workshop · 02 · chisel · 1/2 inch · firmer pattern
ash handle, hornbeam ferrule, a half-inch of high-carbon steel ground to a bevel that you can shave the back of your arm with. it works by deciding, not by force; the wood gives because the argument is unanswerable.
it cut the small joinery in several door jambs and the dovetails of the trunk that lives in the attic. the woman who owned it last kept it in a roll of waxed canvas with seven others of decreasing width, like a sentence growing softer.
field-note · run the edge along your thumbnail. if it bites, it is ready. it is ready.