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Thread: Japanese vs Western vs Chinese tools- can someone comment on strengths/weakness?

  1. #46
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    The result has been debased quality from what it once was in the the West. Americans do not complain and demand refunds and badmouth low quality tools.
    Some will complain. The problem is there are too many people who think it is a smart thing to go to a store, buy a tool, use it for a day and then take it back saying it isn't what they wanted. Many Americans do not take much pride in their tools. I have known more than one person who tends to leave good tools where he last used them. His back yard has lots of rust to hunt.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
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  2. #47
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Koepke View Post
    Some will complain. The problem is there are too many people who think it is a smart thing to go to a store, buy a tool, use it for a day and then take it back saying it isn't what they wanted. Many Americans do not take much pride in their tools. I have known more than one person who tends to leave good tools where he last used them. His back yard has lots of rust to hunt.

    jtk
    Dishonesty is despicable, but as you say, many think it is clever.

  3. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brian Holcombe View Post
    Robert, than can be true but it depends on the smith. In my experience Konobu and Kunikei are finishing at an incredible level made all the more impressive by the fact that it is done mainly by sen (scraper) and file with the forge black left on the tool in a perfectly uniform fashion.

    It's very hard to compare between the two, becuase western manufactures chisels are just that, manufactured. Manufacturing provides a level of consistency in finish from piece to piece that is more expensive to provide in a handmade item. At the top end the range it is a fairly consistent result.
    Konobu's (Ito san's) filework is stunningly beautiful. I have spent many hours in his smithy watching him shape and file his products. It is a deceptively difficult process which he carries out using simple tools and with a sore back. It would be difficult to find a purer artisan.

  4. #49
    The English chisels I use sharpen very easily and take a fine edge, yet they are tough and not at all brittle. They do not chip, bend or fold in use and the edge lasts a long time. With less sophisticated chisels, there are trade-offs between brittleness and toughness, longevity and sharpening ease.

  5. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by Warren Mickley View Post
    The English chisels I use sharpen very easily and take a fine edge, yet they are tough and not at all brittle. They do not chip, bend or fold in use and the edge lasts a long time. With less sophisticated chisels, there are trade-offs between brittleness and toughness, longevity and sharpening ease.
    This is how I would describe my Japanese chisels.
    Bumbling forward into the unknown.

  6. #51
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    Quote Originally Posted by Warren Mickley View Post
    The English chisels I use sharpen very easily and take a fine edge, yet they are tough and not at all brittle. They do not chip, bend or fold in use and the edge lasts a long time. With less sophisticated chisels, there are trade-offs between brittleness and toughness, longevity and sharpening ease.
    Warren, you still need to explain what you wrote earlier ....
    I am no psychologist, but I think they are more sophisticated than the Japanese chisels.
    Regards from Perth

    Derek

  7. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by James Pallas View Post
    I don't like having to think about breaking saw teeth or chipping a chisel edge tho. I didn't like A2 for the same reasons.
    Jim
    The replaceable-blade saws I have used (mostly Gyokucho) are not particularly fragile. I use them for everything, any species (mostly typical cabinet hardwoods), including heavy ripping and resawing in white oak, hickory, etc., and don't worry about damaging the teeth. It's not something I'm thinking about while cutting. The only tooth I have broken was from hitting a staple with a Vaughan BearSaw (not sure if that is even Japanese, but it has the same tooth pattern). That saw still works fine, though.

    The chisels are probably more variable, especially on the low end, but the good ones are not prone to chip doing normal work with good technique (not much prying or twisting in a cut, etc.) Although when I watch videos of Japanese craftsmen they are not babying the tools by any means. I think if you do something like drop the tool on a hard floor, hit metal, chop into a thin hard dowel, or something along those lines, they may chip more easily than a softer tool. In my experience when they do chip it is not catastrophic, but still they are more work to restore than western chisels, especially if you observe the usual taboo on power grinding. They would not be my first choice for a beater tool, but in the shop I'm not very worried about their being damaged.

    On, A2, I didn't like it either, but the chipping was of a different kind- tiny chipping at the very edge creating a sort of sawtooth edge and leaving lines on the work. I had to sharpen at 35 degrees or more to mitigate that. These micro chips were barely visible and not difficult to sharpen out, but really limited the usefulness of the blade IMO, since I don't really want 35 degree edges on everything (or much of anything). Hard, plain carbon steel should be able to take a more acute edge angle without this micro chipping, and wear gracefully until its time to resharpen. That's what a good J chisel will be like.

  8. #53
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    Quote Originally Posted by Stanley Covington View Post
    I agree with your objection to "magical." There are a lot of wholesalers and distributors that frantically promote such a viewpoint of Japanese tools. It is lies to put money in their pockets. No one who makes a living with such tools believes a word of it. You would be wise to label anyone who promotes such a dishonest fanciful viewpoint as a crook (aka "marketing genius").

    There is a lot of hype in Japan too. But there is a difference. Japanese people have been obsessed with sharp cutting tools for centuries. It is a part of the national memory. The Brits have the Tower and the Crown Jewels. The Americans have the Liberty bell and Declaration of Independence. The French have the Louvre and Versailles. The Japanese have an ancient sword (Kusanagi) as a national regalia (although it has never been seen in public and may not even exist anymore). Sharp things matter greatly in Japan.

    Ask any sushi chef in Tokyo whether or not the cutting ability of his knives make a difference in the flavor of his foods. Ask any temple carpenter if the cutting ability and durability of finishing plane's blade has any impact on the quality of his work. These people complain like harpies and return tools as defective that do not meet their expectations. Not so much in the West. Western manufacturers are focused on making a usable (tool-like?) product, with a statistically-acceptable number of defects, at a price their customers will pay. The result has been lowered expectations and debased quality from what it once was in the the West. Americans nowadays place highest priority on large volume at low cost, and do not angrily complain and demand refunds and badmouth low quality tools.

    It wasn't always this way in America.

    I am afraid the scrap metal from Nash Ramblers and Edsels turned red and went away long ago! I understand from direct contacts with the manufacturers of high-quality tool steel in Japan that they put some carefully-sorted scrap from known sources into the pot, not cubed cars from Mexican junkyards. There is a lot of chemical testing of scrap before it goes into the pot, which is unusual in the steel world. The majority is Swedish pig-iron (ingots), I am told.

    The thing about manufacturing steel is that, like most things, steel makers simply make the steel that their customer wants at the price point they will pay. Those buyers in turn sell to others, and down the line until it ends up in our hands. I hope Larry Frank chimes in and shares his professional expertise on the subject with us, even though he dislikes HC steel.

    When making steel, one can easily add chemicals to the pot (cost issues are not irrelevant, of course), but it is expensive to remove or eliminate many chemicals. So if the metal in the pot starts out with too much phosphorus, for example, one can add the chemicals and control the temperatures and do the careful mixing that will remove Phosphorus, but this costs money and brain damage. More efficient to start with a pot of purer steel. Ergo Swedish steel and carefully selected scrap.

    But the demand for high-quality HC tool steel is relatively low. A common complaint blacksmiths here in Japan frequently make is that Hitachi can't or won't supply the high-quality steel they want anymore. White Paper and Blue Paper steel are prime examples. Demand is too low to make a pot every month, I am told.

    BTW, something I have observed on this and other forums that is very different from Japan, and I think highlights an interesting difference between the US and Japan in consumer products like tools and washing machines and automobiles. If someone complains about a poor-quality product on a US forum, he is soon silenced by the moderators. I assume this is because the forums are dependent on funding from retailers and wholesalers. Complaints, true or not, are not tolerated for long. In any case, Americans tend to think "that's just his opinion," ignore the complaint, and mind their business. Japan, however, is a very homogenous society, where people think alike. The Herd. People talk and people listen. A bad reputation quickly spreads and is fatal. Lawyers, courts, PR consultants, and conflicted moderators have no control over public opinion. Companies are therefore very careful of their reputation and take complaints very very seriously. This is the forge in which the Japanese automobile manufacturing industry was hammered. Not so the US, as anyone over 50 years of age will differentiate.
    Thanks for the informative reply Stanley. I'm not one to abuse tools so I take the cautions to heart. If it is said "don't twist or pry" than I try not to do so. It's the same for saws. If I'm going to saw something I look for knots and such before I start. If I have a Japanese saw out to work with and see a knot it causes me to get out a western saw. It is the same to me as you don't hit cold chisels, or hardened nails with a claw hammer or you don't debone with a fillet knife. I agree that in today's western world there is a lot of cheap junk out there along with some very overpriced stuff. The cheap stuff is for the throw away group and the high price is for another bunch. The real crafts people are stuck between.
    Jim

  9. #54
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    Quote Originally Posted by Robert Hazelwood View Post
    The replaceable-blade saws I have used (mostly Gyokucho) are not particularly fragile. I use them for everything, any species (mostly typical cabinet hardwoods), including heavy ripping and resawing in white oak, hickory, etc., and don't worry about damaging the teeth. It's not something I'm thinking about while cutting. The only tooth I have broken was from hitting a staple with a Vaughan BearSaw (not sure if that is even Japanese, but it has the same tooth pattern). That saw still works fine, though.

    The chisels are probably more variable, especially on the low end, but the good ones are not prone to chip doing normal work with good technique (not much prying or twisting in a cut, etc.) Although when I watch videos of Japanese craftsmen they are not babying the tools by any means. I think if you do something like drop the tool on a hard floor, hit metal, chop into a thin hard dowel, or something along those lines, they may chip more easily than a softer tool. In my experience when they do chip it is not catastrophic, but still they are more work to restore than western chisels, especially if you observe the usual taboo on power grinding. They would not be my first choice for a beater tool, but in the shop I'm not very worried about their being damaged.

    On, A2, I didn't like it either, but the chipping was of a different kind- tiny chipping at the very edge creating a sort of sawtooth edge and leaving lines on the work. I had to sharpen at 35 degrees or more to mitigate that. These micro chips were barely visible and not difficult to sharpen out, but really limited the usefulness of the blade IMO, since I don't really want 35 degree edges on everything (or much of anything). Hard, plain carbon steel should be able to take a more acute edge angle without this micro chipping, and wear gracefully until its time to resharpen. That's what a good J chisel will be like.
    Robert, I have the same type saws and I have to say that I haven't lost a tooth on any of them. I also have a few Japanese chisels and haven't chipped one yet. All of this is probably because I try not to be hard on them. Maybe too much caution on my part. Or maybe because I fear my technique is not up to keeping those tools from harm.
    Jim

  10. #55
    Quote Originally Posted by Stanley Covington View Post
    I agree with your objection to "magical." There are a lot of wholesalers and distributors that frantically promote such a viewpoint of Japanese tools. It is lies to put money in their pockets. No one who makes a living with such tools believes a word of it. You would be wise to label anyone who promotes such a dishonest fanciful viewpoint as a crook (aka "marketing genius").

    There is a lot of hype in Japan too. But there is a difference. Japanese people have been obsessed with sharp cutting tools for centuries. It is a part of the national memory. The Brits have the Tower and the Crown Jewels. The Americans have the Liberty bell and Declaration of Independence. The French have the Louvre and Versailles. The Japanese have an ancient sword (Kusanagi) as a national regalia (although it has never been seen in public and may not even exist anymore). Sharp things matter greatly in Japan.

    Ask any sushi chef in Tokyo whether or not the cutting ability of his knives make a difference in the flavor of his foods. Ask any temple carpenter if the cutting ability and durability of finishing plane's blade has any impact on the quality of his work. These people complain like harpies and return tools as defective that do not meet their expectations. Not so much in the West. Western manufacturers are focused on making a usable (tool-like?) product, with a statistically-acceptable number of defects, at a price their customers will pay. The result has been lowered expectations and debased quality from what it once was in the the West. Americans nowadays place highest priority on large volume at low cost, and do not angrily complain and demand refunds and badmouth low quality tools.

    It wasn't always this way in America.

    I am afraid the scrap metal from Nash Ramblers and Edsels turned red and went away long ago! I understand from direct contacts with the manufacturers of high-quality tool steel in Japan that they put some carefully-sorted scrap from known sources into the pot, not cubed cars from Mexican junkyards. There is a lot of chemical testing of scrap before it goes into the pot, which is unusual in the steel world. The majority is Swedish pig-iron (ingots), I am told.

    The thing about manufacturing steel is that, like most things, steel makers simply make the steel that their customer wants at the price point they will pay. Those buyers in turn sell to others, and down the line until it ends up in our hands. I hope Larry Frank chimes in and shares his professional expertise on the subject with us, even though he dislikes HC steel.

    When making steel, one can easily add chemicals to the pot (cost issues are not irrelevant, of course), but it is expensive to remove or eliminate many chemicals. So if the metal in the pot starts out with too much phosphorus, for example, one can add the chemicals and control the temperatures and do the careful mixing that will remove Phosphorus, but this costs money and brain damage. More efficient to start with a pot of purer steel. Ergo Swedish steel and carefully selected scrap.

    But the demand for high-quality HC tool steel is relatively low. A common complaint blacksmiths here in Japan frequently make is that Hitachi can't or won't supply the high-quality steel they want anymore. White Paper and Blue Paper steel are prime examples. Demand is too low to make a pot every month, I am told.

    BTW, something I have observed on this and other forums that is very different from Japan, and I think highlights an interesting difference between the US and Japan in consumer products like tools and washing machines and automobiles. If someone complains about a poor-quality product on a US forum, he is soon silenced by the moderators. I assume this is because the forums are dependent on funding from retailers and wholesalers. Complaints, true or not, are not tolerated for long. In any case, Americans tend to think "that's just his opinion," ignore the complaint, and mind their business. Japan, however, is a very homogenous society, where people think alike. The Herd. People talk and people listen. A bad reputation quickly spreads and is fatal. Lawyers, courts, PR consultants, and conflicted moderators have no control over public opinion. Companies are therefore very careful of their reputation and take complaints very very seriously. This is the forge in which the Japanese automobile manufacturing industry was hammered. Not so the US, as anyone over 50 years of age will differentiate.
    Thanks for the insights Stan! I enjoyed reading this,
    Fred

  11. #56
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    Stan, I also appreciate the insightful comments. Thank you, Patrick

  12. #57
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    Quote Originally Posted by Robert Hazelwood View Post
    The replaceable-blade saws I have used (mostly Gyokucho) are not particularly fragile. I use them for everything, any species (mostly typical cabinet hardwoods), including heavy ripping and resawing in white oak, hickory, etc., and don't worry about damaging the teeth. It's not something I'm thinking about while cutting. The only tooth I have broken was from hitting a staple with a Vaughan BearSaw (not sure if that is even Japanese, but it has the same tooth pattern). That saw still works fine, though.

    The chisels are probably more variable, especially on the low end, but the good ones are not prone to chip doing normal work with good technique (not much prying or twisting in a cut, etc.) Although when I watch videos of Japanese craftsmen they are not babying the tools by any means. I think if you do something like drop the tool on a hard floor, hit metal, chop into a thin hard dowel, or something along those lines, they may chip more easily than a softer tool. In my experience when they do chip it is not catastrophic, but still they are more work to restore than western chisels, especially if you observe the usual taboo on power grinding. They would not be my first choice for a beater tool, but in the shop I'm not very worried about their being damaged.

    On, A2, I didn't like it either, but the chipping was of a different kind- tiny chipping at the very edge creating a sort of sawtooth edge and leaving lines on the work. I had to sharpen at 35 degrees or more to mitigate that. These micro chips were barely visible and not difficult to sharpen out, but really limited the usefulness of the blade IMO, since I don't really want 35 degree edges on everything (or much of anything). Hard, plain carbon steel should be able to take a more acute edge angle without this micro chipping, and wear gracefully until its time to resharpen. That's what a good J chisel will be like.
    Robert

    I am very accomplished at breaking things. Since I was a small child, my dedication to destruction has been unwavering. My favorite classes in school and the part of research I enjoyed the most were materials engineering because I got to break thing and figure out why when and how.

    I use my tools hard, and learn their limits early. Not abuse (well, maybe abuse if judged by the results) but always pushing for greater speed. I know that Japanese saws are more fragile because I have broken teeth and kinked blades of all types of saws, and do not feel bad about it.

    As Derek wisely pointed out some time ago, allowing a Japanese saws blade to get too far out of a straight line when cutting can tear off teeth. Too much force can too. If one tooth breaks off, it will damage a dozen teeth that strike it as the stroke continues. Western saws, as you know, have softer ( softer frequently equates to tougher in metals) teeth that are shorter and less likely to break. In my experience (David Weaver, a Japanese sawsmith, a temple carpenter and I did side by side drag races) Japanese saws cut faster. That is why I am convinced I need the speed, cleaner cut, sharpness, and often greater precision of Japanese saws as well as the toughness, ease of sharpening, and longer reach of my Western saws.

    I think the damage to my chisels and planes has been mostly due to striking embedded mineral particles in the wood, and also to allowing a bending force to develop at the cutting edge.

    A recent case surprised the heck out of me. A Construction project I managed in Yokohama and completed last April had a "wet" engawa (kind of a wooden porch jutting out from the building) and projecting out into a garden built on an upper level as an extension of a restaurant. The deck was made from Ipe. I had the GC's sub replace several planks because they were as black as ebony, and not the medium brown the Owner selected. Anyway, one of those planks found its way to my little woodshop, and I made it into a base for my favorite sharpening stone. The ends of this base are rounded and curve down. I cut them using a good chisel ( not my best, but still good) in the 10 pc set I keep handy mounted to my tool chests lid.

    The hardness of the Ipe, the silica, and the angle of the cut combined with my hammer's joy caused the chisels ( actually 3 chisels) to chip like a sonovabitch. This black Ipe likewise tore up my plane blade.

    I have not repaired the chisel yet and will try to post some pictures at a later time.

    My point is that I would have been wiser to be less impatient and choose my tools more wisely, e.g. use my LN plane with its A2 blade, and my old yellow plastic handle ( you know, the one with the steel cap) Stanley chisel to work this demonic wood. Both tool's blades would have immediately dulled and gone ragged, but would have kept cutting after a fashion probably without serious chipping.

    I was careful to use my Bishop back saw to cut the wood, so no teeth were broken.

    If you manage to always use the right tool, and use it properly, I am sure you will continue to have good results.

    Stan

  13. #58

    "If someone complains about a poor-quality product on a US forum, he is soon silenced by the moderators. I assume this is because the forums are dependent on funding from retailers and wholesalers. Complaints, true or not, are not tolerated for long. In any case, Americans tend to think "that's just his opinion," ignore the complaint, and mind their business."

    Stan, I too enjoyed your post. Very insightful. And I certainly take your broader point about what reputation means in Japanese vs Western contexts. Not meaning to do diminish that, I will say, though at least here on SMC, complaints about vendors are not silenced because of sponsorship reasons. They are silenced when they appear to be unsubstantiated, or when the supplier does not appear to have been given a fair chance to respond. In this sense, I think we DO play judge, but it's not for partisan reasons. It's for (at least some of us) out of a spirit of fairness. That is not to say we get it right all the time.



  14. #59
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    Quote Originally Posted by Prashun Patel View Post
    "... we DO play judge, but it's not for partisan reasons. It's for (at least some of us) out of a spirit of fairness. That is not to say we get it right all the time.
    Sorry if I cast aspersions on your motives. That was not my intention. My comments were general in nature.


    But I must observe that even when the judgement is not "partisan" (not sure what "partisan" means in this case) the decision to quash is almost always still based on opinion, and personal "feelings" about fairness, not evidence or even an effort to independently confirm the cause of the complaint.

    Trolls exist, and must be dealt with. Many exaggerate, and such opinions must be judged by the readers. Moderators are necessary.

    But does muzzling serve the best interests of the forum members who need to make decisions about whether or not to lay down hard earned cash for possibly-problematic tools? I think not.

    Marketing is balls-out over-the-top and very slick nowadays. Little of it can be trusted.

    I always want to hear the opinions and experiences about quality, performance, value, customer service, etc. of people that have actually bought and used a product, or that at least have useful insight into it. Having those opinions silenced decreases the value of a forum, IMO.
    Last edited by Stanley Covington; 10-18-2017 at 9:20 AM.

  15. #60
    Quote Originally Posted by Stanley Covington View Post

    ... the decision to quash is almost always still based on opinion, and personal "feelings" about fairness, not evidence or even an effort to independently confirm the cause of the complaint.
    Fair assessment.

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