The Most Important Aspect When Chosing A Chisel
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 6 фев 2025
- Chisel Test Video: • New Best Chisel Chisel...
Chisel Test Spreadsheet: docs.google.co...
Join the Hive mind where I bounce Ideas around: / discord
Facebook Hivemind: / 233277323895597
Patreon: / woodbywright
Join this channel to get access to perks:
/ @woodbywright
How To Channel
Wood By Wright 2: / @woodbywrighthowto
--Tools I Suggest--
www.woodbywrig...
--Find Antique tools near you--
www.HandToolFin...
Super Stars
JD Belknap:
Sharpening Supplies: www.sharpening...
DFM Tool Works: dfmtoolworks.com/
Top Patreons
Rich Dodson
Sherlock
Brett Lance
Daniel McGrath
Ian McElcheran
Christopher Brown
Kenny-Anjanette Horn
Brian Suker
Andrew Wilson
////Help this channel grow\\\\
www.woodbywrig...
////You Can find me:\\\\
www.woodbywrig...
TikTok: / woodbywright
Instagram: / woodbywright
Facebook: / woodbywright
Intro music: Tim Sway timsway.net/
background music: Udo Stehle www.upwork.com....
Instagram: @udostehle
As Rex said, the best way to buy a chisel is to go buy a chisel
Stanley Everlasting is the pinnacle!! And I love the handles. Make me smile.
Probably the most important thing is making sure its a wood chisel and not one for marble. Unless of course your name is Michelangelo.
In which case, cowabunga!!
I started with a Harbor Freight set. Terrible, but did the job. Then I started buying any chisel I could find at flea markets and estate sales to see what I liked. I generally prefer socket chisels, but like longer tang chisels for some things. I gradually built up a set that made me happy, spending too much on a couple off eBay to round it out. I just have a couple new chisels. I love my Narex 3mm chisel for tiny guitar stuff like cleaning up the slot for a nut. I also have a Narex mortise chisel. Don’t love it, but it’s fine and not as critical to me as a bench chisel. I bash it. It mortices.
I’ve finally replaced my Harbor Freight set with random fairly nice 1970s/80s plastic handled chisels as my “beater chisels.” I use those for things that I probably shouldn’t and don’t want to risk damaging my real ones. The edge holds up better than the Harbor Freight, but if I trash the edge, I just rebevel it when I have time. I have a few in common sizes. Paid $0.5-2 each for them. If you ask to borrow one, you’ll get one of those and not my precious.
I have dozens of chisels that I've picked up at table sales. All different styles, all different types. Almost none of them used. I'm going to be taking a beginner course on carving from Plane Wellness next month, and this video gives me something to keep in the back of my mind as I try many of my chisels out. Thanks!
I got Narex Richters without handles and made my own. It's easier than it looks. I included all my peculiar ideas in the handles, like graduated diameters for the handles, shorter ferrules, modified octagon shape, etc. I have some other sets for pounding on, the Richters look a little delicate to me. Maybe if the next chisel test compares bending strength, I would be more confident. I'm too cheap to buy any of the sets that score better on your test, and if I had them I'd be afraid to use them. I suggest making at least one handle on your own.
I have one super cheap plastic handle chisel that I most of the time find myself grabbing in stead of the expensive ones I have. The feel characteristic is so true.
As you were talking, I was having a visceral reaction against the plastic handled chisels. This helped me to name my preferences: I dislike the feeling of plastic tools, but more important, I dislike their weight imbalance. It's tiring trying to keep those heavy handles plumb!
What an awesome rundown on chisels. Thanks!
I enjoy your honesty.
Looks like chisels are like wands from Harry Potter - "wand chooses the wizard" 😉
9:49 thank you for this. I was struggling with sharp sides as of late
I love the London pattern. For screwdrivers. A rounded square handle is my favorite for chisels.
It’s always important to have a couple of flog chisels on hand. I have two old Stanley chisels that I picked up at a flea market. I use them for home improvement projects like bashing on 2x4s. I’ve even used them to level out stucco for exterior trim work. I rarely sharpen them past 300 grit on a diamond plate.
*cough* Harbor Freight…
Yep, I've got a set that I refer to as my disposable chisels. I use them for things where they get abused, like hitting nails or screws or who knows what.
This is interesting. I follow America’s Test Kitchen and they talk a lot about kitchen tools, e.g. affordance, ergonomics, using it as a righty/lefty, weight, balance, potential dangers, the need to choke up on a handle or holding it at its tip. There’s so much to consider for why something “feels right” and as much as there is no accounting for taste, you definitely can design something that suits generally all needs
@ how can I help?
So true, James about chisel handles. I have a full set of Narex Roth chisels. I like the chisels, but not so much about the handles. Then I got a set of Marples chisels made in Shiefield, England 🇬🇧. Shaped like the Irwin handles made in China. Ok, yaa, the plastic handles? They are perfect for me. They really stay sharp and are easy to sharpen. Now, if I could get the Narex Roth chisels handles the same same shape as my Piefl but chisels, I would be in chisel heaven. 😅
You can actually get the narex Richter chisels without a handle and then you can make whatever handle you want.
@WoodByWrightHowTo True, I have seen them sold like that. Sadly enough, I didn't know this. 😔 Maybe I should get some pre-maid ones and shape them like my butt chisel handles?
I also find that the feel of a chisel plays a huge part in my preference. For me, it seems to depend both on what I'm doing with it and the mood I'm in. I think it stems from how connected you are to working the wood when you're using one.
I think I need a few more chisels ;)
Great video. Reduced my FOMO about a lot of features. Gotta get some of those high end diamond stones.
CDB Thanks James. Take care & stay safe.
“Tickles your boat”?
Way to take the edge off the topic while staying keen and sharp
The chisel you have is better than any chisel you lust after but don't have.
Can't do real work with a dream.
If anyone wants loads more details on hardness, toughness, edge holding / ease of sharpening have a look at the knife steel nerds blog. This is quite a complex area
Anyway, generally look to see if they list a specific alloy (not a general category like chrome molybdenum, or carbon steel), how it's heat treated and the hardness of the steel
I got a small set of HF chisels to get started. Then I got one Narex Richter as a "nice" chisel for fine work. The difference in feel is obvious, even to people who have never used one. When I can get back to my woodshop I'll be building a few extra projects to afford a few more of them.
This same logic applies to a mate too lol Everyone has their preferences.
There's also just grinding down a flathead screwdriver.
It's so interesting that hardness doesn't correlate to durability.
I feel kind of... not picky? I guess I just haven't thought that much about which chisel design I like most. I started buying the Richters because you recommended them, and then I bought some Ashley Isles because a friend recommended them. I _have_ a tang chisel, but it's a fishtail chisel, and I've only used it a couple of times. So who knows? :)
I like the Narex Richter chisels. I think the handles are fine, but I do not use them as much as you. I may add a flat to one side to keep them from rolling, and allow a comfortable palm wrap around when paring
I don't have to test hardness , there's this fellow already did it for me on YT
personally I really love the feel of the pfeil handles on their carving tools. It just feels right to me
Great job. Thank you 😊
I recommend the wood handled chisels from harbor freight they are super hard come fairly flat and require only some honing and stroping
There is one category you left out, and that's the lend me out chisels to the guy next door, they should be long, heavy, handles made of plastic that is starting to glaze over with rot, blunt with a slight warp, covered with wood dust and paint, a slight smell that remains on your hand long after the job is done and tool placed somewhere that they forget to return it for several weeks, and last of all a small burr that cuts into your hand just enough to irritate the shit out of them. So the question is why...they won't come back for more tools, they will buy their own. cheers from Tasmania
Thanks for all the info, James! 😊
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Thanks for sharing that, allot of chisels!
I think you pared a comment out of me. Sneaking up on it until you get it just right. Very sharp of you.
It's all about feel for me, I really like my Narex followed by the Aldi that I find easy to get and my unlabeled chisels from my two grandpas.
I have some of this and some of that. Mostly plastic, some wood. Several different handle shapes. They all work fine. None of the subjective factors are important to me. Apparently, I'm insensitive. UPDATE: Needed to sharpen a chisel and discovered that I lied - I DO have handle preferences. The Kobalt carpentry chisel handles are too large and in the way of sharpening and the type of work I do. Sorry about that.
I inherited some Nicholson chisels from my Dad that have Rasps on the top and bottom, but not sure of the reason. I plan on sharpening them soon.
Bought a set of old wood handle Marples (thanks Paul) love the handles, love how they sharpen, love the durability, hate the blades if I have to hold them for fine work, they always cut my fingers. Please don't tell my wife I paid $120 dollars for chisels that make me bleed!
Slightly round off the corners the next time you sharpen it. just a couple swipes on the stone will take the burr off.
Very thorough, good review of chisels.
Finding the right pare between yourself and your chisel can be difficult. Information may be skewed, making you the butt of other woodworkers jokes. A chisel should never be benched. (Insert quip about mortise here)
As a newbie, this is why my chisel set is a mish mash of all sorts of different brands and types (mostly used from garage sales and whatnot and a couple of new Narex's) because I had no idea what I was looking at... now I have a better idea of what I like. Although I have yet to try a Japanes chisel, although I have a feeling with my big mitts that they would feel a bit small in the hand.
I am a big dude, and have no difficulty using their chisels. Japanese people are less tall, generally, but it mostly comes from below the waist. They also have a range of sizes. I have mini, standard, mortise, timber framing. It just happened, I bought my first set 45 years ago. Frankly most of my work could be done by the first 3 chisel set.
I have several sets of chisels ranging from cheap Stanley to the Japanese set I have. After trying several different brands/styles, I came to absolutely love my Japanese chisels and prefer how they feel. Again, it's all subjective and entirely dependant on the individual preferences. @tiltedknot
Everyone knows the single most important factor for choosin a cheesel is style. The best chisel is the coolest chisel you can afford at a given time. This goes to most tools, btw, you’re welcome.
Joking aside, if you have small lathe (or a drill lathe jig thinghy), good geometric and esthetic sense, most not-bad-steel chisel can be made into a very good chisel once you make that coolest most ergonomical and most beautiful handle for it. Seriously. Once a low bar regarding the steel and chisel shape/profile is met, it is the handle.
And Richter for me tks to you, Rex, and stumpy
Hmm, I am curious about some thing. You commented that hardness is not always responsible for a longer lasting edge. That puzzles me. That is one advantage of the Japanese style chisels since they generally have a harder metal for the cutting edge, and consensus seems to be that the edge on them and their plane irons is a bit more durable than the more standard A2 metals. For sure, angle of the edge plays into it.
I do like bigger handles, and for my lathe tools, I prefer straight cylinders to any fancy shapes. Easier to make too....
They are great. They win pretty much every edge holding contest, and even if they only had O1, they have many subtle features that are worth it in themselves.
It may be that part of the story is that they have steels actually made for the purpose, all the steels that we use are pretty much designed for other uses. So 01 (excellent as it is) was designed for gauge blocks; some of the other steels are designed for machine tools where heat is a major issue, or they were designed to cut metals.
And they still have highly skilled manual craftsmen, and they have an integration between the tools and the stones. In the US, as you can see in this whimsical video, it is all about personal choices across a range of cultural and commercial options. There is not idea of you were trained to work this way; your tools were desgined to meet your hand given you training; the steel was designed to work with the woods and skill in play, and to respond well to a set of sharpening norms. Also we are dealing with pros, they are going to opt for the standard expected in their trade, not be worrying about how "right" costs, or buying silly features that would mark one as a woodworking tourist.
In general the harder the steel the more prone to chipping it has. The softer the steel the more prone to rolling the edge has. Every different type of steel has a different point at which it balances those two. There are some steals where that balance point is higher but the edge will not last as long as another chisel that has a lower hardness. It really comes down to the size and structure of the crystal.
Of the chisels I have tested the best and most durable are new steals that have come out in the last 10 to 20 years. And in most of those cases it depends more on the treating method then the actual steal itself.
Well, the whole point on heat treating any metal, as far as I know, is to get the perfect edge, which is not too hard or too soft so you can get the most work out of it. The newer "micro" or "nano: grained carbides will take fantastic edges, but would not hold up for driving chisel work. I still wonder if the Japanese and old western style bimetal plane irons and chisel irons, and even the draw knives would outlast most of the A2 steels that are in use now days. I did make a chisel blade out of M42, and it holds up very well for my lathe tools, but I have never tried it as a pounding chisel. It might be in the too hard range.
Might be a the handle that makes you enjoy it more
Really hard and durable = absolute nightmare to set up especially if they're bellied, but the ease of resharpening to a really keen edge and how long it lasts can feel amazing.
Thanks James
OCD fascinates me- I cannot stop myself watching it...
Help! I recently bought a vintage Stanley No. 5 and a set of 3 vintage EA Berg chisels. The plane iron needs to be reground but I can't find a reasonable deal on a grinding wheel. I picked up a set of Aroma stones (140, 400, 1200) to be my sharpening setup. Using a guide, is it possible to regrind the bevel on the plane iron with this sharpening setup? The cutting edge is slightly concave. This is my first venture into woodworking and I have no practical experience, just years of watching hand tool woodworking channels.
Thanks for sharing.
Ah now I know where I am going wrong , problem is I need throw away the brick chisel and buy wood ones now 😂
Someday I'll get one of those Zen Wu chisels... probably shortly after winning the lottery
When can we expect a similar discussion on carving tools!?!?
Carving tools are a lot easier as there's only a few to pick from. I've got a couple old videos going through the brands on those and what to look for.
@ thanks James. I will look deeper in your channel.
If you have chisels that need resharpening often will that mean when you buy higher quality you will be more efficient at sharpening ?
I'm so new at this that so long as I have a sharp edge, I'm happy!
Can I hold all your chisels? Lol
Please don’t take offense, but I have been curious for while if you deliberately put misspelling in your intros?
Yes I do. It's part of the fun on the channel the regulars are always looking for where they are. Sometimes in the title. Sometimes in the card and other times in the description or the thumbnail.
Sorry for beeing such pointy, but.
There's nothing more logical than feeling chemistry.
Even it is too complex, too deep, too chaotic data for our lil brains.
The one that react emotionaly, has it's behaviour 100% justified by his interaction.
His existence justify how he adapt to his existence.
The one that behave in virtue of an ideal, ideologicaly.... this one justify himself his behavior, depending of an evenement, that did not happenned.
Compared to the first, he will not have hard time to explain the logic of his ideal... because there is none, his ideal is a non-happenned occurence.
That's the difference between chaos and void.
Getting back to woodworking...
You, choosing your chisel depending on your feeling is actual pure logic.
Choosing your chisel depending on wether or not it is ideal.... is non-sense.
You're welcome.
Thank you?
could you imagine ever having to pack up and move all of the stuff inside that shop
He recently did that 🙂
@ 😮
It was a full 26 ft truck just for the shop lots of fun.
Wait a minute? Did you finish your new bench?
Nope. I just got it turned up right. Still got a ways to go on it
Commenting below
The thing is that stories like this are presented as though people will be able to make an informed decision. Through odd psychology, what often happens is people sorta get the idea that the thing we are all doing is evaluating tools. And they buy different models, and test them themselves. I first noticed this in the knife hobby, when I came across people who had probably never really used a knife of the type they were interested in, but they would buy different examples and test them to destruction. Because that was what people in the magazines were doing.
Anyway, most people don't need a ton of chisels, and you can save a lot of money if you just buy a small set of good quality chisels, and ignore the whole testing cycle. Add them as you need them.
For the algorithm 🎉
Comment down below.
Hello
Moar build videos please! I unfollowed Graham Blackburn because his "traditional woodworking by hand" was just an endless show and tell with old woodworking hand tools, please don't go down that route.
As for chisels, I am really fond of my Bahco plastic handle chisels. I am fairly sure they have quite good steel in them.
Also, did you find someone who can weld the bracket for your vise yet?
I did a video a few weeks back about why the build videos haven't been out in the last while. I've just been so overwhelmed with other items that I haven't been able to build anything in the last month or so. But the build videos are coming back I'm hoping to start them in a week or two. Normally I have them coming out every saturday.
*choosing (sorry)
Not on this channel lol. That's just how we roll.
@@WoodByWrightHowTo ha!
Get back to us in 10 years, you clearly don't know what you don't know. And even basic issues like tang chilsels give you longer chisels are ridiculous. Or like workbox chisels are soft/poor when they are designed to be sharpened by a file and used on, say, doorjams of softwood.
Japanese chisels are best, and one never even hears their actual details described so it just gets put down to personal preference. While they are rejected mostly for cost or lack of knowledge. They would still be better even if they were made out of simple O1. But the reality is that chisels are pretty simple. One can easily make one's own, and there aren't really any points in expensive chisels. It isn't like golf where fitted clubs might get you a few points a round. My Japanese chisel have subtle design features, but they aren't going to substantially ease my work, or produce a better result. Behn made a set of chisels that incorporated features that are not the magic steel in Japanese chisels, but they never took off. At least they got it.
Go check out the testing that I did. Most Japanese chisels don't even reach the top five. The best steals on the market right now are new steals and new treatments that have come out in the last 10 to 20 years.