in. With the rounded rectangle tool there are none of those sharp edges and the curves of the tool seem to fit better into the natural curves that develop in the hammer chased depressions.

Put another way, the end of this chasing tool is much like the end of the small hammers used to do the hammer chasing so it fits the same marks but allows for more precise tool placement and control than straight hammer work.

I’m sure this tool could be used for many other purposes, but that is what I use it for most.

The rounded rectangle tool is made from 5/16 inch round stock.

The oval tools

These are the oval tools. Well really, oval and round tools. I’ll just call them the Narrow Oval, Broad Oval, and Small Round tools. These are small detail tools. They don’t get a lot of use, but can be essential for getting into tight spaces. In one sense they are flatter tools. I use them to push down or flatten sections. However, they are not intended to be used over broad areas.

These tools and the series of small triangle tools are all quite sharp edged. This means that they will VERY easily dig in on the sides if you are holding the tool even slightly off angle when working with it. However, it also means that if you are holding them at just the right angle they will make a very crisp edge. When I use them it is in a very tight area. I will carefully place it just where I need to tuck down an area and strike the end, more like you might a stamping tool. I don’t use them to cover surfaces much larger than the face of the tools. If the area I need to flatten gets much larger than that I will move to progressively larger flatters. I do sometimes use the Small Round tool for texture work.

These tools are made from 1/8 inch round stock

The Triangle Tools

These are the triangle tools. I’ll just call them the Narrow, Medium, and Equilateral Triangle Tools. These are small detail tools. They don’t get a lot of use, but can be essential for getting into tight spaces. In one sense they are flatter tools. I use them to push down or flatten sections. However, they are not intended to be used over broad areas.

These tools and the series of small oval tools are all quite sharp edged. This means that they will VERY easily dig in on the sides if you are holding the tool even slightly off angle when working with it. However, it also means that if you are holding them at just the right angle they will make a very crisp edge. When I use them it is generally in corners and other such tight areas. I will carefully place it just where I need to tuck down a corner and strike the end, more like you might a stamping tool. I don’t use them to cover surfaces much larger than the face of the tools. If the area I need to flatten gets much larger than that I will move to progressively larger flatters.

In my own set of tools I actually have even more of these in a wider range of angles. When working to crisp up a corner I will select the tool that fits best without going to a wider angle than the corner I want to crisp. Then I will fit the point of the tool in the point of the corner and line one edge of the tool along one edge of the piece and hammer it down. Leaving the point in place I then rotate the tool a bit so the other side lines up and hammer again. In this way I can get a smaller tool to cover a slightly larger space.

These tools are made from 1/8 inch round stock.

That wraps up all the tools in this set. Again, this is not intended to be the end all, be all set of chasing tools. I certainly have many many more that I use in my work. Rather this set is designed to try and handle a wide range of designs with only a few tools.

Studio Snippet

So this is the vessel I’m currently working on chasing. I’m still developing the design as I go. My thought is to add more subtle layers and detailed textures in the recessed areas yet. Given what I’ve just gone through in this post you might be able to guess at a few of the tools used to get to this point.

Something you might find of interest with this piece is that at an earlier stage it was pretty much like this finished piece, Luminous Relic #1600. I’m often asked where my designs come from and a major source these days is the pieces that came before. When I’m doing a piece I can see multiple directions I could take the design, however, I’m forced to choose just one. It’s when I make subsequent pieces that I have the opportunity to explore some of those other options. That’s what I’m doing with this current piece.

I’m happy to have a site where I can again allow comments. (I had to shut them off on my main website because the spam was simply uncontrollable!) So please I encourage you to share thoughts of your own. My general rule about comments though is just to play nice. Differing views are fine, but I’m not interested in engaging in or moderating verbal fights. If I feel things get out of hand, by whatever criteria I decide, I’ll just start blocking or deleting things.