I was awestruck watching Frank Klausz do hand-chopped mortises in his M&T video a few months back. This summer I tackled large scale mortises while building my workbench, using a brace and bit followed by bench chisels to clean up. Now I'm ready to expand my Neander horizons and invest in some mortising chisels.

There's just no easy way to put this, I'm on a very tight budget. If one can't get a decent mortise chisel for less than $40, then ok, I need to hear that. And yes, I'm keeping my eye out for old Greeley's, Swan's, Stanleys and Sorby's. But if my lack of success over the past few months is any indication, I'm likely to still be looking for vintage chisels next fall unless I get really lucky.

My research on new mortise chisels brands so far can be summarized as follows (feel free to comment, dispute, question my sanity, etc):

New Robert Sorbys (Registered mortise, heavy duty mortise): Not as good as their price or reputation would suggest: poor edge retention, disappointing performance for many recent purchasers, relatively expensive.

Japanese Mortise chisels: Very hard steel and hence edge holding capability, good performance with the negative of edge brittleness, especially when levering out waste. (these are on my "consider" list). Expensive.

Two Cherries: The gold standard among western mortise chisels. Not as hard as Japanese chisels with possible side benefit of less tendency for edges to break down in rough use. I'm considering these, but they too are quite expensive.

Hirsh: made by the same manufacturer as Two Cherries. The equal to them except for finish and polishing. More comfortable handles? Rumored to be less expensive than Two Cherries. Also rumored to actually be for sale. I'd love to consider these, but I can't find them anywhere.

Crown Tools Mortise Chisels. I've found references to Crown manufactured mortising chisels but I can't get a firm read on whether they are any good, how much they cost and even who would sell them. My sense (based on a few Crown tools that I do own and use) is that they traffic in the appearance and reputation of old world European tooling, but don't quite measure up. My guess is that they would be worse than Sorbys.

And then, my latest find, Diefenbacher tools sells "English Mortising Chisels" at a (relatively) attractive price. About 60% of the cost of a similarly sized Two Cherries. I've sent an email to Ron Diefenbacher re: their quality of steel, etc, but haven't gotten a response yet. (Imagine that, he's not patiently waiting next to his computer anxiously awaiting the opportunity to validate the low-end options of cheap bastards like me!)

Can anyone offer other alternatives that I can research? Am I all wet about my research so far? Should I pick a less expensive hobby?

A related question, but what sizes chisels do I need? Except for my workbench, I've been working almost exclusively with surfaced 4/4 (3/4") I'm thinking definitely the 3/8". If I can only afford two right now, should I go with the 1/4" or the 1/2"?

Thanks in advance for any insight, suggestions you may have.