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Thread: Japanese chisels vs. cocobolo, with lots of pics

  1. #61

    Well, I for one, want to defend the Western Chisel

    The old laminated Western chisels and gouges are ever bit as good a quality as laminated Japanese chisels and gouges.

    Stephen

  2. #62
    Quote Originally Posted by Wilbur Pan View Post
    The horse is way dead, but there still is something about this that doesn't make sense.

    Maybe I'm being dense, but I'll ask again, since I think I missed the answer: due to this issue of the cost of skilled labor vs. machine made tools, are you saying that in a "fair" comparison between a Japanese chisel and a western chisel, the Japanese chisel has to cost less than the western chisel? In other words, I shouldn't compare an Imai chisel with a Lie-Nielsen, since they both cost about $50; instead I should pick a Japanese chisel that sells for, say, $25-30 for the comparison?

    I have to believe that your answer is going to be "no", since no other tool comparison I have ever seen compares price only in terms of the cost of manufacturing separate from the other costs of running that business, which leads to my second point of confusion. I'm going to use Imai and Lie-Nielsen chisels as an example, mainly because they do cost the same. By your reasoning, less of the price of the Lie-Nielsen chisel goes to the cost of manufacturing since they use modern methods of manufacture. Wouldn't it be logical, then, to pick the Imai chisel over the Lie-Nielsen since more of your tool budget dollar goes to the actual cost of the tool itself?

    If your answer to my first question is "yes", well, I honestly have no idea how to respond to that proposition, other than to say that it's a really unique way of looking at tool comparisons.
    I don't know how to judge equal quality between a western chisel and a Japanese chisel.

    However, based on economic theory, I do think a machine made chisel will be less expensive than a hand made chisel of equal quality (if you can define "equal").

    Economic theory says that capital costs are generally less expensive than labor cost. A machine can turn out a large number of product in a short time, with a relatively small labor cost per unit. When a product is made by hand, say a Japanese chisel made by an artisan, with perhaps one helper, the cost of each laborer (a day's wage plus benefits and taxes), plus the variable cost of manufacture (fuel, materials, waste, etc.), plus the capital cost of any buildings and equipment (including repairs and maintenance on the building and equipment) has to be reflected in the cost of the items made in that day (plus a profit).

    The whole concept of the Industrial Revolution is that an item can be produced at a much lower cost by utilizing capital (meaning machines) in place of labor.

    What we have in western chisels and Japanese chisels is a similar contrast. The western chisels are made with more machine process than Japanese chisels so I would expect that a western chisel of equal quality to a Japanese chisel would cost less to produce.

    There's been lots of study of marketing channels and the results are that the channel costs are about equal for competitive products at equal levels of sales (lower sales equal higher channel costs) in the same channel (such as retail catalog sales, or Internet sales) . There's a whole bunch of things that have to be done to bring a product from manufacture to delivery to the customer and they all cost money. You can outsource some of the channel (like using a distributor) but the function still has to be done and the distributor (in this example) will require a markup that would be equal or greater than if the company did the function themselves. When I say "cost" here, I'm talking about markup per unit. So the distributor pays for the product and sells it to a retailer at a markup that represents their cost, plus a profit.

    So to answer your question, the result will likely be the opposite. If the profit level is about equal for the western tool and the Japanese tool, you would select a lower retail cost western tool compared to the Japanese tool since the Japanese tool has a higher cost to manufacture and about equal channel costs (at equal quality - if you can define quality).

    +++++++++++++

    And even though we've beat this issue to death, my pet peeve is that no one seems to want to know why certain Japanese chisels are reputed to be better than other Japanese chisels. I keep bringing this question up and never get a response. Perhaps no one knows, but if I was a real advocate of some product, I'd want to know why it's better so that when someone asked me I could offer a reasonable argument about why it's so good. "Try it, you'll like it" just isn't adequate for me.

    Mike
    Last edited by Mike Henderson; 05-05-2008 at 11:14 PM.
    Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.

  3. #63
    Actually, the "Fujihiro" chisels are pretty much "entry level" for artisan Japnese chisels. Look at the "Funahiro" chisels (also on Hida's web site) which are closer to two thousand dollars for a "set" of ten. They also offer a Funahiro plane for $4,800. I have a plane that would probably sell for close to eight thousand dollars if I were to be inclined to sell it and was able to find someone fool enough to buy it. At this level, you are no longer buying performance. You are buying "art". And when you start buying art, all logic goes out the window and economic theory becomes irrelevant.
    David DeCristoforo

  4. #64
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Henderson View Post
    ...I think I even commented that a Japanese chisel with the right combination of hardness and toughness could do essentially anything a western chisel could do. It is wrong (incorrect) to accuse me of making judgements of all Japanese chisels based on my experience with Grizzly chisels....
    It occurs to me that cheap laminated edge tools may well be poorer performers than cheap steel only edge tools. Why? Because it's harder to make laminated chisels. I have piles of old laminated western blades that I like as well as all but the best of my Japanese chisels, and they are quality western chisels like Addis, Cam, Swan, Winchester, Herring, etc.

    Pam

  5. #65
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Henderson View Post
    I don't know how to judge equal quality between a western chisel and a Japanese chisel.
    That's fairly easy. Take two chisels, chop out a bunch of waste (equal amounts, of course), and see which one retains the better edge without chipping.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Henderson View Post
    And even though we've beat this issue to death, my pet peeve is that no one seems to want to know why certain Japanese chisels are reputed to be better than other Japanese chisels.
    You mean something like, "You can take an Imai chisel and chop through 40 linear inches of dovetail waste in white oak without significant chipping and still have an edge sharp enough to make endgrain shavings in pine, which you can't do with the Japanese chisels from Grizzly without getting a big chip or losing the edge"? That statement would be enough for me to accept that Imai chisels are better than the Japanese chisels from Grizzly. At least it quantifies things better than, "Try it, you'll like it."

    Actually, statements similar to that are why I bought the Imai chisels in the first place. Basically, at the time they were the cheapest Japanese chisel I could find that no one had negative experiences with, and the seller had a reputation for excellent customer service, so that's what I went with.

    If you're looking more for what differences there are in the manufacturing process that makes this so, I won't be of much help. I do know that if you are looking purely at the end result, the differences are clear, and if that's the case, then whether the difference is due different processing of the white steel, differences in forge welding technique, or that the tool maker says a prayer to the Shinto gods at the beginning of the workday and over each chisel as it is shipped out, as long as you wind up with a better tool, I'm not sure it matters too much how that difference got there.

    What I am sure of is that it's not the type of steel alone that makes the difference between chisel performance.

    Here's another way of looking at it. Both you and I can start with the same amount of 4/4 cherry, and build a dovetailed box. The end product is shown to the members of SMC, and pretty much everyone will say that you made the better box because my woodworking skills are still pretty much in the sux0rs range. (Sux0rs means "godawful", for those of you who don't speak l33t.)

    No one actually watches us build our boxes, so no one can say why yours was so much better than mine, but the difference is clear. So we continue to make dovetailed boxes, and you keep turning out really excellent boxes, and I keep making hollow square pieces of firewood, and everyone continues to agree that your boxes rock, and wonder why I even bother.

    But then someone comes along and says, "Well, I've seen Wilbur's boxes, and they just suck. I hear Mike's boxes are better than Wilbur's, but no one can tell me why they are better, and no one wants to know why Mike's box is better, so I'm not sure that one really is better than the other. After all, they start with the same 4/4 cherry."

    Or, as I said somewhere recently, Jacques Pepin and I can start with the same chicken, root vegetables, and herbs, and I can guarantee that his roast chicken will be far superior than mine.

    -----

    Mike, actually, I'll be upfront as to why I keep kicking the expired nag, and what seems to be so frustrating to me. I keep hearing you say that Japanese chisels chip more than western chisels. I offer evidence that there is at least one Japanese chisel that doesn't chip easily in a test that seems reasonable to me. Yet you keep making statements like

    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Henderson View Post
    I also find that Japanese chisels chip their edges easier than western chisels. And based on the fact that Japanese chisels are heat treated harder, that's pretty hard to deny (the harder the chisel, the easier it chips). There's no magic in the metal - and if there were, other chisel manufacturers would use that magic also.
    as if it were a global truth, when in actuality your experience with Japanese chisels seems to be limited to a few low end brands. It's the apparent universality of your conclusion that I have issues with. Looking back on your comments about Japanese chisels, you rarely say which Japanese chisels you worked with, or what price range they fall into, which does impact the conclusion a reader of your comments might make.

    I've said this before, but it bears repeating. The western chisels I have on hand are the blue handled Marple chisels. Easy to sharpen, and takes a sharp edge, but I keep losing and/or rolling the edge fairly quickly. But I don't go around saying things like, "I also find that western chisels roll their edges easier than Japanese chisels. And based on the fact that western chisels are heat treated softer, that's pretty hard to deny (the softer the chisel, the easier you lose or roll the edge)." That would be an unfair statement, as is yours.

    Based on my experience, and the experience of others, I've concluded that paying less than $50 for a Japanese chisel is going to be an exercise in frustration. It's no different than saying that among modern day smoothing planes, paying less than $200 is going to be an exercise in frustration since below that price all you'll get are Anants and modern day Stanleys. Of course, instead of putting things in those terms, we tend to say things like, "You want a great chisel? Buy an Imai!" or "You want a smoothing plane that rocks? Get the Lee Valley bevel up smoother!"

    I'm not trying to deny your experience with Japanese chisels. I do think that your experience cannot be extrapolated to all Japanese chisels.

    On the other hand, I'd be real interested to see, if you have any laminated chisels among your old Witherbys, if a laminated Witherby holds an edge like my Imai chisel does. My bet is that the laminated Witherbys probably do.

  6. #66
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Henderson View Post
    ...Economic theory says that capital costs are generally less expensive than labor cost. A machine can turn out a large number of product in a short time, with a relatively small labor cost per unit. When a product is made by hand, say a Japanese chisel made by an artisan, with perhaps one helper, the cost of each laborer (a day's wage plus benefits and taxes), plus the variable cost of manufacture (fuel, materials, waste, etc.), plus the capital cost of any buildings and equipment (including repairs and maintenance on the building and equipment) has to be reflected in the cost of the items made in that day (plus a profit).

    The whole concept of the Industrial Revolution is that an item can be produced at a much lower cost by utilizing capital (meaning machines) in place of labor.

    What we have in western chisels and Japanese chisels is a similar contrast. The western chisels are made with more machine process than Japanese chisels so I would expect that a western chisel of equal quality to a Japanese chisel would cost less to produce.

    There's been lots of study of marketing channels and the results are that the channel costs are about equal for competitive products at equal levels of sales (lower sales equal higher channel costs) in the same channel (such as retail catalog sales, or Internet sales) . There's a whole bunch of things that have to be done to bring a product from manufacture to delivery to the customer and they all cost money. You can outsource some of the channel (like using a distributor) but the function still has to be done and the distributor (in this example) will require a markup that would be equal or greater than if the company did the function themselves. When I say "cost" here, I'm talking about markup per unit. So the distributor pays for the product and sells it to a retailer at a markup that represents their cost, plus a profit.

    ...
    And even though we've beat this issue to death, my pet peeve is that no one seems to want to know why certain Japanese chisels are reputed to be better than other Japanese chisels. I keep bringing this question up and never get a response. Perhaps no one knows, but if I was a real advocate of some product, I'd want to know why it's better so that when someone asked me I could offer a reasonable argument about why it's so good. "Try it, you'll like it" just isn't adequate for me.

    Mike
    Your equation only holds if the price of labor is expensive. As we continue our race to the bottom you can expect that labor will be cheaper than capital at some point, probably real soon now.

    As to why I say they're better, I don't in any general way. I consider laminated, hand forged tools superior, because I've used them successfully and they hold their edges and take a great edge.

    Pam

  7. #67
    Wilbur - as I said many times, I'm not trying to extrapolate my experience with Japanese chisels to all Japanese chisels.

    My comment about the hardness of the steel is based on how steel works - as it is heat treated harder, it loses toughness. If the Japanese smiths had some process magic that allowed the steel in Japanese chisels to be hard and tough every other maker of steel would use the same technique. Japanese chisels are heat treated harder so they do not have the toughness "in the steel" as a piece of steel that is not hardened as much.

    Someone could make an argument that the iron backing has some effect on the toughness of the chisel. If so, I'd ask for an explanation of how that works on the edge which is not laminated.

    And if laminating, by itself, was the magic ingredient, any laminated chisel would be superior to any non laminated chisel.

    What I see is that essentially all Japanese smiths start with the same materials but some are reputed to produce "better" chisels than others. What do they do that produces a "better" chisel? Or alternatively, what's different in the chisel that's "better" compared to the chisel that judged not as good?

    ++++++++++++++++++++

    Regarding the problem of finding "equal quality" chisels, one idea might be to define some testing protocol (and that would be difficult to agree on), then we'd start running different chisels through the protocol. After we ran all the tests, we select a western chisel and a Japanese chisel that were scored equally on the tests. We could then say that those two chisels were of "equal quality". The problem is defining the protocol so that it doesn't favor one or the other.

    Mike

    [Wilbur - I have great respect for you, but let's give this a break. We've beat it to death and past.]
    Last edited by Mike Henderson; 05-06-2008 at 12:52 AM.
    Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.

  8. #68
    Quote Originally Posted by Pam Niedermayer View Post
    Your equation only holds if the price of labor is expensive. As we continue our race to the bottom you can expect that labor will be cheaper than capital at some point, probably real soon now.

    As to why I say they're better, I don't in any general way. I consider laminated, hand forged tools superior, because I've used them successfully and they hold their edges and take a great edge.

    Pam
    The cost of labor only affects which things can be made less expensively by machine. As labor gets more expensive, more items can be made less expensively by machine.

    What's actually happening in the global market is that labor costs are rising in the traditional low cost producers (China and India) which is causing manufacturers to move production of items that require low cost labor (clothing is one) to other locations.

    Also, capital is pretty cheap and doesn't show any trend to get significantly more expensive any time soon - unless inflation starts getting bad.

    Mike
    Last edited by Mike Henderson; 05-06-2008 at 12:51 AM.
    Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.

  9. #69
    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Henderson View Post


    What I see is that essentially all Japanese smiths start with the same materials but some are reputed to produce "better" chisels than others. What do they do that produces a "better" chisel? Or alternatively, what's different in the chisel that's "better" compared to the chisel that judged not as good?



    Mike

    [Wilbur - I have great respect for you, but let's give this a break. We've beat it to death and past.]

    It all comes down to experience and technique. I know that a lot has to do with the amount of heat the smith uses, color of the flame and metal before removing from the forge. What the smith uses to fuel the forge may even affect the final product. I'm sure the numbers of laminations affect the tool as well and the rate of speed in which the material was formed, was it allowed to cool to much etc?

    Dale
    DJO Furniture Maker / Timberwerks Studio

  10. #70
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    so...what we have here is...

    So, Wilbur, what we finally have here, is some solid information from someone who actually owns Japanese chisels that are from a named maker, , and has demonstrated their worthiness, through pictures and demos.

    I certainly appreciate all you have done. Thanks for taking the time to put all the work/pictures together. Not to mention, sacrificing the wood.

    Out of curiousity, how do you sharpen? Do you use a flat grinder for the bevel edge and waterstones?

    Dan
    Sharpening skills, the plane truth.

  11. #71
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wilbur Pan View Post
    Based on my experience, and the experience of others, I've concluded that paying less than $50 for a Japanese chisel is going to be an exercise in frustration.
    Wilbur, could you tell me what problems those are, or point me to some discussion. I was thinking of getting a Japanwoodworker or Hida "store brand" chisel to try out a Japanese chisel. To my mind they are not "cheap" tools, and I would think that for their own reputation, these two vendors would private brand something significantly better than Grizzly or even Woodcraft. But neither are they as expensive as the Imai's you have. Why should I bite the bullet and try out an Imai or similarly-priced chisel?

  12. #72
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Henderson View Post
    ...Also, capital is pretty cheap and doesn't show any trend to get significantly more expensive any time soon - unless inflation starts getting bad.
    And you have been living in the western world for the last year?

    Pam

  13. #73
    Quote Originally Posted by Pam Niedermayer View Post
    And you have been living in the western world for the last year?

    Pam
    Yes.

    Mike
    Last edited by Mike Henderson; 05-06-2008 at 12:20 PM.
    Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.

  14. #74
    Hey Mike and Pam... Maybe it's time to start a new thread? One with a subject relating to economic issues? We are drifting here folks.....
    David DeCristoforo

  15. #75
    Quote Originally Posted by David DeCristoforo View Post
    Hey Mike and Pam... Maybe it's time to start a new thread? One with a subject relating to economic issues? We are drifting here folks.....
    Yes, you're right, David. Sorry.

    Mike
    Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.

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