Upgrading from the Lidl chisels...what next?

[Bodgers]

I have the Hornbeam handled £8 set of Lidl chisels, they work, but can be a bit brittle at the edge.

I was looking to see if spending no more than £100 on a small set of 4-6 would make for a better experience.

These are the 'premium' Stanley Bailey set that came out over the last few years (very similar to the sweetheart set, but without the socket type handles):

https://www.amazon.com/Stanley-16-401-B ... B003HGH3W2

A Narex set:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Narex-Chisels- ... ex+chisels

Or a wildcard, some Japanese chisels:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/RIGORO-Japanes ... B004GBKYN2

Any recommendations?

 

[AndyT]

Old ones. Seriously. I use a mix of 1970s Stanley with blue plastic handles and older early 20th century Marples etc boxwood handled ones. You don't really need many sizes but it's nice to have a square edged firmer and a proper bevel edged for some of the most used.
Easily available from old tool dealers, boot fairs or eBay.

 

[TFrench]

I've got some new dewalt ones that I use for rough bashing in things that might have nails in. They're really brittle and pretty useless. All my good chisels are old boxwood handled ones that I've picked up in job lots and car boots.

 

[mbartlett99]

I ended up choosing the Sweethearts for my regular bench set - steel is good enough but the clincher was that they are so much more comfortable to use. Finish out of the box was quite good with all of them having just a slight hollow in the back 1-2 cm from the blade and they're easy to sharpen.

I started off with vintage Sorby but never really got on with them being so handle heavy - steel is good though. Getting them into proper condition was not at all fun.

I also have a set of Veritas butt chisels - PMV11 - that I bought as a present to myself while in the USA; good for use with a mallet but a bit painful in the hands if you're using them for while. If you chip an edge you will know what pain is all about.

 

[G S Haydon]

Reduce the number to 4 and Ashley Illes Mrk2 are, in my opinion, the best.

Like Andy said, second hand is better value. Just walked through our local flea market. Chisels like Andy said were £2.00 each. I picked up an 1 1/2" Sorby and and lovely small mortice chisel. Both need new handles but that's easy if you take a sensible approach http://eatoncountywoodworker.blogspot.c ... ndles.html

 

[ED65]

Couple of things to check Bodgers, first what's your angle at the edge? Upping the honing angle by a few degrees can make a big difference in edge durability, but obviously if you're already honing at approximately 30° then you might not want to go to 35°.

Is it all of the set equally or do you find it more in some than others?

Lastly, have you used them long enough to wear away a decent amount of steel near the edge? Some modern chisels have steel that's brittle near the edges but once you get down past that damaged area the steel is the way it's supposed to be. I think the prevailing theory is they're pre-shaped before heat treating so the thin edge gets decarburised. This is fairly commonly reported in the basic Narex chisels BTW, don't know if their 8116s may also have this problem.

Can't argue with AndyT's suggestion of going for vintage/old if you don't mind the time it might take to build a decent set up. Almost every old chisel I've had pass through my hands has been good to excellent, including a few individual ones that would have been bog standard chisels in their day, a good example being a Draper of all things, possibly from the 60s. It was originally supplied with a basic, softer plastic handle but other than that it is every bit as good as classic Marples blue chips in terms of the shaping of the bevels, quality of grind and all importantly, the steel itself. At the cheaper end of things they really don't make 'em like they used to!

 

[Bodgers]

Couple of things to check Bodgers, first what's your angle at the edge? Upping the honing angle by a few degrees can make a big difference in edge durability, but obviously if you're already honing at approximately 30° then you might not want to go to 35°.

Is it all of the set equally or do you find it more in some than others?

I haven't messed about with the angle just kept the existing one.
I might try an angle change to see if it improves things.

I find I am using a good spread of the Lidl sizes in the last few projects.

Reduce the number to 4 and Ashley Illes Mrk2 are, in my opinion, the best.

Like Andy said, second hand is better value. Just walked through our local flea market. Chisels like Andy said were £2.00 each. I picked up an 1 1/2" Sorby and and lovely small mortice chisel. Both need new handles but that's easy if you take a sensible approach http://eatoncountywoodworker.blogspot.c ... ndles.html

I've heard of these, but I haven't read much about them. I will take a look.

Thanks for the suggestions everybody.

 

[Sideways]

Three suggestions - find a source of old secondhand chisels and buy some vintage "cast steel" tools to clean up and resharpen. Wonderful sense of history in tools like that.
Buy some cheap japanese chisels - of the category aimed at apprentices - but get them from a reputable source, not Amazon. This grade of tool offers good value for money but you need a knowledgable and honest seller to guide you to the right stuff.
No personal experience of these, but take a look at the two ranges of chisels sold by Hultafors. Synthetic handles and maybe aimed more at the job site than the cabinet shop but I suspect their steel is decent. I have one of their 22" handsaws and like it.

 

[G S Haydon]

Bodgers

Do look at the angle you're honing at. The angle a chisel comes at is normally ground at 25 deg, too low for most work. An extra 5 to 10 degrees from the 25 degree grind angle would be worth reviewing.

 

[David C]

Ashley Iles do the best English chisels IMO.

David C

 

[Cheshirechappie]

One reason the Ashley Iles chisels are slow to obtain is because as cabinetmakers' bench chisels they're as good or better than anything else currently available, and at a better price than many; Iles can't keep up with demand, so they go out of stock as fast as new stocks arrive at retailers. Just order and wait - it'll be worth it in the end.

A plus for vintage chisels is their handle sizes. Especially with the pre-WW2 ones, far more different sizes were made, it seems. Thus, many pre-war chisels had handle sizes better matched to blade width, and seem to balance much better than most modern ones, particularly in the smaller sizes.

A slight downside of vintage chisels is finding the smaller ones, especially bevel-edged. Sizes in the 1/2" to 1" range are ten a penny, but 1/8" (very useful size) are harder to find. They're out there - but they do take a bit of hunting down.

 

[thetyreman]

I've got one lie neilsen chisel, the socket type, they are superb, can't fault them in any way except the price.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Mine are very nearly all old Marples, W&Ps and Sorbys ............ that's primarily because I object to paying more than three quid for them. I've not felt the need to try to better them.

 

[sundaytrucker]

I have a few Ashley Iles in sizes from 3mm to 50mm and cannot fault them. although that hasn't stopped me being tempted by nicely priced Lie Nielsen Chisels in the classifieds.

I think for the price the Ashley Iles are tough to beat. The four Narex I have from Workshop Heaven have been very good too, I don't like the handles but they were bought to take a bit of a whack so I don't care.

 

[Bm101]

Bodgers there's some chisels in the sale section atm. Whether you want them is up to you.

 

[Trevanion]

I quite like the Kirshen chisels myself, the ones with the octagonal handles. I paid a very good price for a set second hand and they've been good, they hold an edge very well and can take a beating with a hammer every now and again.

I've voiced my opinion on the Ashley Iles Mk2's (And Ashley Iles chisels in general) before and I don't think that they really live up to the hype nor the praise. From my experience the grinding is not overly great, It's rough and uneven. The backs are "hollow ground a couple thous" to "help with lapping the back" but the couple I've seen/own looked more bent than ground and it was definitely more like 30-40 thou, not a couple. The ferrules are notoriously terrible for snapping as they're made out of some really low-grade thin brass which can't stand up to a little moisture change.

If you definitely want to do the whole "Support British" thing, you should look at Robert Sorby's chisels as they are a league above Ashey Iles for less money. Plus you can actually get the Robert Sorby stuff, Ashley Iles can't seem to actually get any stock out, It's constantly on back order wherever you look.

 

[D_W]

Ashley Iles do the best English chisels IMO.

David C

100% agree. They are my favorite of all modern bench chisels, regardless of cost.

If you can prepare chisels, even something like the MIFER chisels is a huge upgrade over the aldi chisels, they have great geometry (aside from being very out of flat in some cases), and they're cheap. They are far better than Narex's chisels.

Be warned about the warpage, though. It took me about 15 or 20 minutes to flatten a set of 5, and I have a lap set up to make planes. They would not be flattened with a medium waterstone in any reasonable amount of time (perhaps not even an hour per chisel for some of them).

Freud chisels (which can be found cheaply) with boxwood handles are also very good for the price, also slightly out of flat, though. I've gotten and prepared two separate sets, different ages, but both suffered from some out of flatness.

If they're available, the ashley iles are my choice hands down, and I will never sell the set that I have, regardless of how many other sets of chisels I unload.

 

[D_W]

I've voiced my opinion on the Ashley Iles Mk2's (And Ashley Iles chisels in general) before and I don't think that they really live up to the hype nor the praise. From my experience the grinding is not overly great, It's rough and uneven. The backs are "hollow ground a couple thous" to "help with lapping the back" but the couple I've seen/own looked more bent than ground and it was definitely more like 30-40 thou, not a couple. The ferrules are notoriously terrible for snapping as they're made out of some really low-grade thin brass which can't stand up to a little moisture change.
.

I have no stake in this, but will say this - they are hand ground. They are skillfully hand ground for the price to a profile that the kirschen chisels don't come close to matching. The kirschen and other brands under the same mark are decent but very unrefined chisels, and not in the same class. Same with stubai - that same european style, but not nearly as usable as the iles chisels.

The Lie Nielsen looking chisels are a matter of modern CNC production, or in the case of some other chisels (like the kirschen chisels) a matter of lack of refinement - it is difficult to make chisels with wide flat delicate bevels like Iles has, and the bias is in your favor. A skilled worker will always appreciate that bias and not curse it as being "bent" unless they are horribly out of shape.

They are also O1 steel, which is better than the drill rod that kirschen and most other makers use (those are more gummy with a persistent wire edge - the iles will tolerate a shorter sharpening schedule. Only being bettered by vintage chisels like ward and the better i. sorby).

The shame of things for Iles these days is that I often see that they're "not ground perfectly". Very few of the old ones were, either - the difference is in the buying public now not really knowing what makes an excellent chisel for day in and day out work.

 

[D_W]

If you definitely want to do the whole "Support British" thing, you should look at Robert Sorby's chisels as they are a league above Ashey Iles for less money. Plus you can actually get the Robert Sorby stuff, Ashley Iles can't seem to actually get any stock out, It's constantly on back order wherever you look.

By the way, I'm not being oppositional here. However, I bought three sets of brand new sorby chisels last year when I was on a bender, and had bought the iles chisels not long before.

The sorby chisels are soft, less finely ground and inconsistently ground.

Someone did a test of edge durability on the australian woodworking forum and found them (R. Sorby) OK for light work/soft woods but they were poor in hardwoods and gave up quickly. The same is true for mine - you have to give them more support at the bevel than Iles by a fair amount, and you don't want to pair them with a long sharpening routine.

Speculation was that there is an industrial qualification to sell chisels as more than boutique items, and that spec requires chip resistance for safety and results in 58 or so hardness chisels. Iles are 61 or so, and though the difference in numbers is small, the difference in durability between those two is very large (55 results in an unusable chisel, 53 from personal experience results in one that's well below unusable).

Not that softness is a new thing. The Norris irons took a huge step down in quality (softer, more "modern" feeling) when they went to R. Sorby for the later parallel irons.

(I still have all three sets of sorby chisels, but was a bit nonplussed with the even-ness of the bevel grinding for the price, especially given the wonderful handles. Some of the chisels have drastically taller sides on one side vs. the other, contrasted with the consistency of the iles chisels despite being able to see that they were finished by hand).

 

[lurker]

Here is the beginning of a fine collection for very little money.

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