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After fitting the dovetail on my build I got think. Almost all of my chisel work on guitars is a paring action. Since I have a mortising set, I'm considering changing my regular chisels to paring or at least reducing the angles somewhat. What is a good angle to shoot for?

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

I have 25 on my bench chisels. You could go a little lower, but it's more about sharpness at that point. Plus I wouldn't want to weaken the edge, because you always end up doing a little "prying" when pairing sockets and what-not.

I like about 25 for the primary grind, the a bit more for the secondary bevel. I never hit them harder than a tap with a small palm mallet - in the shot at the right

I do 25/30 on most and reserve 20/25 for one paring chisel, used for braces and miters usually.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Pairing chisel are traditionally set at 20 degrees. The edge doesn't last to long.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Bench chisels are general utility tools - they can be used for paring or light chopping without modification. Paring chisels have longer thinner blades which are sometimes "cranked" to allow you to get flatter to the work. Rather than regrinding your bench chisels you might buy one 1/2 inch paring chisel instead. Although they are ground at a lower angle I think it is the longer blade that makes the biggest difference for paring.

I've ground all of my chisels to about 25 degrees, and my fingernail gouges that are like chisels to 20 degrees or so. I just use those for mostly smoothing, and carving the edge work, and carving scrolls. The angle on the 6mm chisel digging out the deep mortise in a violin pegbox cuts very well, and it is ready to smooth up the sides and bottom in about 15 minutes. Even my scrapers are at 20 -25 degrees. I don't roll burrs on them. I use every tool like scrapers at times.
I don't notice any problem at all. The only thing that I notice is that they feel sharper. That's not a bad thing.

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Why be normal?

Swiss paring chisels 17 deg for softwoods 20 for hdwds reg chisels 25 for softwoods and 30 on the narex cryo for hdwd. 35 for mortise chisels in hdwd.