Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Compare it to...
david weaver
https://www.jimbodetools.com/products/1-2-x-12-inch-ward-tang-firmer-chisel-85510
This is probably the typical price for a ward firmer. Ashley iles chisels are pretty close in actual quality in use to the wards. Both vastly superior and significantly less in cost.
There is some art to toolmaking, you should be providing something to a buyer that they cannot just easily do themselves.
Re: Not what I mean...
Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia) What I'm saying is that I don't consider it reasonable to take a piece of flat stock and stab it in a handle and call it a $100 chisel. It doesn't really matter what type the stock is.
..the A2 steel, that's not what I'm talking about. I don't love it, but it's not like you can't use it and sharpen it.
David, your comments about the Blue Spruce simply confirm that everyone has an opinion, one that is based on their preferences. Who is right and who is wrong? Can you choose a chisel that will work for me? And I one for you?
Based on your appraisal of A2 steel and the Blue Spruce steel, David Savage will be turning in his grave. His opinion was exactly the opposite of yours. He wrote ...
"I first saw the Blue Spruce new range of chisels about a year ago when one of my students bought a set of the dovetail chisels. Since that time they have brought out a slightly heavier set of bench chisels which I think are more suitable for the furniture maker. Blue spruce make exceptionally well engineered products, the backs of the blades are absolutely dead flat and the bevels are ground very close to the back of the blade making for good sightlines. However they are heavier than the conventional carbon steel blade but lighter than the Lie Nielsen equivalent. The bevel edged dovetail chisels are slightly different in that they have a very much lighter blade and construction. These tools are not really meant for heavy malleting, they can be tickled lightly with nylon hammer but that's about as far as you could go. Attractive though that these blades are, and they are very attractive handles beautifully turned, the finish is reinforced with a resin that toughens the fibres of the timber. Clearly they have been designed and made with quality in mind and that is very pleasing. But these babies would not find a place in my heart, especially the beautiful light bevel edged blades and pairing chisels. Why? Well it's a matter of function, the function of a blade of this kind is to be able to cut timber to sever the fibres of timber. Rather than choosing a steel like high carbon steel that takes the very keenest edge Blue Spruce have chosen A2 steel. A2 steel holds a very good edge for a very long time especially when it is above 30° honing angle. However our tests have shown when we are honing at a lower angle nearer 25 degrees or even below 25 degrees for hand paring the A2 steel does not take as keen an edge as it is possible to get on high carbon and crucible steel blades. So I am sorry to say that I have to stick with the steel bananas."
As I mentioned, I purchased the Blue Spruce about a dozen years ago. Possibly more. I was one of the first customers. Indeed, I received the first 3/4" chisel made, which was to my specifications (1/8" steel, and not the 3/16" that Dave Jeske planned to use). I deliberated long about purchasing them at the time. They were expensive. At that time it was not the A2 steel that bothered me, but that they needed a 30 degree bevel to get the best from the steel. Then it occurred to me that my Japanese chisels were all bevelled at 30 degrees. So I sprung for them. Over the years I have purchased and used a number of other makes - not as many as you, by all accounts 
Bill seems to be unhappy with this, as if I am a bad advertisement for newbies. I'm a bad boy! A chisel slut Anyway, for tails, I use small chisels - 1/8", 3/16" and 1/4" are the most common sizes. I have these in Veritas PM-V11 as well (Oh, I'm Bad!). The BS are delightfully light and agile, and they really do get very sharp. The 30 degrees is irrelevant. The Veritas are also hollow ground and honed at 30 degrees. They are nearly as light, but better at being hit with a mallet. If I could just have the one set, it would be the Veritas. This is especially so as the chisels get larger, since the hard wood I use really demands that one chop as well as pare. Heavier chisels - look at the Japanese - work best this way.
Regards from Perth
Derek
partially agree, and not
Bill Tindall, E.Tn.
First the simple agreeable part....It is cheap and easy to make a chisel from bar stock. We did it without metal working tools. All done on a belt sander and grinder and it was quick. We had less than the cost of one Blue Spruce in making a whole set. Maybe it is expensive to make refined chisels from bar stock?
Would I pay $50 for one made this way.....NO.
Now is there reason to make a Blue Spruce shaped chisel from bar stock?
1. It is easy to do with limited metal working tools or experience. Or it can be hired at any metal working shop or your local knife maker.
2. There are steels better for chisels than O-1. These steels are typically sold as sheet which can be readily turned into chisel blanks with a hack saw or metal band saw or any of the myriad of other metal cutting options that can be hired. So, this shaped chisel enables wider choice of steel.
3. The result is a functional chisel that has the feel of a Marples or any other thin bladed chisel. I have become fond of barrel shaped handles. This handle and the thin blade makes for a nimble multitasking chisel. All the other chisels I have tried along the way have been sold or sit unused- Blue Handled things, Sorby, 3 Cherries, Vintage Stanley, LV, Narex, etc. (I gave away a set of Vintage Marples and I wish I still owned them. )
4. Cheap to make.
The ergonomics of blade and handle are a chisel's critical features. What ever floats you boat in this regard. Durability of steel is important. The bolster is snob appeal. We stuck a tang in dogwood and it will never fail. That's all the function needed. Anything more refined is for looks to signal quality, forging or heritage.
An opinion - yes
david weaver
Quite a lot of what we go by is our opinion on things.
However, this is a little more weight than "I like a thin iron vs. a thick iron".
I understand that people like these chisels and use them as dedicated paring chisels, but I am still put off by them because they are amateurish.
I don't know what David Savage knows or doesn't know about tools, but if the same type of thing was done in furniture (short cutting or amateurish kinds of things) or carving, I don't think the artists in question who could do better work in those disciplines would see it as suitable.
There's a serious lack of ability of anyone in "the circuit" of bloggers or instructors or vendors to say anything that they believe if it's not 100% positive. I've made this comment about the B/S chisels before - i think their marking knives are wonderful, but still I am not a customer for such things. The reason for that is that it is common practice to just stab a blade into a nicely turned handle (turning being something that the tools displayed well from the start).
But a nearly identical chisel could have been made that would've been practically the same as the B/S dovetail chisel if the maker had the skill to put a bolster on it. I don't think he did. It's bad form, and I am not sorry to be honest about it.
Who is hurt if a beginner buys them? Nobody really, but they are on par with the $800 glued together krenov planes that another maker tries to sell. It rubs me the wrong way. In both cases, far better tools are available for much less. There is literally no part of the B/S chisels (aside from perhaps the desire for some to have a rosewood handle?) that is better than the ashley iles chisels and the contest is not remotely close with a vintage ward or ibbotson or i. sorby chisel. It's just the way it is. The latter would do the paring better and stand up to mallet use. The blue spruce chisels are many many steps backwards from those older tools and remind me more of the gimmick paring chisels George talked about guys in the toolmaker's shop making as a contest, grinding machine planer blades into flat stock to see who could make the longest and most bendy paring chisel. As a gag.
Re: partially agree, and not
david weaver
I doubt the bolster is just snob appeal. It wouldn't have appeared on bench chisels at the time it was made as it didn't appear on turning chisels.
You may get stabbed-in handles to work fine with dogwood handles or for a combination of things, but in the long term, they would not all hold up as well.
A couple of years ago, I bought some flat stock chinese chisels made of the fine grained HSS that is who knows what, just to try them. They weren't expensive ($12 each), but they came as flat stock stabbed into a handle with a ferrule. I used one to mortise planes, which any typical bolstered bench chisel would do fine, and they beat up their hardwood handles where the tang was inserted (something chinese, but similar to beech or hard maple in hardness) and eventually I had to repair them.
I think they would've been fine with dovetails if I had used them for that, but I didn't. Not a shot at dovetailing, it's probably typical of what someone would do, but sooner or later someone will do some heavier work - even if infrequent - and the bolster must've been put on the chisels for a reason because it would've been very difficult to do and costly.
I think we're getting too hung up on the type of steel, too. In my opinion, the proportions of a chisel and hardness are the top two issues for a user. After that, steel choice is sort of a minor thing except to a very beginner who really troubles over sharpening things.
Every single chisel that I've found unsuitable to use has been too soft, and a couple too hard (think either missed tempering or was intentionally made to be hardness 66 or so, which holds up well only in limited scope work unless you thicken the edge which makes them less efficient to use than a less hard chisel), no matter what the steel. I really like footprint chisels that were sheffield made. I have no clue what they're made of, but they are ballpark, 60-62 hardness.
I have two sets of r. sorby chisels that I really want to like, but they are probably 57/58 and as soon as you're not working with pine, you get stuck microbeveling the edges of them. With pine or mahogany, they hold up fine.
All things considered, I think the V11 chisels look dandy (I've not used one). I think they're what the average new user (the ones actually spending money) will want. If a new user doesn't care for my opinion about slab steel stabbed into a handle, that's fine, too, and if they like B/S and want to support the maker, they should buy them.
But, once in a while I"ll see someone take a shot at ashley iles chisels (which average about $30) and their lack of quality (which is completely perceived because a newbie will not recognize that they're actually hand finished and beveled instead of CNC made - they are superb chisels) and advocate someone step up to something like the B/S bench chisels. It gets under my skin.
Data
Bill Tindall, E.Tn.
That set of chisels shown has built numerous pieces of furniture over the 10 years I have had them. They show no sign of damage at the tang or handle end. If someone needs something more robust they build furniture different from me. I don't need to pound mortise chisels very hard. What else is there, excepting timber framing?
Mounting the steel to wood is fundamentally different between bolstered , socket and my chisels. Strength is derived from different factors in each case. However, in all these cases I think the handle would split before the metal to handle arrangement would fail.
In my case there is substantial friction between tang and wood and the T of the tang shoulder is supported by the end of the handle. As I was learning to mount handles one seized part way seated. I bashed it with a 3 pound basher thinking it would seat or I would simply split and then make another handle. It seated. But the friction force was vastly more than this chisel ever experienced again.
Re: More than furniture...
david weaver
..The same chisels may be used to build furniture, they may be used to build tools, they may be used in rosewoods, ebonies, etc, where they will take much more abuse.
If you are manufacturing a set of tang bench chisels in an environment where ward or ibbotson were operating, then it would need to do all of those things indefinitely, and not necessarily for 10 years.
My point is that the people making those bench chisels weren't stupid, they weren't frivolous and wouldn't have put extra cost accouterments on for no reason because the market would've swallowed them if less robust would've been acceptable.
That doesn't mean that you, me or anyone else couldn't get along with ferrule-enhanced non-bolster chisels for a decade or perhaps forever.
I found the limitations of one very quickly mortising bench planes. I also found the limitations of an overhard imai timber mortising chisel doing the same - it couldn't hang and became an absolute nuisance repairing the edge to the point that I listed it somewhere as a chisel that was very hard and not up to heavy abuse, and someone bought it.
Whatever the case may be, you would have to assume that a user may use your tools professionally more heavily than dovetails in furniture or small mortises, and they would still need to take everything other than heavy prying.
I later found plain stanley chisels to hold up fine mortising cocobolo for a smoothing plane, but what I found was that they needed another several degrees more than typical use. They went from taking on significant damage to within a few degrees of that holding up fine mortising cocobolo. The imai chisel that I had would've done the same, but that chisel itself was $100, and I was expecting that it could do something more than it was capable of.
I probably have more thoughts about the various chisels and their construction because I would like to make some chisels, but I've come to the conclusion that it is an art for blacksmiths and not guys like me who cut flat stock. In modern terms, it's an art for CNC machines that can do three dimensional work and not just stock cutting. I could grind and file out a tanged chisel from round stock, but it just isn't worth it given what they cost. Way different than planes where I can make quite a nice infill smoother for not much money (just time) and quite a nice wooden plane in far less time.
Can't remember... (thickness/taper data)
David Weaver
where I said I'd post the data of the chisels that I have, but I measured my 3/4" chisels, with one exception. I don't have a 3/4" ward, but the 5/8 and 1" chisels in my set are similar thickness, so the 1" should be representative.
(start of bevel/just below tang - millimeters)
Ashley Iles (modern) - 3.25 / 5.1
Stormont (vintage) - 3.4 / 5.1
Ward (vintage) - 3.55 / 4.95
Tyzack (vintage) - 3.55 / 5.3
R. Sorby tang chisel (modern) - 2.8 / 5.85
Footprint red acetate - sheffield (modern) - 3.1 / 5.1
all of these are bevel edge chisels, and except for the sorby, the bevels are pretty wide and flat leaving not much of the chisel at full height at the center.
It's interesting how fat the older chisels are *not*, but they still have that taper so that they can be struck. Plugging flat stock into a handle takes the stiffness away without adding anything at the tang end.
When I first started, I wanted a chisel that had a pretty heavy cross section up from the edge of the blade. I thought it was somehow protecting me from something, but grew to like these. It's not by chance that I have a lot of similar styled chisels and generally avoid the chisels with really heavy cross sections.
The sorby chisels are softer than the rest of the chisels in this group, otherwise I'd say they're great at about $130 for a set of six. But they're too soft. If they were two or three points harder on the c scale, they'd be lovely.
Toss out, but be fair (Long, tedious)
Wiley Horne
Hi all,
Dave Jeske (Blue Spruce) is not meeting David Weaver’s bolstering design expectation. David wants a design that will take a shock load, over and over indefinitely. The chisel Derek showed is a Blue Spruce detail chisel, and it is arrayed alongside 4 makes of bench chisels.
Now Dave Jeske makes bench chisels too, which appear to me to be bolstered. Here is the opening chisel page:
https://bluesprucetoolworks.com/collections/chisels
Dave explains what these different varieties are designed to do. One could argue ‘why even make this design or that design?’, but I am inclined to let the guy who is taking his chances in the marketplace decide for himself if he wants to offer a detail chisel which will look like a 97-lb weakling beside bench chisels.
Years ago, Dave Jeske sent me a dovetail chisel to review. He really should have sent it to David Weaver, as I am certainly not an expert or opinion leader. But anyways.....here it is:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/78661951@N07/albums/72157708896132543
If you look at the close-up, you’ll see the shank flares outward at an angle from the ferrule. Which means the ferrule will absorb and spread chisel-strike loads. Now one might still argue that the ferrule could be heavier, or made of steel, or that the shank should bear flush against the ferrule rather than entering at an angle.
My only point: Only Dave’s detail chisel lacks any kind of bolstering—a tang ‘stuck into a wooden handle’. Dave explains at his website why that particular chisel doesn’t need bolstering, and Derek verifies from a user standpoint that it doesn’t need it. Dave’s striking chisels do have various kinds of bolstering.
I’m pretty sympathetic to David Weaver’s preference for the vintage English designs, or any traditional design which evolved over long time, but Dave Jeske is a living breathing person—and a very fine person—who has put an engineer’s thought into the design of his various offerings. And internet words last forever once spoken.
Wiley
Re: Toss out, but be fair (Long, tedious)
David Weaver
Hi, Wiley. I've often thought about whether it's better to only provide positive opinions or none at all, or if it's OK to provide a critical opinion about something. Ultimately, most of the boutique makers are really nice folks, and they've got enthusiasm for what they're doing. I couldn't tell you what the "most correct" answer to that question is, and you're right, whatever I say on here, it's generally permanent (and uses my real name). Whether that affects me or someone else or someone else's decision, it's out there and it could be found two weeks from now or two years from now, or whatever it may be.
In this case, I chose to post what I posted about that type of chisel not just to shoot torpedoes, but more along the lines of the kind of thing that I'd hope someone else would tell me.
A couple of things could happen in this case. Someone who was thinking about dropping four or five hundred dollars on a number of dovetail chisels may instead go look for a vintage set of wards or older marples. I think that would be a positive thing. I'm sure some others do not. OR, someone may read my opinion and go buy the blue spruce chisels because they decide "no, that's really what I want". I think that's fine, too.
I remember taking a game theory class years ago and one of the terms was "a dominant strategy". A dominant strategy (if I remember correctly) is one where you're better off no matter what as long as you follow it, or more precisely in games, one where you win. There's really nothing to win here, but I look at something like this case and I see chisels of limited use (at least in relative terms) that may not even do their intended use as well as something else that is capable of more.
That is an important thing, to me. It may not be for someone else, and that is OK. By posting my opinion, I take the chance that someone may post a negative response and tell me that I don't know anything. I'm OK with that. I also take the chance that someone may read my post and do something different than what they would have done, or that my post as a tiny piece of information among many others may cause people to see things a certain way - not my way, but their way manipulating all of the little things they've heard and experienced.
So, I have fallen on the side of what I think is the most accurate vs. what I think is the most polite. It's what I'd want someone else to do for me, but I recognize that it's unlikely that everyone else feels that way.
I have gotten a little bit of grief from boutique makers from time to time (in PMs and emails). It's always like a football play where it's not the guy with the ball you gives me the stiff arm, it's someone else running across the field who is on the same team so to speak (as in, another vendor in the group of friends more or less who are many vendors). Of course, I'm not on a team against either of them, I'm just a guy in the stands.
Re: Toss out, but be fair (Long, tedious)
Wiley Horne
Hi David,
You know I always value your opinion, having asked for it many times, on and offline.
Also, candor is good. No necessity to be polite. Candor is why I and others read your opinions with interest.
I am asking for a teaspoon of fairness to be stirred into the mix. Now I’m being candid. Derek lined up a detail chisel with 4 bench chisels because he was making a comparison about shank design, the topic Bill T. had originally brought up. You then said, throw out the detail chisel because there's no bolster. I thought that was unfair. It would not have been unfair for you to dislike the type of chisel. But as it was, it was like faulting a convertible car because there’s no hardtop on it. Dave Jeske offers convertibles and hardtops, and I wanted that known.
If you were not a highly regarded commenter, and rightly so, I would have said nothing.
Over and out.
Wiley
Data Censoring and Bill's Context
david weaver
I'm sure when people hear the word censoring, it generally has a negative connotation. But going back to Bill's context, modifying a chisel that is more similar to classic proportions, but a bit heavy through the whole blade - presumably due to feel - censoring in this case still goes back to what I'd mentioned. Toss out the blue spruce chisel as it gives a false sense of the target. Derek's entire set of chisels is otherwise a little on the thick side, but that's what most modern chisels are like.
I'd imagine (I didn't go back to the origin of Derek's post) that derek took cross sections of those chisels and not for Bill's question, so the B/S chisel got into the fray unintentionally. But the context for Bill is why I say toss it out (as in censor it from the data pool, not throw it away, and for someone who really likes them, not to mean don't buy them - everyone should do what they want, especially in a hobby). Years ago, I'd gotten a detail set from veritas that were push only and they were slab type chisels in handles that looked like butterknives. I struggled to figure out what to do with them and eventually sold them. Not surprisingly, I remember them being copies of shop made tools that someone had developed a taste for making and they went into production. I could've figured out how to use them somewhere, but I chose not to because it would've been counterproductive. The developer of those may have been using them for something very specific that I wasn't doing - I still don't know where they'd come in handy.
Regardless, I think my comments will have zero effect on Dave's tools (I'm confident that's the case, actually). They are beautifully made, whatever the design may be, and they have great aesthetics on top of being well finished.
I do have some deference for modern small makers, but too often, I think we have deference only for the makers and not for prospective customers.
Re: I wouldn't remove any more of the taper..
david weaver
Going back and reading the original post, and then measuring the older chisels that I have (and some of the new ones), I have broken two chisels.
In both cases, they had a thin cross section that wasn't tapered. One was the chinese chisel that I mentioned that was also tapered in its width and therefore made for extremely easy rough mortising in a plane - but the tang stuffed into the chisel handle even with a bolster didn't hold up to it. In that case, the slab steel was shaped like a cross to imitate two dimensions of the chisel, but it was missing the third dimension and it fell apart.
The second was a japanese mortise chisel that had a straight cross section. There's an extra dimension of problem there because the chisels are laminated. They have to have a thicker cross section than western tools because the tang is unhardened plus there is a forge weld to protect. The chisel in question was a miyanaga chisel, not a cheap chisel it was able to flex too much and broke at the weld.
I think you will appreciate some heft (maybe less than as manufactured) left in the tang to keep the chisel from flexing where you don't want it to, or possibly breaking/bending at some point.
Re: I'd toss out...
TomD
In chisels I always look for stout transitions, particularly the longer they are. I hate the ones that make a like a tuning fork when you drive them. But then some people are downy, not imperial woodpeckers.
On handles I like the Japanese handles with the reverse taper, odd they make their paring handles the opposite way, I thought they were onto something. The paring chisels feel great anyway.
Re: I'd toss out...
Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)
the blue spruce chisel. It's basically a nice handle with very subpar metalwork. It's always irritated me to see those because they are just flat stock stuck into a nice handle, and I'd imagine some of the other toolmakers making chisels probably think the same.
David, I meant to add earlier, and will do now, since it appears tha you are not aware ...
Both Blue Spruce and Veritas chisels are modelled on Japanese chisels in regard to the connection of blade to handle. While both extenally may be taken for tang construction, they are a combination of tang and socket. I do not have an example of the Blue Spruce (Dave Jeske mentioned to me that the BS are built the same way), but I have one if an early Veritas chisel (from pre-production testing. This is in my review on my website) ..
Although the blades on the BS detail chisels are slim, the connection is strong.
Regards from Perth
Derek
.
Re: I'd toss out...
david weaver
There is a bolster on the veritas chisel that you showed, plus it is from stock tapered end to end, correct?
The chinese chisels that I ended up breaking (at least in so much as I'm going to have to make a different handle for them, but they are in fact intended to be struck) also has a cross shaped cross section to mimic a bolster, and a brass ferrule. I'm not sure when a ferrule becomes a socket,
I know that you follow the point I'm making with the proportions and the technically difficult challenge of doing chisels like, well, chisels, rather than planer blades stuffed into a handle.
I certainly don't wish for it to be made more of than it is - there are lots of things that i have a distaste for that others really like and will spend quite a great deal on. It's just my opinion, and there are plenty of things i will spend a great deal on that others have no taste for at all, too.