Older can sometimes mean Better

[Mike Henderson]

I demo'd a PMVII chisel. You aren't missing much. Yes, the edge holds up a little longer when used at the factory grinding angle but it gets no sharper than any other chisel I've ever owned. If honing and quick touchups don't scare you then, again, you aren't missing much.

Ground and honed at 20* (might have been a little lower) the edge lasted no longer than the same size/same grind Marples Blue Chip in paring and very light chopping - just taps, really. To me, paring and 30* chisels are not congruent. 5* makes a difference. 10* makes a big difference. PMVII is not a breakthrough steel. It's just not. All of the usual trade-offs are still very much in play. Metallurgical physics has not been turned on its head. It doesn't tolerate low grinding angles any better than other steels, and possibly less so. Practically everything holds up at 30* and higher, at least for a reasonable amount of time. If you have more honing gear than God and perceive the need to tend two grinders, a half-dozen stones, water baths, spray bottles, diamond flattening plates, honing jigs, nagura slurries, and assorted grits, bits and bobs just to knock a bit of a rolled edge off then maybe these will work for you. It is only in this hyper-equipped environment that these chisels, somewhat conversely, would seem to make sense.

It's unclear to me why somebody would spend $70 per for a chisel that appears to require a minimum 30* grind to perform its magic and becomes practically indistinguishable, other than for its looks, at lower angles. If the fine folks at Lee Valley come up with something that kicks ass at 15* I'll buy two lifetime's worth. This would be a breakthrough worthy of all the internet teasers, 'leaked' release dates, and hype. Give me something I can chop a mortise with one minute and pare tissue the next, and not at some silly relatively obtuse angle, with no work at the stones in between. THAT would be a breakthrough and I'll be more than happy to claim it as such when/if it comes around.

They are beautiful chisels, the fit and finish is fantastic. No doubt about it. I'm sure the guys who have sunk a bit of coin into them want to believe they're the cat's pajamas, but if you aren't susceptible to that sort of consumer psychology then use what you already have in your shop and spend the saved money on wood.

I have also tested the LV PM-V11 chisels. My interest was for chopping dovetails and I use them with a 35* secondary bevel. For that application, and with that bevel angle, they are superior to any other chisel I have.

I sharpen the chisels by establishing the primary bevel on a WorkSharp (120 grit) and then use two Shapton stones (5000 and 8000) to put on the secondary bevel. I do not need more honing gear than God. I'm very satisfied with the resulting edge.

I do not expect to have one chisel that will do all things. For paring, I use one chisel with a low bevel angle and for dovetails, I use another chisel with a higher bevel angle. If you try to chop dovetails with a 20* bevel angle, the edge of any chisel will fail fairly quickly.

Mike

[Bob Black Atlanta]

Very interesting thread. More so due to the lack of comments on Japanese chisels. I'm a newbie here so it there are constraints here such as OWWM on only 'Mericun tools I apologize.

I have sets of Stanley #60's and #40's as my go to chisels. I have one Japanese chisel, a 3/4" from Japan Woodworker that was about $55. There is a difference, both is edge development and edge holding ability. A really big difference. Ditto for price difference.

I think there is a lot to recommend the old Stanley planes as flea market finds. Spend $20-$40 on a No. 4 especially if you have done it a time or two so you can spot the junkers.Then spend the time to restore to first class worker condition. Then you have a servicible plane. If a LN No. 4 Bedrock copy fell out of the sky would I take it? You bet. Would I spend the stack of hunnert' dollar bills to buy one? No way.

Let's say a young guy decides that his woodworking projects shouldn't have machine marks. I think he will need a variety of planes as he develops his skills. Since he's young he probably can't hide a few thousand dollars worth of new planes from SWMBO, but he might fill the bench with old planes and rework them as necessary for a few hundred.

The other end is the older guy who has made his mark in the world and has been well rewarded for his toils, wants to do woodworking, then he is the prime candidate for the high dollar stuff. More power to him. Just not everybody qualifies.

Bob Black, putting the soapbox away and going to bed in NE Atlanta

[Adam Cruea]

Eh, sometimes I prefer old tools because they're very similar to today's. For example, I have 2 #8 jointers (#8 and #8C). If I bought the same thing from LN, I would have spent $800. Fleabay and Supertool? < $500 for the pair, and perfectly usable in the condition received. I just fettled the Supertool one because, well, I wanted a shiny brass knob. :-D But like someone else here mentioned, I could not get all my planes as LN or LV for what I have in them.

Sometimes there's a new tool that will do the job better; rarely is it cheaper. The exception I can think of right now is LN's shooting plane. I plan on getting one, and while it's a very specialized tool, I think it will make shooting much easier. I've used a LA jack plane, and while it did the job, having a proper handle and a wider base for the shootboard channel would have helped. Hopefully when the Hand Tool event in MD rolls around in May, I can stop by and check it out to make sure it's really worth it.

Anyway. . .older isn't always better. Newer isn't always better, either. Sometimes it's a mix of old and new, sometimes it's just ingenuity.

I look at it this way. . .the Egyptians, Mayans, and other cultures built pyramids using methods we don't know, using tools we consider "inferior" by today's standard. Were they really that inferior? Or are we just too dumb to understand how to properly use tools? There's more than one way to skin a cat, more than one way to sharpen, and there's sure as hell more than one way to make something flat and true. Free your mind in thinking, don't be afraid to try and fail. As Jeff said above, it's the knowledge. I mean, really. . .who here thinks just because they have a LN/LV shop full thousands of dollars in tools that they can make something better than, say, George with some of his older tools? I'd say pretty much anyone is a fool if they think that.

It isn't the tool; it's the tool user. There's knowledge, patience, skill, and intuition that goes into working any material. The tool used is just a means to an end.

[David Weaver]

It's funny that japanese chisels are mentioned. I don't know if anyone said much about them in these threads, but the comment is often "except i don't want japanese chisels".

If the price floats up into the $60 per chisel range, they are my choice easily for tools that are going to be used for cabinetmaking type stuff (not mortising planes or cutting brass rod, but stuff like dovetailing, cleaning out dados, etc.

they sharpen easily if they are decent white steel chisels, they hold their edge as well as the absolute best vintage stuff that's ever been seen in the US, maybe just a bit better due to the hardness, and you can maintain them all the way through a project with a finish stone.

The key is to get white steel from a competent maker, and in that price range white II is probably safer than white I, and more likely to be right. White I has a chance of being harder to sharpen and easier to chip if it isn't done correctly. Koyamaichi chisels would be my choice if I got new bench chisels.

For someone with diamonds, the semi HSS all-one-metal are very nice to use, like the koyama shusezai. (koyama and koyamaichi are not the same maker, though, that's *not* something you want to confuse with white steel chisels, but the semi-hss koyama chisels are pretty nice, and very tough).

There might not be a lot of consensus about some tools needing to be "good" ones, like chisels and planes, but there are places where you don't want to go cheap. I've never met a carver who likes inexpensive gouges.

[Zach Dillinger]

I've never met a carver who likes inexpensive gouges.

Funny, 'cause I went down to the Michaels and bought that little set of carving chisels, you know the ones that look like black exacto blades stuck in small diameter dowels? I carved a Philadelphia cartouche for a tall case clock just fine. I love them!

/I can't believe I got through that whole post without busting out laughing. Cheap is the enemy of good, 95% of the time.
//I didn't really do this. I would never attempt something like that with such execrable tools.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

[QUOTE=Mike Henderson;2081965I sharpen the chisels by establishing the primary bevel on a WorkSharp (120 grit) and then use two Shapton stones (5000 and 8000) to put on the secondary bevel. I do not need more honing gear than God. I'm very satisfied with the resulting edge.
[/QUOTE]

Mike, how do you add the secondary bevel?

My typical workflow with my chisels is to hollow grind on my Tormek and then free hand on my water stones. As I use them, I free hand them on my fine water stones and just keep going.

I have not done this yet with my latest Lee Valley chisels because (1) they are so incredibly sharp, I don't really want to mess with the existing edge until after I have dulled them and (2) I don't think that I can free hand the secondary bevel. I could drop it into a guide I suppose, but it just feels like that would take a lot of time. I suppose that I could also create a "guide block" at the correct angel and just drop the chisel onto that.... should be fast and easy.....

[Andrew Pitonyak]

The saw was the first one I had sharpened myself and it actually cut quickly and well (at least compared to the before). I was used to dull rusty ones that came out maybe once a year to trim the bottom of a Christmas tree. I learned then how it was possible in the old days for carpenters to put up houses without power tools in a timely fashion. It also taught me those old tools had to be built and designed well for a carpenter to use them 12 hours a day.

I envy you a bit on that. My first attempt at saw sharpening produced very poor results, so at the moment I own some very nice sharp back saws, I own no sharp "regular" saws such as a panel saw. Someday I will figure that out I hope since every now and then it feels like it would be a very useful thing to have in working order.


As for the older is better, I will admit that I own two sets of the Stanley 16-150 150 Series Short Blade 3-Piece Wood Chisel Set. One is probably 35 years old and one is a couple of years old. I purchased the newer set to practice sharpening (I paid $2.50 on clearance for the newest set). The older set was given to me by my Father.

I actually like using the cheap Stanleys, but I rip through the edge very quickly and must touch them up often.

I have a nice set of Pfeil chisels that are very sharp and they seem to hold an edge OK, but I am mostly cutting dovetails when I use my chisels, and I don't like the handles for that task.... I keep thinking that I should sell the set but I just never get around to it.

I inherited a bunch of old chisels, I have no idea what they are, but the ones that look like the Stanley sweet heart chisels are very nice. They hold and edge and feel great in my hand.

I purchased one new Stanley sweet heart chisel, and it is a very nice chisel on all accounts.

I have the latest cool steel on a set I purchased from Lee Valley, also nice to use and they hold the edge very well. I just need to get around to figuring out how to best use them as initially sharpened by Lee Valley, or resharpen them as I have all of my other chisels.

If you do a lot of small detail work..... these are awesome

http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/pag...35&cat=1,41504

I purchased a set when I was cutting dovetails in the small boxes that I built to hold my chisels. These things are wicked sharp and small enough to get into the tiny little dovetails that I cut.

So, I think that you can find new and old that are great :-)

[Mike Henderson]

Mike, how do you add the secondary bevel?

My typical workflow with my chisels is to hollow grind on my Tormek and then free hand on my water stones. As I use them, I free hand them on my fine water stones and just keep going.

I have not done this yet with my latest Lee Valley chisels because (1) they are so incredibly sharp, I don't really want to mess with the existing edge until after I have dulled them and (2) I don't think that I can free hand the secondary bevel. I could drop it into a guide I suppose, but it just feels like that would take a lot of time. I suppose that I could also create a "guide block" at the correct angel and just drop the chisel onto that.... should be fast and easy.....

I'll either do the secondary bevel freehand or I'll put the chisel in the Lee Valley sharpening jig (the MK II jig) if I want the angle to be exact.

Mike

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I'll either do the secondary bevel freehand or I'll put the chisel in the Lee Valley sharpening jig (the MK II jig) if I want the angle to be exact.

Interesting.... then maybe free handing the secondary bevel is worth a shot.... Free handing a hollow grind is dead simple.

[Chris Griggs]

Interesting.... then maybe free handing the secondary bevel is worth a shot.... Free handing a hollow grind is dead simple.

Free handing a secondary bevel is very very easy as long as you grind it back as it grows. Its small enough that it sorta self adjusts even if you match it perfctly from honing to honing. Eventually it will likely either creep up steeper and/or round over, but that's when you go back to the grinder. I tend to hone directly on the hollow for the most part but like Mike will freehand a secondary bevel on when I'm doing heavier chopping and need the extra strength....for my smaller chisels (1/4 and 3/8) this means that they have a secondary bevel on them more often then not.

[Charlie Stanford]

While you might find some older tools that are better than some newer tools, if you compare older tools to the better modern tools you'll find that the newer tools are superior. Do a head-to-head comparison of old chisels (for example) to the modern LN, LV (especially the PM-V11 chisels) or Blue Spruce chisels. I think you'll find that the modern chisels hold an edge longer than any older chisel. Additionally, the quality of older chisels are hit or miss, while the quality of modern chisels are pretty consistent.

It would be sad if in the last 100+ years we were not able to improve the performance of chisels and plane blades. It is extremely rare to find any product that has not been improved on in the last 100 years.

Mike

[The idea that older things are better is common in our society, and I don't know why. I encountered this when I was a kid, when grownups lamented how things were better when they were young - and I didn't understand it then. I continue to hear such things today and I still don't understand it. Lots of engineers have works lots of hours to improve every product that's made today. Surely those engineers are not incompetent so there must be some other reasons.

One, perhaps, is the "rose colored glasses" effect of looking back.

Second may be the definition of quality. W. Edward Deming defined quality as, "Quality is what the customer says it is." In modern terms, it's defined as "Meeting the needs of the customer." So a product may be made to meet certain criteria, and that criteria is not what a reviewer thinks it should be. And remember that price is a quality specification.

In our woodworking areas, there are many options to choose from, and each may be a quality product depending on the needs of the user. For a long lasting edge (without regard to cost) we have the brands I mentioned earlier. For products at a more affordable price point, there are many options, each with specific advantages and disadvantages.]

I see you're still hawking the canard about PM-Whatever, A-2 and that stuff. Those chisels are fine as long as you like grinding angles more suited to mortise chisels. Below 30*, they are barely as good (certainly no better) than 1980s and earlier Blue Chips which sold for five bucks apiece. Haven't we had this discussion before?

[Mike Holbrook]

As far as chisels go steels may have gotten better but I'm not sure that those who forge steel by hand are any better today than back when forging produced a much larger % of tools like chisels. I wonder how my Barr chisels would compare to older forged chisels? I am no expert on forging but that process certainly throws a twist into comparisons as well. Now there are companies who specialize in heat, cold....treating steel, that individuals or companies can send steel off to, but are the results better than ancient Japanese sword making masters were able to create, I'm not so sure.

Hand saws are where I think modern manufacturing has yet to match older history. I don't doubt that a modern group of engineers could come up with machinery that would forge and hammer saw plates better than Disston, Atkins or Simonds did many years ago. I just don't think there is enough market for the resulting product to convince some company to make the initial financial outlay for machinery designed to make better saw plates. So I think my Disston # 12 and a few Atkins and Simonds saws have no competitor in the current market. LN, Wenzloff...make nice saws but they are limited to the extent that they have to buy plates from companies who are not dedicated to that one process like the older saw companies were.

I would imagine that those of us who make wood hand planes have a significant advantage in the materials we have available to us to make planes from. I doubt I would have had the variety of woods or steels available to me 50-100 years ago that I do today. Although Purple Heart, for example, is a challenging wood to work with, it makes a very durable, stable plane body. Modern high grade sand paper with a sticky back on a dead flat steel table saw table provides a reliable way to make a very flat plane bottom, even with Purple Heart.

It is exciting to be in a place in history where we are able to take some of the old and some of the new to make better hand tools.

[David Weaver]

I see you're still hawking the canard about PM-Whatever, A-2 and that stuff. Those chisels are fine as long as you like grinding angles more suited to mortise chisels. Below 30*, they are barely as good (certainly no better) than 1980s and earlier Blue Chips which sold for five bucks apiece. Haven't we had this discussion before?

I had early 1980s english blue chips. There's nothing to brag about with them, they were actually the lowest quality chisel I had short of 1950s chrome stuff. Their saving grace was their grind was what a lot more current chisels should be, but at 25 degrees, they were not on par with V11, and a couple of them were different in hardness than the rest. They were perfectly adequate to do work, but also perfectly inferior to every vintage chisel I've ever tried, save some versions of chisels that came from companies in their death throes. They were, however, also $37 shipped for 5 of them. Can't argue too much with that cheap, but they were substantially inferior to every vintage, new O1 or even A2 chisel I've used from a reputable maker. They certainly have nothing on V11 unless it's a contest to see which will fan out the largest wire edge on a finish stone.

I can't imagine using them at 20 degrees, unless everything is white pine and poplar.

It's too bad they (marples) couldn't be as considerate about the quality of the hardening and tempering with the blue chips in the 1980s+ as they were about the grinds back then. Now, the grinds on them are crap, too, and they turned to crap before production even left england.

[Mike Henderson]

I see you're still hawking the canard about PM-Whatever, A-2 and that stuff. Those chisels are fine as long as you like grinding angles more suited to mortise chisels. Below 30*, they are barely as good (certainly no better) than 1980s and earlier Blue Chips which sold for five bucks apiece. Haven't we had this discussion before?

We have and I thought we settled it in the other thread. I'm not willing to discuss it again, here.

Mike

[David Weaver]

As far as chisels go steels may have gotten better but I'm not sure that those who forge steel by hand are any better today than back when forging produced a much larger % of tools like chisels. I wonder how my Barr chisels would compare to older forged chisels? I am no expert on forging but that process certainly throws a twist into comparisons as well. Now there are companies who specialize in heat, cold....treating steel, that individuals or companies can send steel off to, but are the results better than ancient Japanese sword making masters were able to create, I'm not so sure.

Hand saws are where I think modern manufacturing has yet to match older history. I don't doubt that a modern group of engineers could come up with machinery that would forge and hammer saw plates better than Disston, Atkins or Simonds did many years ago. I just don't think there is enough market for the resulting product to convince some company to make the initial financial outlay for machinery designed to make better saw plates. So I think my Disston # 12 and a few Atkins and Simonds saws have no competitor in the current market. LN, Wenzloff...make nice saws but they are limited to the extent that they have to buy plates from companies who are not dedicated to that one process like the older saw companies were.

I would imagine that those of us who make wood hand planes have a significant advantage in the materials we have available to us to make planes from. I doubt I would have had the variety of woods or steels available to me 50-100 years ago that I do today. Although Purple Heart, for example, is a challenging wood to work with, it makes a very durable, stable plane body. Modern high grade sand paper with a sticky back on a dead flat steel table saw table provides a reliable way to make a very flat plane bottom, even with Purple Heart.

It is exciting to be in a place in history where we are able to take some of the old and some of the new to make better hand tools.

There is a little bit of confusion talking about modern stuff like hitachi white steel and tamahagane or a vintage equivalent. The very best of the tamahagane would probably be similar to hitachi white steel. I've seen various opinions about it, including So yamashita's opinion that modern carbon steel is better than vintage tamahagane across the board. Whether that's true, I don't know, but most of the older japanese tools before they went to english and swedish suppliers were not on par with emperor sword quality tamahagane. They were not as hard as a lot of the more recent tools, and not as consistent. Maybe the absolute best stuff from the best makers is similar, that's a different issue, but the best makers have never been reserved for hobbyists, and I doubt they would've sold to them (some still won't).

The excellent modern smiths who specialize in carbon steel (like mosaku, and from Stan covington's account, kiyotaki, who is now deceased) can make white steel into something that is hard like ice and still tough. The only vintage western steel that I have seen that is comparable (likely due to the sharpening mediums) is vintage razors. Most of our vintage forged tools never saw the kind of quality that the western razors attained.