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+-- Thread: Chisels? (/showthread.php?tid=7196523)
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Re: Chisels? - overland - 01-18-2016
Several people have mentioned Japanese chisels here. I've never used one, but now I'm intrigued. It would be interesting--and useful--for a few more suggestions about which brands to look for.
Re: Chisels? - Aram - 01-18-2016
overland said:
Several people have mentioned Japanese chisels here. I've never used one, but now I'm intrigued. It would be interesting--and useful--for a few more suggestions about which brands to look for.
Email Stu at
Tools from Japan. Click "contact us"
Tell him what your needs are. You'll be in good hands. I bought several Koyamaichis from him, and -- cold dead hands, and all that. Love them.
If I may offer advice from my own experience, I'd stay away from Matsumuras, which are readily available (and for some reason, well reviewed) in the US. If you bang them, or he77, tap them into anything halfway hard, they chip. I'll probably get flogged for saying that, but it ain't just me.
Re: Chisels? - AHill - 01-19-2016
Aram said:
Email Stu at
Tools from Japan. Click "contact us"
+1. Stu is a stand-up guy. I recently ordered from him, and when it shipped, the exchange rate changed. He refunded about $0.50 to my card. He has stuff that no one else sells, and he is extremely knowledgeable about what he has in his inventory.
Re: Chisels? - overland - 01-19-2016
I agree about Stu and his business--I once bought an Atoma 400 from him. The shipping is also surprisingly cheap. I priced a chisel last night and found that economy shipping was less than $4.
Re: Chisels? - hbmcc - 01-19-2016
Everyone's mileage varies. I have Narex (metric), PMV11 in various lengths, and Eastern laminated and HSS. I am not so enamored of dovetails to be obsessed with specific designs for that purpose. Mine are general purpose tools. I gravitate to the Japanese laminated because they feel good in hand.
But:
1. How a tool feels in use is important. Longer Veritas are awkward for me, and seem to vibrate when hammered. Narex feel massive--I see timber framing when I pick one up. The PMV11 butt chisel is short and feels short; maybe, for hinge mortises. After setting the hoops, removing varnish, and honing, the japanese laminated were love at first grab.
All of these tools work in dovetailing. However, mind your imperials and metrics.
But...
2. Sharpening these bad boys (girls) is another matter. The Narex are chrome vanadium steel. Look at a stone and they practically sharpen themselves. Some people like this sort of ease. PMV11 is a little more difficult, and frankly, Lee and company do a fantastic job so honing is all you need, at first.
Japan laminated is another story. I do them the traditional way, and that is one and only one bevel. The carbon steel is hard, HARD! I started on ceramic stones, then graduated to diamond. Sharpening and restoring a laminated edge is work. Bloody fingers don't mean they are sharp. That steel is brittle too. It chips easily. HSS is just tough, and a pricey curiosity. Next....
3. Configuration. Japanese chisels need much more initial setup than any other tool. I could spend 2 hours getting one 30mm tool ready for use. That's with diamonds. Some people complain of an initial PMV11 poor edge that requires grinding off to get at the good steel; I don't know. Mine still sit in their plastic tubes. I have the Imperial version of the Narex mortise chisels I use for that purpose.
Western chisels have sharp corners. I debate with myself, then usually wrap the finger points with blue tape.
4. I have bought, and inherited, old time chisels with less than satisfying results. I have a couple Coast-to-Coast and Stanley? clear yellow plastic handle gems from way back that love notching studs, shearing nails, and cleaning drywall. I'm trying to remember when they were sharpened--they are more like cold chisels.
5. Cost. Narex are cheap. Veritas, killingly expensive. Some of my Japanese compete with Veritas, but the ones I use hurt at only $20 each and maybe, are only second hand. They were never used before me. The point is, cost has always been one of my gremlins. Waling away on a modest tool is far easier than on one costing 4 and 5 times more.
I still see a lot of your blue Marples in the magazine writer tool boxes.
Re: Chisels? - Derek Cohen - 01-19-2016
Hi Bruce
I must ask you what media you use for your sharpening - not because I am interested in starting a debate on sharpening, but out of curiosity since I do not experience any of the effort you clearly do when it comes to sharpening.
The point is, sharpening media and tool steels need to be matched. The ONLY chisel I find an effort is the single PM HSS Japanese chisel ("from Hell") that Stu (Tools from Japan) sent me to try out. Even with diamond it is an effort. It is hard, hard, hard! By contrast, Koyamaichi white steel, PM-V11, A2 ... all hone pretty easily - in under a minute. If a chisel is taking longer to sharpen than that, then you are either not using matched media or not using an effective sharpening strategy, or both.
Incidentally, Narex are Chrome Manganese steel, not Chrome Vanadium. Sorry, that's being picky. But it is not when I suggest that you should dull the edges of your Veritas chisels if you do not like them sharp. I did. Veritas have left them sharp for the user to customise. And narrow lands do make a difference when paring dovetails and detail work in my book. Good Japanese chisels are designed to be honed quickly - the hollow back facilitates this, as does the soft lamination to the cutting steel on the bevel (think of it as akin to a hollow grind). Do you hollow grind or use secondary microbevels when sharpening? Reducing the honing area increases efficiency, and decreases sharpening effort and time.
It is difficult to evaluate what someone says about a specific chisel unless we also know how they go about the sharpening process. This is not intended as a criticism, but just as an illustration of this issue.
Regads from London
Derek
Re: Chisels? - Wilbur Pan - 01-19-2016
overland said:
Several people have mentioned Japanese chisels here. I've never used one, but now I'm intrigued. It would be interesting--and useful--for a few more suggestions about which brands to look for.
I have a list of all the Japanese tool dealers that I know of who can communicate in English here: http://giantcypress.net/resources
My usual advice in terms of sorting out which Japanese chisel to get is to talk to the various Japanese tool sellers. Tell them what you’re looking for in a chisel, and ask for a recommendation and why they recommend that particular chisel. One of the sellers will give you an answer that resonates with you. Buy a chisel from them.
Overall, Japanese chisels that are above the super-cheap range perform well across the board. The really good ones have that magic combination of great edge retention with easy sharpenability.
For me, I have the Fujihiro brand chisels made by Imai. You can get them from Hida Tool.
Re: Chisels? - Downwindtracker2 - 01-19-2016
I'm no expert, but using chisels , three things stand out for me. First was thin blades, a handled cold chisel is not a precision instrument. That description fits most chisels. Next is handle shape, when I picked it up, I felt like I was Errol Flynn doing battle on a pirate ship. It was instantly part of me. Countries all have their ideal shape, American, English, London, German, for me it was what the Swedes did with wood. A Swedish made handle on a English Footprint chisel.
If it's dull, sharpen it.
Re: Chisels? - hbmcc - 01-19-2016
Derek Cohen said:
Hi Bruce
I must ask you what media you use for your sharpening - not because I am interested in starting a debate on sharpening, but out of curiosity since I do not experience any of the effort you clearly do when it comes to sharpening.
<SNIP>
Good Japanese chisels are designed to be honed quickly - the hollow back facilitates this, as does the soft lamination to the cutting steel on the bevel (think of it as akin to a hollow grind). Do you hollow grind or use secondary microbevels when sharpening? Reducing the honing area increases efficiency, and decreases sharpening effort and time.
It is difficult to evaluate what someone says about a specific chisel unless we also know how they go about the sharpening process. This is not intended as a criticism, but just as an illustration of this issue.
Regads from London
Derek
You move around, Derek.
As I noted, there is one bevel on my japanese chisels, per the natives spec. The tools came to me with laterally crowned bevels, hence bloody finger tips. You and I both have the one from Hell that Stu foists onto unsuspecting victims. (Just kidding. He never does that.) You should be able to whisk that one into submission easily on your CBN wheel. The turners, here, carry credit card diamonds for honing (cleaning) theirs. I have a grinder and may re-cut the damaged edges on a couple laminated blades using it; but my bevels are pretty flat from hand work only. No hollow grinds.
Knowing your edges, I can see why you are aghast at the time I spend. Folks, Derek has secondary bevels of about 1/128 inch, if that much. All he does is wave the bevel over his stones with magical words to get an edge. I may graduate to the wheel before I get to the tenth oire-nomi. I'm not that much into zen, even if hollow grinds are a no-no on laminated steel.
And, Derek, you are best with several details. Carry on.
Re: Chisels? - DCarr10760 - 01-19-2016
All the discussion in this thread and all of the different perspectives are really interesting to me. Like many people I used to grind my chisels to a 25 degree bevel and then put a 5-degree micro bevel. I did the Scary-Sharp ™ method. I eventually got a Tormek and hollow ground the major bevel. I would then freehand the micro bevel, not especially accurate, but good enough.
Some folks here might recall that some years ago I bought an early 19th Century tool chest and its contents, virtually untouched since the owner, one William Ogilvie of Dundee, Scotland put them in storage, or his heirs did, a hundred and thirty years ago. One thing I noticed about every single chisel in the chest (30 or so) was that the bevels all were cambered in the opposite way as a hollow grind. If you were to flat grind a chisel to a 20-degree bevel and then put a secondary bevel of 5-degrees onto it, then smooth it out so that there was no sharp line where the bevels intersect, you would have it. There is also no arris between the primary bevel and the back of the chisel. It's just a smooth, beautiful curve all the way to the tip. On the heavy mortise chisels this is nearly an inch long.
About that same time I read an Arts and Mysteries column by Adam Cherubini talking about positive camber grinding on a grinding wheel. It got me wondering what the advantages to this might be, as this man clearly wanted his chisels this way.
So I took an old Buck straight-sided, tanged chisel and on an old swayback crystalon stone, put in a positive camber at a low angle (by eye). The fact that the stone was not at all flat actually helped! To refine the edges I moved to better, flatter stones, but I found that to maintain the camber was easily done with a gentle rocking motion at the lowest, most acute angle, at the far end of the stroke, and the most obtuse at the near end. I was easily able to gauge the angle accurately at each end of the stroke by how high the chisel handle was off of the stone's surface. It was surprisingly repeatable and within just a few minutes I had a gently curved bevel, indistinguishable from the ones in the Ogilvie chest. I polished the bevel on progressively finer stones, lapping the back as you do, and then stropping, still using the same forward rocking motion (except for stropping, where only the pull stroke is used).
The edge was just as fine and sharp as any I've ever made with any of the methods I've used. It shaved hair off my arm like a razor and left white pine end grain looking distinct and waxy. The edge holds up remarkably well in general use in softwoods and well-tamed hardwoods (none of that carborundummy stuff that Derek Cohen deals with). But I was very impressed.
I don't think you get a superior edge this way compared to the other methods, but what you get is a good compromise between a very low cutting angle and a somewhat higher leading or secondary bevel. Since it is convex there is more metal to buttress the cutting edge immediately behind it, so it doesn't crumble the way the OP describes. But the main advantage is that it's easy to do freehand. The stone doesn't have to be optically flat for it to work (at least on the top). I do keep one good, flat, smallish translucent Arkansas stone just for lapping the backs.
One by one I have re-ground most all of my users this way and the amount of time I spend fussing, flattening and sharpening had really been reduced.
You may commence the hole poking and name calling! ;-)
David