I found a really interesting site about the tools of Vietnam. A quick look gave me a couple of unknown things: a beveled bench chisel, and a spline.
http://www.antiquetools.com/viet/index.html

Dear Jackie: my eyes won't let me read that whole article. But I'm pretty sure that the
beveled wood chisel is one that has a symmetricaltrapezoidal cross section, with cutting edge
on the wide side. Most of the ones you will see in stores here are like that.
Here is what my dictionary says about "spline":
spline
n.
5< E Anglian dial., prob. akin to Norw dial. splindra, a large, flat splinter: for IE base see SPLIT6
1 a long, flat, pliable strip, as of wood or metal, esp. one used in drawing curves
2 a) a flat key or strip that fits into a groove or slot between parts b) the groove or slot into which it fits
vt.
splined, splin4ing
1 to fit with a spline
2 to cut a groove or slot in for a spline

Splines are used in joining pieces of wood together. For joinery purposes, there are two aspects of wood. Grab a piece of wood and look at it: assuming a normal board shape, there are six sides, four of which have side grain and two of which have edge grain.

If you take two pieces of wood and slather some glue on the side grain of one and clamp it to the side grain on the other, the resulting joint is as strong as or even stronger than the wood. Thus you can take several boards, lay them edge to edge, and glue them into a table top. A darned strong table top.

But if you slap glue on the end grain of one piece and clamp it to the end grain or to the side grain of another piece, the resulting joint is extremely weak. It's weakest when it is end grain to end grain. It's frequently necessary to make a joint like this. The flag box I am building for you is one example. At the top corner it has two pieces of wood cut at a 45 degree angle, with the angled tips glued together. That's end grain to end grain. That joint won't stay together well. So what I do is cut a slit in each of the two beveled edges, about halfway through the wood. I then cut a thin slat of wood that fits into the kerf (the technical name for the slit. This greatly strengthens the joint. That thin piece of wood is called a spline. Watch episode 317 of the Lucille Ball Show, the one where she is making wooden boxes for Ethel to sell some crafts in. Ricky comes home and sees the boxes, which are falling apart because of the weak glue joints. At the top of his lungs he yells at her: "Looocy, you got some splinin' to do."

There are two primary uses for chisels: cutting holes in wood (primarily mortices) and for smoothing some aspect of a piece of wood, usually the end grain after a saw cut. For hole cutting we use chisels with a cutting blade that's perpendicular to the length of the blade. This gives us a flat bottom to the hole.

For smoothing end grain, I will lay the chisel flat on the wood and push across the grain to trim the end flat and smooth. The chisel cuts the wood better if you hold the cutting edge at an angle, because it is sawing the end grain rather than chopping it. Woodworkers frequently grind these cutting edges at an angle (a bevel) other than 90 degrees so they can lay the back of the chisel on the wood while doing the smoothing. This helps ensure a good flat surface, since more of the chisel is indexed on the wood. As we used to sing in Sunday school, "What a friend we have in chisels."

Wow, Ted, thank you! I love that word kerf: kerf, kerf, kerf! So, a kerf is a kind of skinny mortis? I didn't know end to end was the weakest: I had thought it was the strongest, because being rougher would make the glue bond to the wood better.
Um--I am uncertain as to what you mean by chisels. My dad had what he called a chisel: a short-but-fairly-thick metal rod, tapered on one end. You put the tapered end against the wood and hit the other end with a hammer. I call the (electric) tool to cut holes a hole saw. Is it also a chisel? (A chisel on steroids, maybe? ) It is a friend when a lock needs to be installed, that's for sure. My father used a plane to smooth wood (prior to the sanding stage). Is a chisel better? Are they better than files? (I really ought to take a class...)

Dear TEd: I used to build model sailboats, and used chisels with semicirdular
cross section to hollow out the hull. (that makes me wonder if "hull" is
etymologically related to "hollow".
What is the name of the tool which has a chisel like blade, but is pulled,
instead of pushed? I used to have some X-Acto small tools llike that.

makes me wonder if "hull" is etymologically related to "hollow".

Bingo! Dr Bill. But maybe not the way you'd think.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE214.html

Thanks, Faldage. A beautiful example of why AWADtalk is so much fun.

scorp. AT least that's what woodworkers use to hollow out the seat of a chair. It has a round blade set at 90 degrees to the handle, with the sharp edge toward you, and you pull it to gouge out the wood. They use small ones to gouge wooden spoons.

Here's a picture of a micro scorp, in which the cutting blade is not set perpendicular to the handle. The larger ones would have a 90 degree bend just above the business end. The larger ones might be as much as four or five inches in diameter, and the blade could even be oval rather than round.

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.asp?SID=&ccurrency=2&page=31087&category=1,130,43332,44073

Edit:

I'm assuming that the ones you used for boat building were marine scorps.

Dear Ted: those "scorps" would do a lot of jobs. Too bad X-Acto ain't what it used to be
a couple years ago when I last looked at their catalogue in model store, they don't have
but a fraction of what they used to.

Those tools reminded me, there are many surgical instruments similar, which are called "curets"
curet
n.
5Fr < curer, to cleanse < L curare < cura: see CURE6 a spoon-shaped surgical instrument for the removal of tissue from the walls of body cavities
vt.
3ret4ted, 3ret4ting to clean or scrape with a curet