Lie-Nielson Chisels, yes they are that good!!
Duncan S. Robertson
>I have very recently taken delivery of my Lie Neilson Chisels and I have to share the expierence with you. As a woodworker I have spent the last 25 years doing woodworking as a hobby then as a profession and now, for the last few years, as a hobby again.About a year ago I started getting into high end hand tools and enjoying the expierence of a 1/2 thou shaving coming out of a #8 jointer plane. I took a 1 week hand tool course and was exposed to the Lie Nielson level of quality. I never understood what level of perfection was actually possible with hand tools until that point. I had been your typical sand , sand, and sand some more until I thought I had a surface ready to finish kind of woodworker. When I heard that LN was coming out with chisels in the same kind of quality as the rest of their tools, I started lusting after a set. A couple of weeks ago my set finally got here. They arrived in a very classy leather tool roll that will keep them un-dinged in any moving around I might do in the future. The overall fit and finish is amazing! All 5 arrived perfecly flat. My total prep time for all 5 chisels to polish the back and put a microbevel on the front was under 1/2 hour. I won't even go into how long one of my Marples Blue Chip chisels or Sandvik Chisels took to almost get the back flat. I am currently building a classic tool box. The entire carcass was built with hand cut dovetails. After trying a number of times to actually get one of my chisels sharp enough to not crush the pine that the tool box is made of, I gave up and used my scroll saw to cut out the base of the pins and tails. I am now making the base for the tool box and it also is being made from pine. I can't even begin to tell you how wide the grin on my face was when the LN chisels cut through the pine without any crushing whatsoever. If you use cherry or maple, you can get away with an average chisel. It won't be really pretty but it will work. If you try any of the really soft woods, and your chisels are not as sharp as the LN chisels, forget it!!! The set of 5 ran me $250.00US dollars. So what! The superb quality and ease of use with these chisels is unable to be fully apreciated or understood until you use them. Also, the length of time they hold an edge is a quantum leap from any of my other chisels. After I had honed the 3/4" chisel, I put a piece of hard maple in my bench vise and promply started paring off end grain shavings that I could see through. The surface left behind after removing the shaving is flawless. I have other LN tools, saws,planes,etc... And without fail I start to grin each time I use any of them. If your purpose in woodworking is to enjoy yourself then call Thomas (or if you are Canadian,call Rob Cossman )and get some LN tools in your shop. And no, I don't work for Lie-Nielson.
