Quote Originally Posted by Noah Magnuson View Post
I would hesitate to claim actual sharpness is superior in one or the other. Hardness, brittleness, sharpenabilty, etc. often differ between the western and Japanese chisels and planes (can't speak for current Chinese metallurgy), but the level of sharpness can be achieved with either. It is often an issue of whether you tend to work a lot of very hard woods or not whether one functions better or not, but the same can be said even for the many different "western" tool metals.


I definitely find it is worth having a small kit of Japanese saws regardless, and I find the Japanese saws function extremely well in certain cases for me like flush and trim cuts and very fine work, but I really like my western saws for most things and I seem to keep the cut true more easily. I have no experience with Japanese planes. I like my PM-V11 chisels and can't imagine much difference in function between good western and good eastern chisels.
Good points.

I'm definitely a novice here. I guess that I started with some Japan Woodworker "house brand" white steel chisels a while back, and found they were much better than the hardware store chisels at the BORG.
Later, I got some used Matsushige white steel chisels off ebay, which were much, much sharper.
Then, Stan Covington helped me get my first real set of good chisels...which were even better yet! Thanks, Stan!

Over the years, I've tried some ebay chisels--Berg, Witherby, Swan, Butcher, etc...not bad, but the Japanese stuff seems to hold a keener edge.
I have a beautiful paring chisel from Blue spruce-- beautiful and balanced, but the edge isn't close as nice as the Japanese stuff.
Ditto for the Hock Irons, A2 LN iron, and the LV PM-13 irons as well...they work, but not as nice as the Japanese stuff.

This is more pronounced trying to plane end grain spruce.