Need chisel recommendation

Re: Need chisel recommendation

bill tindall

>I hold chisels at or near the bevel while chopping with them. If the chisel is tall I get hand cramps balancing the tall heavy handle with my grip at the other end of the chisel. So at least for me, a short, light chisel is best. I made some, but if I had not made some, I would be using Japanese chisels for chopping.

Re: Need chisel recommendation

Jim in Burlington Ontario

>If you can swing the price I'd buy LN. Like Bill my hand also starts to cramp up, thought it was just me. Chisels that I have and can compare them to are older made in germany ones similar to LN chisels, blue chips, hirsch and a set of stanley's with the plastic yellow handles. I think the design of the LN's fit my hand the best and seem to hold a edge twice as long as others IMO.

Re: Need chisel recommendation

Dennis McDonaugh

>Bench chisels and paring chisels are a little different. Paring chisels are usually longer and thinner. They are sharpened to 20 degree bevel and the handles are not made for a mallet. Bench chisels are somewhat shorter and the blades are thicker. The bevel is usually sharpened to 30 or 35 degrees.

There are lots of choices at lots of different prices.

In new bench chisels, The Hirsch and Two Cherries are good chisels and are competetively priced. They'd be my recommendation for a first set. Good quality and a good price. LN chisels have gotten good reviews, but they are quite expensive.

There are fewer choices in paring chisels, Sorby and Buck being the only two choices I'm aware of in the long, thin chisels. I have heard people complain about Sorby quality, but I have a couple of Sorby mortise chisels and have had no issues with them.

You can also opt to look at older chisels. Older tools in good condition come at a premium price but you can look at rehabing broken ones. Bob Smasler has written several good articles about rehabing old chisels. Do a search for good information on the process.

Japanese chisels are another option, but they can be quite expensive compared to western style chisels. They also have different characteristics and I'm sure someone will be able to provide a good description of their use.

Re: Need chisel recommendation

Joe Grittani

>I bought Sorby bench and firmer chisels five years ago. No complaints about the firmers, but the bench chisels won't hold an edge. They weren't cheap, but I thought this would be a one time purchase so I'd get good quality. Oh, well.

Got a great deal on Two Cherries a few years ago from Dieter at Fine Tools when the exchange rate was favorable and have no complaints. They were actually cheaper than the Sorbys. Wish I could somehow justify the Lie Nielsens but it probably won't happen.

If Hirsch and Two Cherries are truly the same product, Hirsch might be the way to go.

Skew Chisels are nice to have...

Ed DeLauter

>Depending on the size dovetail you're working with is a consideration. I made a couple small skews (one left, one right) to facilitate paring the back corners since they're at an angle.

Old files can be a good source for the metal. To me metal quality is not a paramount issue with these particular chisels. The cut is light and they're not in use as much as say bench chisels.

Cheers,

Ed

Another brand of paring chisels *LINK*

Wendell @ Murphy, TX

>I got a set of Henry Taylor paring chisels for Xmas. I haven't used them yet, but I had a heard good things about this product. These chisel are very long so I am not sure how comfortable they would be to use for cleaning up dovetails.

Wendell


Henry Taylor Paring Chisels

The ultimate in quality is... *LINK*

Bob Smalser, Seabeck, WA

>.... to accumulate some old Swans and Witherby's and grind your own.

And you can do it for a lot less than buying modern Sorby.

Moreover, it is always more satisfying using your own stuff.




Grinding Your Own

Re: Need chisel recommendation *LINK*

Don Thompson - Cutler Ridge, Florida

>Something like these, which were recommended by someone around here, look to be very handy for trimming dovetails, because of the triangular cross-section.




Triangular Chisels at Antique Tools

I say Buck

Ron in Kokomo

>The old Chas Buck Chisels. If you are not too impatient, you can put together a good set of these om the bay and pay less for them than a new set, and in my opinion have a tremendous chisel and a little history.

I use these, and they'll take an edge like a razor and hold it for quite a while with only minor stropping, particularly if they are use for paring.

NOTE there are two kinds of OLD Buck Chisels. The one's that say Chas Buck have a little better metal IMHO.

Re: L-Ns, Unequivocally

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>I have used lots of brands of cheap, moderately priced and expensive modern bench chisels for chopping and cleaning dovetails, and have found most of them to be inappropriate. I also use an old Buck Bros. paring chisel, which works pretty well, but I strongly agree with the others that it is too long, making it difficult to balance for chopping. It's great for fitting tenons, however. It doesn't hold an edge nearly as well as the new L-Ns, either, but there are older Bucks, as well as Witherbys, Swans, Whites, and a few others whose steel is remarkable in this regard, if you can find them, and if you don't mind correcting a century of abuse.

When looking for bench chisels for dovetails, I see no real need for skewed chisels, as long as you pay attention to the other salient points of the geometry of the chisel. There are six faces on a chisel, the back, the top, two sides and (except for mortise chisels and firmer chisels) two bevels. The bevels should be ground to remove enough metal to to reduce the sides to somewhere between 1/16" and 1/32". L-N does this. Buck used to do this. Most modern manufacturers just don't get it; they just make something that superficially looks like a bench chisel or a paring chisel.

Also, the L-Ns are A-2 steel, which holds up very well to chopping and paring, even with a low angle bevel that makes paring without a mallet much easier. So, you spend more time cutting and less time at the stones. And the hophornbeam handles are both tough and light weight, so you chop lots of DTs before your hand and arm get tired. Considering the condition of most of the handles on most of the old chisels I have rehabilitated, a lot more effort was spent by the manufacturers on the steel than on the wood. The L-N handles are also designed to be comfortably held, with minimum effort and minimum stress on the hands, in either paring or chopping mode.

Those who suggest the Lie-Nielsen bench chisels' prices are unjustified, probably haven't used them, or don't cut a lot of dovetails by hand, or really enjoy the process of making their own handles.

For cleaning up the inside corners of half blind sockets, a narrow chisel is sufficient, again obviating the need for a skew chisel. For carcases, 1/4" is narrow enough, but 1/8" works better for small drawers.

I am not saying that skew chisels are not useful, but you need to realize that Bob builds boats, and therefore has lots of other reasons for a fine set of skew chisels in this toolbox, that he will put to good use for dovetails as well. They can be very useful for carving as well, but then you get into issues of bevel geometry. Usually, if you are only cabinetmaking, the additional expense and hassle of acquiring and maintaining two additional sets (LH & RH) of skew chisels is not justified.

If you want the best chisels to do joinery for cabinets, lots of joinery for lots of cases and drawers, I would strongly recommend the Lie-Nielsens. They are well worth the price.

Re: L-Ns, Unequivocally - Not

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>I don't know, William. It's the use of Unequivocally with which I have serious problems. I trust your judgement that LN's are very, very good chisels; but you'll have to go a far piece to convince me to give up my shinoji, which I love.

Pam

Re: L-Ns, Unequivocally - Not

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>Could you give a price range of your favorite shinoji chisels so we could do a little cost benefit analysis? L-N seem to have exceptional resistance to chipping so if they are close in price they may be an attractive option for woodworkers that lever a little and aren't practiced in asian steel work habits.JR

Re: L-Ns, Unequivocally - Not

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>This is not an issue of cost, Joe. This is an issue of the best chisels. For William, he likes the LN a lot. He also likes old steel, which I do, too. I also like the Japanese a lot, which, btw, I have no problems levering once they have gone through a little sharpening. Now if Nemo had said he couldn't afford $X, different issue. Or, perhaps he doesn't want to spring for a set. After all, you generally don't need a full set since you're usually making the same size or two dovetails, thus needing only one or two chisels. So my two or three shinoji are cheaper than the full set of 5 LN.

Pam

Re: Need chisel recommendation *LINK*

Pete P

>For detail work like the dovetails you mention take a look at the Veritas detail chisels. I'm a newbie but have these and love them...


Veritas Detail chisels

Re: Need chisel recommendation *LINK*

Pete P

>BTW, Paul Beebe also makes the same set in skew, left or right


Veritas skew chisels

Re: L-Ns, Unequivocally - Not

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Good point, Pam. I never met a word that had only one, unequivocal meaning. What I meant is that I can recommend the L-Ns for their excellent performance, and even price/performance ratio, without any misgivings, for any reasonable application of dovetailing in cabinetmaking. "Reasonable" of course excludes such hypothetical concepts as "granite drawer fronts", "struck with a lath hammer", "2 mm thick stock", "ten pins and ten tails in ten minures", "aeons between rehoning"... :^)

However, I cannot guarantee that there are not better dovetailing chisels out there, or that someone reading this might be within a 5 minutes drive of the OWW Anteekmaul, where they are currently having a halfpricesale on a set of classic NIB Witherbys. Also, I haven't used your Shinojis, nor many other brands of excellent Japanese chisels, so I cannot presume to make a blow-by-blow comparison.

Re: Need chisel recommendation

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>I see two significant disadvantages to these chisels. First, the ad copy states "intended to be used only with hand force", so you should not chop with them using a mallet, i.e., they are only for cleanup. Second, and much more important, the photos show handles with an extremely small cross section and lots of sharp facets, particularly on the butt end where fragile hands, succeptible to CTS and other RSIs, must push emphatically on them. I would run, not walk, away from these. I could not imagine being able to do all the necessary pushing with the grip of my fingers, especially since the handle has no waist where fingertip pressure would be applied to avoid high point stesses to the palm of the hand.

The book authored by Yeung Chan

Re: Need chisel recommendation

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>For all the reasons you mention, they aren't appropriate for general work. But for the work they are named for, i.e., detail work, they actually are quite nice. They truly need to be restricted for fastidious hand work in confined spaces. For those occasions, the handles are adequate for the forces involved.

Re: L-Ns, Unequivocally - Not

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>So to distill your answer to my question Pam, a set of 5 shinoji would cost nearly twice what a set of L-N runs. And would come with a steep learning curve if Nemo has no experience with japanese tools. Nemo did say he was interested in a set. JR

Re: Need chisel recommendation

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Perhaps, I overreacted.

You are right, for fine tuning a precise joint, you shouldn't need much force at all, and a handle you pinch between fingers to precisely pare off small slivers of wood should suffice.

Offering advise on a public forum is always tricky, since you never know how much experience or training or what tools are already in the arsenal of the person asking the question, much less those others who read it as well. It's all too easy for a neophyte to assume a recommended tool will work well for tasks beyond its original intent (the power tools in Yeung's book, for example, for executing fine Chinese joinery). In this case, I figured it was better to err on the conservative side, and warn about some dangers of trying to use tools for inappropriate tasks, especially when more general purpose tools could probably do a broader range of tasks safely, especially when the reader may be a beginner with lots of empty space in a small tool box, and a lot of wood to remove before getting close to the refinements for which these tools might be appropriate.

Offering advise, we often throw ourselves on the "horns of a dilemma." It reminds me of the old quip about the generalist vs. the specialist, often couched in terms of "Sales" vs. "Engineering." The former spends his time learning less and less about more and more, until eventually he knows knothing about everything, while the latter strives to learn more and more about less and less, until he knows everything about nothing :^)

Re: L-Ns, Unequivocally - Not

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Oh, you mean you'd prefer to pay less per tool and buy tools you don't need than to buy two or three really good tools and use every one?

Besides, there are lots of excellent shinoji available for less than the LN chisels.

Pam

L-Ns, Now In Individual Servings

Todd Stock

>I think you'll find that LN chisels are now available individually - still at $50 a pop.

Re: L-Ns, Now In Individual Servings

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Cool, maybe I'll get one to try.

Thanks,

Pam

My experience tells me

Bob Hackett

>that Sir William is headed in the right direction here.There is no reason other than ease of manufacture why every tool can`t have an appropriate handle on it.

Looking at these handles my mind tells me that they`re for people who have not developed hand/wrist problems yet.One of the best handle designs for detail work would agueably be the type used by engravers,quite a different animal from what`s offered here.

Most everyone I know who has tried a chisel with a custom made handle can understand why makers used to offer blades and handles separately.

The blade must fit the work,but the handle must fit the user.What you get from a manufacturer is designed to fit everyone so it fits nobody exactly.If we can make furniture to fit our homes then it stands to reason we can make simple things such as chisel handles to fit our hands.The question is why we choose to settle instead.

Mainely,Bob-Who has learned that nearly every tool is just a starting point.The closer you get to the tool being an extention of your hand the better and more fluid the work becomes.