All iron or what?
When stonemasons and sculptors in German-speaking countries talk about chisels, they don´t say chisel but almost always use the term "irons".
Interestingly, none of these tools are made of iron, but rather of hardened steel or steel with a carbide insert.
To this day, I haven't been able to figure out why stonemasons call their tools "irons" and not "chisels" like other craftsmen.
Neither did any of my sculptor or stonemason colleagues know, nor did research on the Internet or in one of my specialist books help.
However, it's reasonable to assume that chisels were made of iron at some point (probably in classical Greece, from 480 BC onwards), and that's how the name originated.
One explanation for why stonemasons didn't call them "chisels" like others might be that each craft developed its own jargon (wood chisels are also called "gouges").
Partly, this was probably coincidence, but partly, people wanted to distinguish themselves from others, including through language.
After all, the secrets of stoneworking, like those of other craft guilds, were carefully guarded and not passed on to outsiders.
So a little linguistic confusion couldn't hurt.
So, what types of "irons" are used for stoneworking?
The oldest is probably the pointed chisel.
The ancient Egyptians already used it. However, their "irons" weren't actually made of iron but of copper (as was still the case in Archaic Greece).
The pointed chisel is best for removing large amounts of material. It is therefore mostly used for rough work.
In Archaic Greece, almost everything was worked with the pointed chisel. The reason for this was simply that no other tools for working marble could be made from copper or bronze.
The other chisel that everyone is familiar with is the flat chisel, a flat chisel with a straight edge, like the ones you'd find in any hardware store (although not of comparable quality).
Flat chisels are available in various designs.
If they're narrow, perhaps up to 10 mm wide, stonemasons call them pick chisels.
They're used to carve fine lines into the stone, for example, the outline of a hand, individual fingers, or, in this case, the outline of a stone owl.
If it's wider, the stonemason calls it a strike chisel. This is used in traditional stoneworking to create the rim of an edge.
This means working a narrow area along the edge of a block of stone.
This serves as a reference point (or perhaps more accurately, a guideline) for further processing.
A cross between a pointed chisel and a striking chisel is the tooth chisel.
You could say that this chisel consists of several pointed chisels placed side by side.
Because it has several small points (the teeth), it penetrates deeper into the stone than a flat striking chisel.
However, the alignment of the teeth next to each other makes it more precisely aligned than a pointed chisel, which allows for more controlled impact.
It is typically used when you have reached a point in the work where the pointed chisel becomes too coarse and there is a risk of penetrating too deeply into the stone, while the striking chisel is still too fine to remove material efficiently.
The tooth chisel was invented later than the other two. Unfortunately, I couldn't find an exact date for it.
Michelangelo, for example, was already a master at using the tooth chisel. Among other things, he used it to create the structure of skin pores in his sculptures.
The tooth chisel has at least two points, in which case it is also called a dogtooth chisel, but can have many more points.
The finer the work you need it for, the more points it has. In stonemasonry stores, I've found chisels with up to twelve fine points (or teeth).
In addition, there are lettering chisels, sculptor's chisels (both of which are essentially narrow striking chisels), "scharrier chisels" (a very wide, flat chisel for smoothing flat surfaces), stock chisels or stock hammers (which look like meat tenderizers) also for smoothing surfaces, chisels with rounded edges, and offset chisels (chisels with a slight bend at the tip) for working on hard-to-reach interior areas of sculptures.
Most of the participants in my courses, as in ancient times, traditionally use mainly pointed chisels, striking chisels, and toothed chisels, even though stonemasons don't call them chisels.
Speaking of courses: There are still spots available in my sculpture course "Sculpture and Dolce Vita" in Italy, September 6, 2025 - September 13, 2025
Unleash your inner Michelangelo, or your inner Michelangela.
All information is available here. Click!