Replies

1. 
   James R. | Jun 27, 2008 10:23pm | #1

   I'm old enough to be a firm believer in "you get what you pay for."  This is especially true if you're buying sight unseen.  At $6.25 per chisel you'll get some good use out of them, however, you'll probably be sharpening much more often.  Also eight chisels may be more than you need.

   A good quality chisel will cost you as much as all 8 from Woodcraft.  A good chisel will hold an edge and cut cleanly if your paring or cleaning up dovetails.  It's a gamble on your part.  It may be they're pretty good quality or maybe not.

   Hold off until someone that has used that brand gets back to you.

   Good luck, Jim

2. 
   Samson | Jun 27, 2008 10:30pm | #2

   If you need quality steel chisels and have little to spend, consider vintage.  Quality users are available on eBay for cheap.  For $50, you can get at least 3 or 4.  I find 1/4, 3/8, 1/2, and 1"  are those I reach for the most.  FWIW

1. 
   JMatthews | Jun 28, 2008 06:14am | #3

   Thanks for the advice.  The more I research the topic, the more I read about how many people love LN chisels and how most people would buy them as they need them.  I'll probably take that approach.

   My father is a carpenter and I grew up working with wood.  After college, marriage, and a new home, the call to go back to working wood is getting louder and louder. 

1. 
   BG | Jun 28, 2008 11:42am | #4

   JMatthews,
   I agree with everybody but have reversed my opinion this past year. It's very handy to have a kick-around set in all the sizes at the quick and ready.

3. 
   Bedrock608 | Jul 04, 2008 08:12pm | #5

   Save the $50.  They are soft as butter. 

   I bought a small set of the butt chisels for my little boy to start learning with.  Even at 5 years old he could tell they did not hold an edge.  I got further and further behind as he would use another chisel while I was rehoning the first dulled one.  We are talking poplar and basswood here, not oak or any hardwoods.

   I highly recommend the LIE NIELSEN's, the Ashley Ilse brand, and Matsumura chisels from Japan.  

   Pfeils are a good bang around set.  Irwin/Maples are mediocre at best.  Two Cherries have very good steel, but buy the unpolished set.  They round all the blades when they polish the fancy ones.  The unpolished ones are better for flat backs.

1. 
   JMatthews | Jul 04, 2008 10:48pm | #6

   Thanks again for the advice.  Just to let you know, I went with a set of 4 unpolished Two Cherries.  They shipped yesterday and should be here early next week.   

1. 
   Bedrock608 | Jul 04, 2008 11:52pm | #7

   You are greatly welcome!

   Having spent a few dollars (and then some) on various hand and power tools, I always appreciate picking other folks brains for their experience and am happy to share my experiences, too! 

   I think you will be happy with the Two Cherries.  The steel is hard enough to hold an edge for a decent interval.  I bought the polished ones and the ends were so rounded over I had to grind a good 1/8-3/16ths off to get back to the flat. 

   I just received a Blue Spruce 3/4 paring chisel in A-2 steel and want to evaluate it compared to my Lie Nielsen's with the paring handles! 

   Besides my own personal experience, I also recommend reading Chris Schwartz of Woodworking Magazine.  I highly recommend Fine Woodworking magazine and web site, but Chris Schwartz has a ton of hard won personal experience in using and researching hand tool use.  See also his blog "Lost Art Press."

   Remember, woodworking is a lifetime learning experience!  One thing leads to another.  You need to keep practicing techniques.  You also need to learn the "gateway skills" such a sharpening your chisels and plane blades, and learning how to tune your tools for peek performance.  That way, when there is an issue (and there will be), you know it is you that you need to improve, not your tool!

   Best of luck to you in your woodworking!

4. 
   gdblake | Jul 05, 2008 12:25am | #8

   If your looking for an inexpensive set of chisels that perform well take a look at Narex. For the money, these are excellent chisels, at bit long for chopping but work well for paring. I also have a set of old Stanley 750s and a set of the LN version of the 750. The LN are great chisels and I love working with them, but at one seventh the price, the Narex have proven to hold their own. Highland Woodworking carries them as well as some other dealers.

5. 
   9619 | Jul 05, 2008 03:35am | #9

   J.
   So you are looking at getting a good buy on a set of chisels, and you'd like some quality. That's a good way to go.

   To really help you, I'd have to know if you are trying to:
   1) minimize initial cost, OR
   2) minimize "Life Cycle Cost".

   If you want to get an adequate set of chisels at a low initial cost, I recommend you just get the chisels that almost all woodworking schools use -- the famous blue handled Irwins, which used to be the famous blue handled Marples. The schools use them because they are so colorful that they are more difficult to steal. They sharpen well enough. They have to be sharpened a little more often than a nice set of Pfeil "Swill Made" chisels of "Two Cherries", etc, but once you get the backs flat, it doesn't take long to sharpen a chisel.

   I disagree with Sampson, who is a highly competent woodworker, and someone who is always worth paying attention to. He recommends that you try to find some good old chisels. I gotta tell ya, That is not so easy to do. First of all, you may not be able to judge the quality of what you are getting on Ebay, and good old chisels are hard to find at antique shops (in my experience). I believe that trying to buy good old chisels will give you a great learning experience which will be filled with frustration, and take a long time, during which you won't have a set of chisels to use. If you just buy the Irwins, you can do it in minutes at any Woodcraft or on line or just about anywhere. And don't let the elitists bully you. If you make a nice serpentine front chest, when you are finished, no one will be able to tell the difference in the quality of the mortises that you chopped with your Irwins from the mortises that someone else chopped with their Two Cherries.

   BUT IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR minimizing the lifetime cost of your chisels, then buy the full set of Lie Nielsens. They are great chisels. They are the ones that I use. When you want to get rid of your Lie Nielsen chisels, just put them up on EBay and you will get almost all of your money back, even if you have used them for five or ten years. Try doing that with any other set of chisels. If you don't believe me, just do some searches on "Lie Nielsen" on EBay. Almost everything goes for almost full price.

   Hope you find this blasphemous response to be useful.
   Enjoy.
   Mel

   Measure your output in smiles per board foot. 

1. 
   stpatrick | Jul 05, 2008 06:41am | #10

   i have the marples with the blue handles (started with them, decent set), two cherries (good), crown (not too impressed), lie-nielsen (very nice and very good), but my Barr chisels are my absolute favorites to use - balance, fit, edge, etc.

1. 
   9619 | Jul 05, 2008 03:10pm | #11

   Patrick,
   Good to hear from you. I have never had the opportunity to use the Barr chisels. I will search for such an opportunity. I am not a "chisel fanatic". I like my Lie Nielsens for what I use them for. What are you making these days? I just spent two weeks reworking the landscape of my back yard (my wife's idea). I am dog tired and need a week to recuperate.MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot. 

1. 
   stpatrick | Jul 07, 2008 10:36pm | #24

   Mel, sorry I didn't reply sooner, but shortly after I posted we got a mandatory evacuation order and spent the rest of the holiday weekend "camping" in the parking lot of an elementary school.  As you have probably read, Calif is a bit "hot" now and our area had the top rated (not a good thing) fire in the state.  They let us back in yesterday, but it is amazing how disruptive it can be to scurry to get the photographs, insurance and banking records, computer, kids, dogs, cats (the wife made me), horses loaded,  . . . . .then hang in limbo wondering what the outcome will be, planning back-up strategies for the family, trying to keep everyone calm and give reassurance that dad has it under control and will guide us through it, etc.  When they let us back into the canyon and we got home, it was a great feeling but also a crash of exhaustion. As simple as it sounds, the best thing was to be able to shower again.

   As we were packing up, I grabbed some of my small tools but couldn't really think about the big ones, nor the $2700.00 of 8 quarter cherry, 5 qtr. rift sawn white oak,  4 qtr. walnut and hard maple i had delivered 2 weeks ago.

    

1. 
   9619 | Jul 08, 2008 02:21am | #25

   Patrick,
   My heart goes out to you and your family, and the other families in the fire area. I watch the updates on TV every night, and I read about them every day. I have one son and daughter in law in CA along with a slew of aunts and uncles, and a lot of friends. Please don't worry about replying to messages from Knotheads.
   Best of luck to you. Your family is in my prayers.
   Post an update when you can.
   MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot. 

2. 
   lwj2 | Jul 05, 2008 03:46pm | #12

   Mel, we agree and disagree.

   You're from Virginia, as I am. Flea market/garage sale tools are hard to come by here.

   Further north, specifically in Pennsylvania, they have huge markets with all sorts of tools -- some are boat anchors, some are pretty good.

   I have an older (bought ~20+ years ago) set of boxwood handled Marples chisels that hold an edge pretty well, unless you use them to remove carpet nails (my late F-I-L did that, it was ugly, he used MY chisels). I've had some luck with e-Bay, mostly buying known older brands.

   All that said, I believe nothing substitutes for going to a store and getting your hands on a tool to see if it "fits" you.

   Quenton Barr has a huge reputation, I've never had the pleasure or warchest to buy his tools. Tom Lie-Nielsen backs his tools with a great rep for service and support. And for a beater set, Stanley still is a good buy.

   Regards,

    Leon

1. 
   9619 | Jul 05, 2008 09:09pm | #16

   Leon,

   Can't disagree with you.  If you have access to good old tools and can tell which of the old tools are good, then that is a great way to go.   As I said, I am going to try out the Barr's as soon as I find someone who has them.  

   My wife is from York. My son went to Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, and I met my wife at State College, PA,   so I have some familiarity with your fine state.

   Enjoy. Thanks for writing.

   MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot. 

1. 
   lwj2 | Jul 06, 2008 01:50am | #18

   Heh. Not mine, I'm a Virginian. The ex wife is from the Hatboro/Willow Grove area.AFAIK, Barr deals directly with his customers.http://www.barrtools.com/Leon

2. 
   Tony Z | Jul 06, 2008 03:28pm | #19

   When you say further north in PA, fleas abound with tools, where abouts are you talking? 

   Thanks,

   T.Z.

1. 
   lwj2 | Jul 06, 2008 04:10pm | #20

   Sorry, Tony --There is at least one (or was, several years ago, IIRC in the New Hope area) that is strictly tools.When my former wife was in college and were really broke, I almost cried seeing a set of round and cove planes from 1/8 to 1 inch X 1/8ths for about $200.Leon

   Edited 7/6/2008 9:13 am ET by lwj2

1. 
   Tony Z | Jul 06, 2008 06:59pm | #23

   Thanks,

   I'll try to chase it down and if still going on, will post about it here.  Usually pretty good pickings also in the Adamstown area:  Shuup's Grove, Renninger's, Stoudt etc. 

   T.Z. 

3. 
   Henley | Jul 05, 2008 03:59pm | #13

   Are those the same Blue Marples that Home Despot is selling?
   Those are very soft!
   Easy to sharpen but man- all the time.

1. 
   lwj2 | Jul 05, 2008 04:42pm | #14

   You can always buy some A-2 or D-2 stock and make your own, then get them heat treated.Leon

1. 
   Henley | Jul 05, 2008 04:45pm | #15

   I've got to many hobbies already.
   Besides I don't even know what A2 or D2 is anyway.

1. 
   lwj2 | Jul 06, 2008 04:21pm | #21

   Grades of steel.A-2 & D-2 are air-hardened (i.e., they're baked in an oven to temper) whereas O-1 is oil-hardened, i.e., heated and then plunged into oil.If you care to pursue it sometime, Admiral Steel will sell blanks at a reasonable rate, (and their site lists steels and characteristics) Texas Knifemakers Supply offers heat treatment for air-hardened steel, as well as blanks and other stuff.Leon

2. 
   Henley | Jul 06, 2008 04:49pm | #22

   Interesting,
   Maybe someday, my next metal endeavor is going to be
   sand casting.
   I have some projects waiting for the hardware percolating
   in my imagination.

2. 
   9619 | Jul 05, 2008 09:11pm | #17

   Henley,

   Yup, those are the Irwin/Marples that Home Despot sells.   They do require a lot of sharpening, but some people don't use chisels very much.  For such folks, I think the Irwins are just fine.   But that is only my opinion, and my opinion isn't worth much.

   Have fun.

   MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.