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Thread: A slightly different chisel question

  1. #16
    "...Japanese chisels are too hard for most western woodworking. You have to be careful with Japanese chisels compared to western chisels or the edge will chip..."

    I gotta play "devil's advocate" here. It's true that Japanese chisels are much harder than "western" chisels and it's also true that they can chip. But good Japanese chisels are so superior in every other respect that I would have to say that the advantages far outweigh any shortcomings including their typically higher cost.
    David DeCristoforo

  2. #17
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    What David said. It depends on which Japanese chisel you are looking at.

    Or to look at it another way, to make a statement like, "Japanese chisels are too hard for most western woodworking. You have to be careful with Japanese chisels compared to western chisels or the edge will chip," is like saying, "Western chisels are too soft for most woodworking, and will roll their edge," based on the experience of the OP with his Marples blue handled chisels.

    I've had very good experiences with the Fujihiro chisels, available from Hida Tool, which are a good middle of the pack chisel, somewhat like Steel City compared to Grizzly and Minimax. These chisels didn't chip when I made a project from various South American woods.

  3. #18
    I'm not a big fan of Japanese chisels so I'll play "angel's advocate" (since David is playing "Devil's advocate") and give the reasons I don't like them.

    A Japanese chisel is made from a layer of medium carbon steel, with a backing of very low carbon steel - so low that the backing will not harden with heat treatment. The carbon steel in a Japanese chisel is similar to the carbon steel in older western chisels, such as Witherby, et al.

    When heat treating carbon steel, there are two major aspects of the final product: hardness and toughness. Hardness is the ability of the steel to maintain its shape without deformation. Toughness is the ability of the steel to absorb shock without fracture. Hardness and toughness have an inverse relationship - that is, if you make regular carbon steel harder, it is not as tough. If you make it very tough, it will not be as hard.

    The steel in Japanese chisels is made harder (through heat treatment) than western chisels and the iron backing is used to make the overall chisel tougher - so the chisel itself will not break if stressed in certain ways. While the iron backing provides this advantage for the overall tool, the edge does not have any backing and is just carbon steel. This is the reason that Japanese chisels should not be sharpened to as acute an angle as many western chisels are sharpened to - while a western chisel might be sharpened to a 25* angle, the Japanese chisel should be sharpened to a 30-35* angle in order to reduce edge chipping.

    The harder the steel is made in a Japanese chisel, the longer the edge will last but the more likely it will chip. Some Japanese chisels are made with the edge steel less hard (closer to the hardness of western chisels) and those edges are not as likely to chip. But if you're going to soften the edge of a Japanese chisel, you could just as well use a western chisel. So the net is that hardness/toughness is a tradeoff.

    I'll note here that laminated chisels and plane blades were made in the west in the 18th and 19th centuries (and probably before that) by laminating a steel edge to a wrought iron body. If an extremely hard edge was of value in western woodworking, our western ancestors would have begun producing the tools that way.

    All the Japanese chisels I've used have been too hard and it was too easy to chip the edge. And when you chip the edge, you have a big sharpening job on your hands, not just some honing.

    When I talk to people who are Japanese tool advocates, they always have reasons for my bad experience with the tools. If only I would buy xyz Japanese tools, I'd have an outstanding experience with the tool and would be converted. But so far, no conversions have occurred for me.

    The other thing I don't like about Japanese chisels is the handle. Japanese chisel handles are hooped and the end of the chisel is uncomfortable in my hand when I'm using the chisel with hand pressure (not striking it with a hammer).

    My preference in chisels is for a western chisel with a socket handle so that I can easily make my own handles for the tools. So far, my favorite chisels are older western chisels, such as Witherby, Swan, DR Barton, and New Haven Edge Tools, and the LN chisels as new chisels.

    Personally, for someone who has only had experience with Marples blue handle chisels, I'd recommend (as I did above) the older western chisels and the LN chisels before I'd recommend spending the large sums required for name brand Japanese chisels.

    Once you have more experience, you should try Japanese chisels just so you know what they are and their advantages and disadvantages. But I do not recommend them as a beginning set.

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

  4. #19
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    It sounds like a pretty straightforward trade off. Stronger blade, less sharpening, but greater possibility of chipping which would cause more sharpening. If that is the case, theoretically if someone learned to work with Japanese chisels well over time and grew to know the point where pressure would chip the blade, they could get the benefit but not the downside. No? Of course, the chisels might not be as well rounded - you'd have to be much more careful with them.

    I liked your writeup Mike, very informative; the only part I didn't follow was the bit about "If an extremely hard edge was of value in western woodworking, our western ancestors would have begun producing the tools that way." That argument could be given for Eastern woodworkers too (especially since they've been doing it a lot longer).

  5. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Peter Quadarella View Post
    I liked your writeup Mike, very informative; the only part I didn't follow was the bit about "If an extremely hard edge was of value in western woodworking, our western ancestors would have begun producing the tools that way." That argument could be given for Eastern woodworkers too (especially since they've been doing it a lot longer).
    I think the main difference is the kind of wood the western and eastern woodworkers worked with. In the west, furniture makers worked primarily with hardwoods - and early on (17th century and earlier), it was a lot of oak.

    In Japan, they worked primarily with softwoods (don't know the exact woods).

    I had a hand tools teacher that claimed that hard chisels were best used with softer woods and softer chisels were best used with hardwoods. I don't know if there was any science behind his claims but that's what he believed and he had a lot of experience.

    Based on my teacher's theory, both eastern and western woodworkers chose the best tool for their work - which is what you'd expect.

    Mike

    [To comment on your other point, I think that's exactly correct. People who know how to use Japanese chisels can get good performance out of them. I just don't believe they're the best for beginners in western woodworking.]
    Last edited by Mike Henderson; 04-28-2008 at 11:43 PM.
    Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.

  6. #21
    Well, I'm not gonna write that much stuff but I will concede that I should have said "for me" the advantages outweigh the shortcomings. I "fell in love" with Japanese chisels the first time I used them and since that time, in my shop, "western style" chisels have been interchangeable with pry bars, glue scrappers, ice picks, etc.... I might add that I work with a lot of really hard woods and I get super clean cuts for much longer between sharpenings. And, yes, I have had to work out some nicks on the edges from time to time as well as smack a few employees in the back of the head when they reached for one of my Japanese chisels at the wrong moment.... But what the heck. If everyone agreed on everything there would not be much fun in discussing anything would there?
    David DeCristoforo

  7. #22
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    I just used a set of Marples "blue beaters" to chop out 96 tails and 96 pins. I run approximately a 37* angle and had to strop them aobut every 30 tails or pins completed. Takes only a minute and did not have an edge roll on poplar.

    They would roll about half way through using hard-wood from my experience with them. But doesn't take to long to re-sharpen using scary sharp as I mainly use a 1/4" and 3/8". The Marples are quite a bit shorter than when I first starting using them as they have been re-sharpened many times. Still going strong at this point and I have a set of Ashley Isles to back them up as they get the call for general work.

    But.. I must add that the "blue beaters" were puchased in 1974 and Marples used some very high quality Birmingham steel in those days. I paid around $26 for a set so they haven't gone up much.. but the quality has come down drastically from what I've seen.

    Still... not bad for the money!

    Sarge..

  8. #23
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    I think

    I think that the whole japanese chisel issue can be summed up this way.

    If you were to try to use a japanese chisel to chop a dovetail on cocobolo, you'd be up $#!+ creek after the first mallet blow. (much less lignum vitae)

    for Oak and other american hardwoods, japanese chisels are on the edge of the envelope and western chisels are a well balanced traditional favorite.

    just my two cents.

    cheers,

    dan
    Building my own Legos!

  9. #24
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    chisels

    I'm firmly in the Japanese chisel camp, at least if we're discussing tools that are readily available. But where possible for dovetails (all tails, and pins on through dovetails) I always used a band saw to waste most of the material, with final paring to the line done with chisels. It takes too long otherwise.

    I've seen a Japanese saw break on the job, once, but never the edge of a chisel in the hands of an experienced user. Doesn't mean it can't happen, of course, but it's not like these things are made of porcelain.

    As a side note, I'm not a huge fan of secondary bevels on chisels (Western style plane blades, maybe), but I absolutely don't think they can be done well by hand, that is, without a guide that keeps the tool at a consistent angle. IMO, the human hasn't been born who can create and control a 1/32"-1/16" microbevel solely with his or her hands/wrists/forearms. Micro rounding over is really what's happening if you're using the "finally, the tilt the tool up a degree or two" method.
    Last edited by Frank Drew; 04-29-2008 at 11:15 AM.

  10. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Barr View Post
    I think that the whole japanese chisel issue can be summed up this way.

    If you were to try to use a japanese chisel to chop a dovetail on cocobolo, you'd be up $#!+ creek after the first mallet blow. (much less lignum vitae)
    Um, no.

    Look here.

  11. #26
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    Instead of buying a set, try a couple Japanese and a couple of western chisels. This way you can make up your own mind. One thing is technique. Chop in lighter passes removing the waste more often. This way the edge lasts a lot longer. About 1/8" deep each time is pretty good.
    "All great work starts with love .... then it is no longer work"

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