I have a very different attitude, Christian. If I spend more than $10 on a Japanese chisel on ebay I expect something great, even if it requires a bit of work to get there.
I have a very different attitude, Christian. If I spend more than $10 on a Japanese chisel on ebay I expect something great, even if it requires a bit of work to get there.
Still, as we (probably all of us) expected, a mid-range chisel, fortunately not a flat across lamination.
15 minutes of working time cutting endgrain will tell you what you need to know. It'll either be a good workable chisel or it'll be a chippy booger. Odds are it'll be a good workable chisel.
if it turns out to hold an edge a lot better than a good O1 western chisel, then I'd consider it a big win. otherwise, a lot of the factory made mid-range chisels I've seen hold their edges just a little better than a good O1 chisels with similar looking failure at the edge after a long period of use. The bad ones don't.