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Thread: Soft Sorby Chisels?

  1. #1

    Soft Sorby Chisels?

    I was given a full set of 9 Sorby bench chisels, with the very nice hexagonal London pattern boxwood handles. I've had 'em for about nine years. I think they were new, as they all had factory grind edges and backs when I got them. Don't have a clue about the manufacturing date.

    I keep hearing that Sorby chisels are too soft and won't hold an edge. Some of that comes from people I respect a lot, and I certainly don't question their experiences. That's not been my impression in use but I've never done anything to test out the edge durability. I tend to sharpen, hone really, rather often, using the time to pause, collect my thoughts, assess my progress, evaluate my joint and then get back to it with a fresh edge. But thinking about all the negative comments posted here and elsewhere, I thought I'd give one of these a different sort of challenge.

    I'm making two dovetail boxes in 4/4 hard maple, 5 pins on each corner. Decided to chop all the waste without sharpening if my 1/2" Sorby could possibly survive that long. Started with a very good edge, off my uf Spyderco ceramic stone. The chopping in hard maple is an effort for any chisel, but it went well and I managed to finish both boxes with the chisel still doing quite decently - better than I expected, even. So I went farther: I then used the same chisel, still without sharpening, to pare the end grain of the pins and tails of those same dovetails. (It would have been easier with a wider chisel but we must all suffer for the validity of our testing.) This poor "softy" was still able to peel off nice thin slices of that end grain. Left a very clean, crisp surface. A bit harder to push than "normal," but still doing good work despite being long past my normal sharpening schedule.

    It's only one chisel in my set, and my set is only one of many, so I'm not sure anyone should try to extrapolate this little empirical observation. It is, though, one data point in Sorby's favor.

    Is more known about the soft Sorby chisel meme? Did they have a bad spell in recent years? Did they switch (sometime after mine were made) to the "too soft to shatter and get us sued" corporate policy? Did the guy who ran their tempering oven get old and retire, leaving it to a new kid who hasn't got a clue?

    Anyone willing to give up a soft Sorby chisel that I can compare to mine?
    Fair winds and following seas,
    Jim Waldron

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
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    Australia
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    Excellent post James.

  3. #3
    Heres another possibility as well...

    Competitors who have a dog in the fight quietly make sure the "sorby chisels are soft" meme stays alive. I honestly can't say because I dont own any...

    I was at the not-so-local woodcraft store today.... They had 2 different bench chisels available individually (they did have 1 set of Fujikawa Oire-nomi and 1 set of Pfeil butt chisels, but not individually) - Sorby and Irwin/Marples blue chip. I suppose thats got to say something. I would have come home with one today - but gosh.. They are about twice the price of Kirsch/Pfeil/MHG/Stanley Sw just to try one out.
    Last edited by John C Cox; 03-28-2017 at 12:02 AM.

  4. #4
    About 25 years ago I bought a Sorby 1/2" corner chisel and a half inch registered chisel. Both have good hard steel and have done well over the years though I will admit I haven't used them much in the last 10 years. The chisels I found to be really soft were the ones from Crown. I years ago I bought the left and right 1/2" skew chisels and no matter how much I carefully ground them back and resharpened the edge would roll over.
    Dave Anderson

    Chester, NH

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