The holy grail...

Re: The holy grail...

Nico

I would never buy a set sold as Kiyotada on Yahoo auctions. There are so many fakes so you never know what you're getting. I've seen fakes that were almost identical to the real thing. And the older Kiyotadas are hit and miss anyway. Some are too hard and some too soft. There's a reason his earlier work was not in the high grade class.

Re: The holy grail...

Howard Pollack

David, given the success of the unicorn method do you think that chisels like this are still so advantageous for the user? I'm not talking about the aesthetics of them, they are gorgeous. I already have a nice set of Japanese chisels which I like very much. Thanks -Howard

The joy of handmade tools...

Jim Matthews

You're connected to a legacy in tools like these.

That's a worthy thing to value, regardless of utility.

Some people collect British sports cars.

no...

David Weaver

There's no functional difference between a moderately well finished and well made $70 chisel and anything that costs a lot more. Kiyotada's finish work at the time was exceptional, and his good chisels were excellent. Some were a little over hard, and nobody will have the heart to temper them back unless they really are keeping them for life.

They're collectors tools.

There's an element of reality in japanese chisels (the steel really is high quality, the tools usually are made to a very consistent standard), and then a huge amount of hokey poop in the realm of things like $300 chisels.

The kiyotada tataki nomi that I have is better than any I've seen, but the real pleasure in it is how perfect and tasteful the finish is. Many of the others that I've gotten are overhard to win spec sheet wars, I guess, or to please people who think that a chisel that has to be coddled or used at a super high angle is something to root for because you can say "it's rc66 - the maker never makes a chisel less hard than that". In japan, they have a strange notion with stones and tools "these are only for advanced users", often said about things that are really actually flawed for practical use. It's novelty. A scratchy sharpening stone that can be just barely used if a user fiddles with it is not a boast, but if the coloration or availability of the stone is rare, people will rave about it.

I have a feeling that if I were to go to japan yahoo and buy 20 tataki nomi for $15 each, I'd find one that matched or bettered the kiyotada in work.

The value in kiyotada's tools is that he pushed limits and became well known, and did lovely understated but very crisp finish work.

Any decent used set of chisels on yahoo japan for $225 would be just as good for practical work, and in some cases, better.

A practical answer

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

The best musicians tend to own the best instruments, presumably because it makes a difference in the product or creation of the product. You can answer your question by finding out who is buying expensive hand tools of any kind. Are people like Alan breed. Steve Latta and Will Neptune, or the Headley shop chasing these tools. No. Years ago they settled on good enough and focused on learning to use the tool they have. Whatever tiny practical advantage "premium" tools might have is not worth worrying about for them. Neptune whacks out dovetails with a plastic handled Stanley butt chisel.

Where Unicorning will have an impact is for people that can't or won't afford a chisel that costs $100. They will be happy with the performance of their Hirsch or Narex and focus on ergonomics in considering the tool purchase.

In the course of the Unicorn studies I polled sever professional shops to see what they used for a chisel when chopping cross grain waste. The reply from David Finck (Krenov student and author of the plane book, professional woodworker) summed up the attitude of these put product out the door shops.

"I've putzed along with my overly hard Japanese chisels for all these years, and rounded micro-bevel or not, they still are too damn hard and chippy, but workable."

Another just dismissed the concern with edge life by telling me "I have better things to worry about". We don't so we do.........

Better things to worry about...

David Weaver

i sense that at some point, they became the king of their fiefdom and decided that only improvements that they chose to recognize are improvements.

The same answer about this came in threads on other forums "i get by fine with my method". Sprinkled in from those folks will be other things where they've saved a menial amount of time and they'll use the term "i don't have time to not do this, I have to get something out of the door".

Dismissive is fine.

My relatives are much like that. They toil and find faster ways to do things and dismiss anything anyone else tells them. Some of it is (I share this trait) due to not being very good at communicating - it's a family trait to experiment and putter and have trouble listening and comprehending fine detail from other people.

I kind of like to try to, anyway, when someone has something significant.

One can do a lot of things in life that don't hold up to scrutiny and still get by just fine.

I used to love listening to farmers argue about how they set knotters or tied twine. They all made bales, but you'd think listening to some that you'd find a field somewhere with a guy tying twine 7 hours a day or picking up thousands of leaves of hay from broken or untied bales. One of them probably had a faster or smarter way to set knotters (even if it was just because they read the manual), but nobody would give an inch and change what they were doing because it made them feel better to own the way they were doing what they were doing than concede that someone else had a better idea - the better people know each other, the more they seem to hate conceding.

Re: Better things to worry about...

Bruce, a MN Galoot

The farmers I know who make a lot of hay wrap their bales in plastic. No more knotters for them, nosirree!

Unfortunately, all of mine...

David Weaver

...all of the farmers that I used to do work for in high school are dead.

They were from my grandfather's generation. The only reason, I guess, that we even had a chance to do work for them is because they are no longer able to.

My grandfather got rid of bales and cows and such in the 70s and cut all of us out of any fun. Feed bags, plastic wrap and net wrap bales to us, though are like "are you kidding? you will pay $5 a bale for plastic? $5!!!! rich man!!!!???? somebody's ___ing in tall cotton!!!

They did live long enough to see plastic wrap bales.

Way back in the early 80s, the custom combiner brought a guy in to bale straw and they had a steiger panther and a large 4x4 (i think) square baler. They said the hay from the baler would be close to a ton. We were such small timers that they called us when the guy came to do the straw bales and we sat there and watched it.

(what's the truck for?? you mean they actually have a truck just to haul their tractor and baler!!!!??? unfathomable!!)

Well, yeah OF COURSE

Jim Matthews

"the better people know each other, the more they seem to hate conceding."

You don't give ammunition to people who will use it aginya.

Re: Better things to worry about...

Eric Rathhaus

David - Another important factor in adoption of the "new" is the unavoidable cost to change. And individual calculations vary greatly, especially if you compare hobbyists to professionals. I'm always grateful for people like you, Winston et al. that enjoy the process of investigating new methods bcs it provides so much data for lurkers like me and reduces the cost to me of trying for a better technique.