A chase tool — also called a chasing tool or tracer — is a small, hand-forged or machined steel punch used in the metalworking technique of chasing to displace, compress, and texture metal from its front surface without removing material. Working in concert with a chasing hammer and a yielding bed of jeweller's pitch, chase tools allow a skilled goldsmith or silversmith to articulate fine lines, raised contours, recessed backgrounds, and complex surface textures with a precision that no rotary or abrasive process can replicate. The tradition is ancient, documented in surviving goldwork from dynastic Egypt, classical Greece, and pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and remains central to high jewellery and decorative metalwork today.

Form and Construction

A typical chase tool is a steel rod, usually between 10 and 15 centimetres in length, with a working face ground and polished at one end and a slightly mushroomed or rounded strike face at the other. The body is often given a slight taper and a knurled or faceted grip section so that the tool does not rotate unpredictably under the hammer. Traditionally, chase tools were made by the craftsman from high-carbon tool steel — drawn, shaped, hardened, and tempered — giving each tool a character specific to its maker. Contemporary tools are also produced commercially in hardened steel, but many professional chasers still forge their own to achieve precise face geometries not available off the shelf.

The working face is the defining feature of each tool. It is finished to a high polish so that it does not scratch or mar the metal surface beyond the intended mark; any roughness on the face will transfer directly to the work. After shaping, the face is hardened by heating to critical temperature and quenching, then carefully tempered — typically to a straw or light-purple colour on the oxide scale — to achieve a balance of hardness and toughness that resists chipping under repeated hammer blows.

Principal Types and Their Profiles

The vocabulary of chase-tool profiles is extensive. Oppi Untracht's Metal Techniques for Craftsmen (1968, revised editions) remains the most comprehensive English-language catalogue of traditional forms, and the following categories represent the core working set:

• Liner (tracer): The most fundamental chase tool, presenting a narrow, slightly curved or straight edge — analogous to a blunt chisel — that traces continuous lines into the metal surface. Liners vary from very fine (producing a hairline groove) to broad, and their edges may be straight, curved, or angled to suit different contour work. The tracer is typically the first tool applied when establishing the outline of a design.
• Planisher: A tool with a broad, flat or gently domed polished face used to smooth, compress, and even out metal surfaces. In chasing, planishers refine areas that have been worked with other tools, removing tool marks and consolidating the metal. They are also used in raising to smooth hammer marks from sheet metal.
• Matting punch: Presents a textured face — cross-hatched, granular, or patterned — that impresses a matte or decorative ground texture into the metal. Matting punches are used to create contrasting backgrounds that throw raised design elements into visual relief, a technique particularly associated with Victorian and Arts and Crafts metalwork.
• Embossing tool (doming punch): A rounded or domed face that pushes metal outward to create low-relief swells and rounded forms, often used in combination with repoussé work where the metal has already been pushed up from the reverse.
• Curved liner: A liner whose working edge follows a radius, allowing the craftsman to chase smooth arcs and circular elements without repeatedly repositioning a straight tool.
• Veining tool: A narrow tool with a V-shaped or fine rounded face, used to articulate veins in foliage, feather barbs, hair, and similar naturalistic detail.
• Background punch (background tool): A broad, flat-faced tool used to compress and lower background areas uniformly, creating depth and separating foreground elements from the ground plane.

In practice, a professional chaser may work with dozens of tools in a single piece, moving between profiles as the design demands. Sets of liners alone might span ten or more widths, each producing a subtly different mark.

Use in Practice

Chase tools are never driven with force; the technique depends on a rapid, light, rhythmic tapping of the chasing hammer — a specialised hammer with a broad, slightly domed face and a flexible, whippy handle — that allows the tool to walk along the metal surface in small increments with each blow. The work is supported on a bed of jeweller's pitch, a compound traditionally made from Burgundy pitch, plaster of Paris, and tallow, which is firm enough to support the metal against the tool's pressure but yielding enough to allow the metal to move. The pitch is warmed to soften it for embedding the work, then allowed to cool and harden before chasing begins.

The craftsman holds the chase tool at a low angle — typically between 45 and 60 degrees to the work surface — and rotates or repositions it continuously to follow curves and contours. Control comes from the angle of the tool, the speed of the hammer, and the sensitivity of the hand holding the tool; an experienced chaser can produce lines of extraordinary fineness and consistency. When the metal work-hardens and becomes resistant, the piece is removed from the pitch, annealed, re-embedded, and work continues.

Relationship to Repoussé

Chasing and repoussé are complementary techniques frequently practised together, and the same tools often serve both. In repoussé, the metal is worked from the reverse to push forms upward in relief; chasing then refines those forms from the front, sharpening edges, adding surface detail, and correcting contours. The distinction is one of direction and intent rather than tooling: repoussé creates volume, chasing articulates it. Some authorities use the compound term repoussé and chasing to acknowledge that the two are rarely separated in serious decorative metalwork.

Materials and Care

Chase tools are typically made from high-carbon steel such as W1 or W2 water-hardening tool steel, or from oil-hardening grades such as O1. The choice of steel affects the ease of forging, the hardness achievable, and the tool's resistance to chipping. Tools must be kept lightly oiled to prevent rust, and their working faces should be re-polished periodically to ensure they do not mar the metal. A tool whose face has developed pitting or scratches will transfer those defects directly to the work surface.

Some contemporary makers produce chase tools in high-speed steel for exceptional durability, though these are more difficult to forge and grind by hand. Carbide-tipped tools exist for industrial applications but are rarely used in fine jewellery chasing, where the feedback and control of steel tools is preferred.

Historical and Contemporary Significance

The chase tool is one of the oldest instruments in the goldsmith's repertoire. Archaeological evidence from ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece confirms that chased metalwork — produced with tools functionally identical to those in use today — was among the most prestigious forms of decorative art in antiquity. The technique reached extraordinary refinement in Renaissance Europe, in the work of goldsmiths such as Benvenuto Cellini, and again in the nineteenth century with the revival of archaeological jewellery styles by makers including Castellani and Carlo Giuliano.

In contemporary high jewellery, hand chasing remains a mark of exceptional craft. Major French and Italian maisons employ specialist chasers — ciseleurs in French workshop tradition — whose work on gold and platinum settings and decorative objects represents some of the most technically demanding metalwork produced today. The tools themselves have changed little in centuries; it is the hand and eye behind them that determine the quality of the result.

Further Reading

• GIA — Chasing and Repoussé in Metalworking