Starting out with chisels, hand planes, saws, etc...

[Jim Koepke]

Take notice of the three Narex sets linked above two of the sets are metric sizes and the large set says it is "true imperial" sizing.

Most of my chisels are in imperial (inch) sizes. There are a few in metric for when they are needed.

jtk

[Robert Engel]

I agree with Prashun. I have the 6 chisel set and use 1", 3/4" and 3/8" 90% of the time. When I bought my Narex chisels there were two types. The "Premiums" have thinner side bevel heights which are nice for dovetails.

I think its a good idea to have a second set of firmer type chisels. For cleaning up mortises, glue, rough chopping, etc. In my case, I have the Irwin Marples which BTW were the first chisels I owned and I chopped many a dovetail with them just fine. With any of the low quality chisels the issue is steel quality. Be prepared to spend a lot of time flattening the backs.

I think the Veritas joinery hand saw set is an excellent value. No, not the best saws in the world, but they do quite well.

Hand planes: you will have to decide new or used (which will ultimately get you in to the whole refurb issue). After going the antique Stanley route for a while, I decided to break down and buy a LN 4 1/2. Like going from a VW to a Porsche.

I have had very good luck with the WoodRiver planes. I actually think they stack up quite well against even the LN's.

I recommend starting out with, and staying with, hand sharpening with stones. I abandoned the jigs long ago. You will need a bench grinder if you want to hollow grind (I recommend it).

Last but not least, your measuring tools. IMO you should buy a 12" Starret combo square right from the start and be done with it.

I generally buy tools as a project demands. For example in my workbench build I purchased the LN rabbet block plane and the Veritas large router plane to clean up the large tenons. These are two extremely handy planes to have.

[paul cottingham]

My $.02: the Narex are great chisels for the money, but mine needed a lot of work to flatten the backs. I wound up "lending" them to a friend one at a time, as I replaced them with the LV ones. Mind you, I only have 1/4" 1/2" 3/4" and 1" LV in pmv11 steel, and that has worked out great for me. At some point I will buy a 3/8", but it's been several years, and I haven't missed it yet. Oh, and a narex parer.

As for planes, I went LV all the way, with a few vintage thrown in. I am mostly a Neander, but I think most of the planes I use regularly would suit a power tool guy. My stable includes an LV bevel up jointer, a regular smoother, and bevel up jack. I also have a BD jack from millers falls. I round it out with an LV router plane, an LV plow, and an LV skew rabbet. Being a woodworker, of course I have more, but these are the planes I would not be without. The handles on all of them hurt my pushing hand, but I have bad neuropathy in it, and I'm sure you will be fine. It's bad enough that I use a left handed plow, and either pull it, (right handed) or push it left handed, depending on my mood. I usually only pull after the groove is established. Works well.

For saws, all my joinery saws but 2 are LV. I got my hands on a Bad Axe sash saw, and a "glory days" (pre WWII) Disston tenon saw. All my hand saws, crosscut and rip are pre WWII saws, disston and Adkins. You don't need many, I started with a 4 point rip, 8 point rip and crosscut, and a 12 point crosscut. They meet my needs fine. Of course, I caught "the saw disease" and now have many more, mostly given to me.

I almost forgot: spokshaves are important. I have 3 and they have met my needs: a flat and round bottom LV and a wooden low angle one I made from a kit.

[Graham Haydon]

Hi Craig

I think you'll find adding some hand tools to your work will be very helpful. I'll keep it simple and concise, many options out there but I think these should be helpful.

Chisels - Narex 8116, set of four

Sharpen them - Norton India 8 x 2 combo stone and honing oil, block of hardwood with some LV honing compound

Saw - LV Carcass Saw Rip Cut. If it does not do all the work effectively, add a cross cut.

Planes - Smoother Lie Nielsen #4 iron body, or WoodRiver #4. Block Plane Lie Nielsen 60 1/2, WoodRiver or Veritas

Spokeshave - Vintage Stanley 151 flat bottom shave

Card Scrapers - Pick up some cheap, softer scrapers. The very hard scrapers aren't much fun. Add a file and a burnisher to sharpen them, with a soft scraper a screwdriver shaft might be enough to turn a burr.

The planes, chisels and saws would not be my choice but based on the description of your situation I think they would work well.

[Patrick Chase]

My $.02: the Narex are great chisels for the money, but mine needed a lot of work to flatten the backs. I wound up "lending" them to a friend one at a time, as I replaced them with the LV ones.

I mentioned this as well in my previous post, but it's probably worth reinforcing: Of all of the chisels I've prepared (several sets of my own and a few more given as gifts to friends or relatives) the Narex ones have probably taken the most work to prepare to my satisfaction.

Narex is somewhat unique in that they use an austempering process for heat treatment. Austempering ordinarily results in less deformation than conventional heat treatment, but I suspect that Narex saves on cost by only machining before heat-treatment. While the resulting tools have better geometry than would a conventionally treated chisel that was only pre-machined, they're not as flat as ones that are machined after heat treatment. That's one of the things you're paying for with an L-N or LV chisel (FWIW the LVs have the best machining/lapping I've ever seen).

Oh, and a narex parer.

Speaking of difficult chisels to prepare, my set of Narex parers were the most difficult ones I've ever handled. IIRC the 1" one was significantly bellied, and the others were no picnic.

The Narex bench chisels are fairly manageable if you know what you're doing. I recently bought my father in law a set of 4, and they took me a few hours all totaled. I worked them using diamond paste on plates. I didn't have to resort to a grinder (Tormek or disc).

EDIT:

The Narex chisels do have one other unique tendency that's probably worth mentioning: They "self dub" a tiny bit on the back whenever you grind a significant amount from the bevel. I suspect that this happens because of the residual stress distribution after heat treatment, specifically that the core is in tension while the skin is in compression. Grinding the core away adjacent to any given patch of skin therefore causes it to curl inward a tiny bit.

You have to be fairly "detail oriented" to notice this at all, and if it bothers you it can be corrected by lapping the back a little bit whenever you regrind the primary bevel.

[Frederick Skelly]

Speaking of difficult chisels to prepare, my set of Narex parers were the most difficult ones I've ever handled. IIRC the 1" one was significantly bellied, and the others were no picnic.

Yes, I saw this with a couple of mine too. I bought mine as soon as LV introduced them as a set. I worked my tail off to get them right. I was hoping mine was an anomaly, but apparently not based on your story.

[Patrick Chase]

Yes, I saw this with a couple of mine too. I bought mine as soon as LV introduced them as a set. I worked my tail off to get them right. I was hoping mine was an anomaly, but apparently not based on your story.

Making chisels that long and keeping them reasonably flat is difficult, particularly if you don't post-machine. There's a good reason why most of the other paring chisels on the market (Blue Spruce, Sorby, etc) are so expensive. Blue Spruce in particular does a *lot* of post-machining.

[Patrick Chase]

Narex is somewhat unique in that they use an austempering process for heat treatment. Austempering ordinarily results in less deformation than conventional heat treatment, but I suspect that Narex saves on cost by only machining before heat-treatment. While the resulting tools have better geometry than would a conventionally treated chisel that was only pre-machined, they're not as flat as ones that are machined after heat treatment. That's one of the things you're paying for with an L-N or LV chisel (FWIW the LVs have the best machining/lapping I've ever seen).

Sorry for the post-spam, but Narex confirms here that they don't machine their chisels after heat treatment. See the last paragraph. The rest of that page is a very rough layman's description of austempering. The Wikipedia page is better IMO.

[Craig Shewmake]

Well, it's my birthday in a couple weeks so I splurged and spent a little cash. It didn't hurt that I won $250 tonight on the Lakers winning the summer league.

So i picked up the 5 piece set of Veritas PM-V11's (1/4", 3/8", 1/2", 3/4", 1"). I have no desire to refurbish any vintage chisels or planes and after watching numerous videos and reading a lot of reviews and recommendations here in the threads I thought I would buy once and cry once and have minimal sharpening and honing out of the box as I take the time to learn the sharpening skills. The will no doubt be more than adequate for my meager needs.

Now it's on to the block and smother planes! I don't think I would have much need for a jack plane at this time since I mill larger stock with the jointer and planer. Read up bunch last night and am more confused than ever with the bevel up vs. bevel down offerings. I'm thinking the Veritas line here is what is in my future. The Lie Nielsens look so cool and get a lot of favorable reviews but they are expensive and more than I would need. On to the videos to look at block, smother, and spoke shavers with all your thoughtful suggestions in tow! Wooo hoooo!!!!

[andy bessette]

Good choice on the chisels.

[Prashun Patel]

How are you sharpening? I would focus there before you go into planes.

Your plane preferences will be highly personal. Plan for the first step on the journey, not the destination. You'll have to just get one and start using it. Go from there. My personal favorite is the Lie Nielsen #4, but that's today. For block planes, you may prefer the smaller 102 or apron style to the adjustable 60 1/2 style. That depends on hand size and what you use it for.

I will say also that there is a temptation to jump into bevel up planes in the past couple years (guilty as charged). They are fantastic and have their place, but don't confuse them as being something new or better than BD. They are just different.

But sharpening makes everything possible or impossible.

[Archie England]

Block plane suggestion... LN vs LV. Both work superbly, yet in this regard my vintage Stanley's work great, as well. I had to tune up most of my vintage ones, the LN and LV worked flawlessly right out of the box. IMO there's a likely need for one of each when referring to BU or BD. For normal hand planing, the BDs are everything I need until I need to dress end grain or gnarly grain. Probably, the BU could do it all, too, but that's beyond my knowledge to comment.

[Frederick Skelly]

Craig,

You cannot go wrong with Veritas or Lie Neilsen. You can do "eeny meeny miney moe" or toss a coin and still end up with a tool you will love. (I own both brands.)

Fred

[Mike Henderson]

Block plane suggestion... LN vs LV. Both work superbly, yet in this regard my vintage Stanley's work great, as well. I had to tune up most of my vintage ones, the LN and LV worked flawlessly right out of the box. IMO there's a likely need for one of each when referring to BU or BD. For normal hand planing, the BDs are everything I need until I need to dress end grain or gnarly grain. Probably, the BU could do it all, too, but that's beyond my knowledge to comment.

I agree with Archie. An old block plane with a modern blade will work as well as a new block plane. Just make sure there's no cracks in the body of the plane.

Mike

[Hasin Haroon]

Craig, don't rule out a bevel up jack. It'll smooth just as well and also joint. In fact the one thing you might not be able to do at this point with a brand new BU jack is the rough work - you'd have to fiddle with cambering a thick blade to do that.