japanese chisel problem- tool or user?

[jimi43]

So I take it you don't like Japanese chisels then Jacob?

Jim

Nothing against them at all - but so many of these expensive options turn out to be problematic. They look nice but you don't get much for the money even though you are paying 10 times the price of perfectly OK but boring ordinary equivalents.

Ah ok.....

Funny enough....my grandfather had the same opinion of Japanese tools.

He spent his life working as a carpenter on the railways....mind you...it was in Burma!

:wink:

Jim

 

[János]

Hello,

Before you talk about Japanese furniture and architecture, you should read a few books about the history of Japan, including their arts and crafts. Here are some good ones to start with:

1. Engel, Heino: The Japanese House
2. Nishi Kazuo: What is Japanese Architecture?
3. Koizumi Kazuko: Traditional Japanese Furniture
4. Man Sill Pai: Traditional Korean Furniture
5. S. Azby Brown: The Genius of Japanese Carpentry
6. Lucie-Smith, Edward: Furniture
7. Stanley-Baker, Joan: Japanese Art
8. Guth, Christine: Japanese Art of the Edo Period
9. Tregear, Mary: Chinese Art
And a few more about materials science… Perhaps…

I have no appetite to lecture any of you about the development and history of Japanese furniture and arcitecture, so educate yourselves, please.

Perhaps some of you have the „Complete Japanese Joinery” of Weatherhill.

It recommends a 32 deg angle for timber morticing, a 20 deg for finishing, 15~20 deg for paring. And recommends these values for softwood: Japanese cypress.
The way to sharpen is a single, flat bevel without micro or secondary bevels.
And the chisels should not be driven into knots. Knots must be chiseled away in small, careful cuts, to protect the blade.

Working carpenters nowadays use chisels forged from HSS, as those are not that prone to chipping, so more suited to the knottier woods of today.

Won’t be fouled again…

Have a nice day,

János

 

[Jacob]

Hello

.....

I have no appetite to lecture any of you about the development and history of Japanese furniture and arcitecture, .....

Pleased to hear it! :lol: :lol:

Have a nice day

PS „Complete Japanese Joinery” of Weatherhill - did you mean "The Art of Japanese Joinery" by Kiyosi Seike, published by Weatherhill?
I had a look for the bevel references but couldn't see them. I was interested in the missing angles between 20º and 32º, which must surely be a mistake. Maybe they bought the Veritas "bevel setter" protractor, with the empty segment :lol:

 

[János]

Hello,

Yes, I have the volume in a " bound together" form, under the title,"Complete Japanese Joinery".
I am working now, had no time to read the text, but the drawings are self explanatory. Perhaps I have read about the hand sharpening and the merits of slightly convex bevels in an Odate musing. After a few thousand pages and a few decades... but perhaps you too know that. :wink:

Have a nice day,

János

 

[markturner]

Well Rutlands are taking them back and issuing a credit. I think I will get the ones on Classic tools's website as recommended by DC

By the way, the first one I returned, they said they inspected and did pronounce faulty, so who knows, a bad batch, poor quality control? Or maybe just like the advert...
"these are not just japanese chisels, these are classic hand tools japanese chisels.." Perhaps I should have spent more in the first place.

 

[woodbloke]

I think I will get the ones on Classic tools's website as recommended by DC

Give consideration also to the professional ones from Workshop Heaven. Probably as good and much cheaper...I've been very happy with mine and have just received an additional four to make my set up to ten. Remember though that a single bevel of 30deg, regardless of what others :roll: might say, is IMO the best way to hone them, particularly if they're to be struck with a hammer. No connection with WH of course - Rob

 

[Doug B]

No connection with WH of course - Rob

Rob, this seems a strange thing to say at the end of a post recommending chisels from Workshop Heaven.

You have previously posted saying you have been to a BBQ at Matthew`s, you are friends with Matthew & a couple of days ago started a thread praising his service & saying you had received items free of charge from him.

Surely this shows a connection with Matthew?

I have no problem with Matthew or workshop heaven, indeed i am happy customer of his, but feel you are stretching it a little by saying this.
Or perhaps my BBQ invite is in the post :lol:


Cheers.


Doug.

 

[katellwood]

As you can see I jumped on this slippery slope some years ago and never looked back. I now use my marples/stanley et al for site work and keep these in the workshop. They have always been used with a genno (hammer) and have never had issues with snapping or crumbling cutting edges

I am reliably informed that the rear ones are temple makers chisels and I use these for the more robust work

Obvious I know but one thing you have to watch out for is that continual grinding will affect the hollows on the rear of the blade so some form of continual flattening of the back is sometimes necessary especially if you have to grind a chip out

I sharpen mine at approx 30 degrees and finish polishing after a 8000 grit waterstone on a block of endgrain hardwood appprox 10" x 3" (flattened with a block plane but not sanded) then the endgrain filled with a fine polishing compound and lubricated with either WD40 or white spirit. When the compound turns black I know its working. In fact if you look at the last photo the polishing compound I use to polish is by the mortice gauge, believe its actually called buffung soap

I would highly recommend them to anyone performing bench work

Mine were purchased from a large tool store based at Ashford Cattle Market , Kent however they do not supply Jap Chisels any more

I keep threatening to purchase a Japanese plane however not got around to it yet. If anyone has any comments on Jap planes I would be extremely interested in what you have to say

 

[woodbloke]

No connection with WH of course - Rob

Rob, this seems a strange thing to say at the end of a post recommending chisels from Workshop Heaven.

You have previously posted saying you have been to a BBQ at Matthew`s, you are friends with Matthew & a couple of days ago started a thread praising his service & saying you had received items free of charge from him.

Surely this shows a connection with Matthew?

I have no problem with Matthew or workshop heaven, indeed i am happy customer of his, but feel you are stretching it a little by saying this.
Or perhaps my BBQ invite is in the post :lol:


Cheers.


Doug.

I find this comment odd as well Doug. Sure, Matthew is a friend, but he's also knows a lot of other folk on the forum and has been equally generous with the sort of service he has provided, so what he's done for me is nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps I should have said that I have no commercial connection with Workshop Heaven, receive no financial backhanders (or discount) from Workshop Heaven and have not been to any BBQ's at Workshop Heaven. That Matthew provided me FOC with stock that I didn't ask for, that he no longer stocks and was clearly surplus is down to the fact that he was doing me a favour, knowing that I would continue to order hand tools from him in the future...call it a 'backhander' if you like, but it was a generous gesture on Matt's behalf that was worthy of my thanks in an open forum.
I do, in addition frequent other tool emporiums in common with many others hereabouts and recommend their products if appropriate...and no, your invite to my summer Bash is not in the post - Rob

 

[Doug B]

Sure, Matthew is a friend,

So you do have a connection.

That is all i was pointing out & something you have pointed out on many occasions, so it still seems strange to me that you denied having a connection in your post above.

and no, your invite to my summer Bash is not in the post

I`m sure i`ll survive :roll: :roll: :roll:

 

[Jacob]

I have a set of 5001 & 5002 bought in the 60's
The steel is like soft cheese - must have been made when the workers were always on strike?


Rod

They are very good chisels. Probably been over-heated on a grindstone. The blueing disappears quite quickly after a honing but the soft metal may take years to remove by normal sharpening.
I reckon most soft metal in plane blades and chisels is the result of over heating at some point in the past. We've all done it!

 

[Harbo]

Pretty sure that's not the case - the black ones I inherited from my father who only used oil stones ( he never possessed a grinder).
The blue ones I bought new, I used oilstones until I bought a Tormek about 5 years ago.

Rod

 

[woodbloke]

Sure, Matthew is a friend,

So you do have a connection.

That is all i was pointing out & something you have pointed out on many occasions, so it still seems strange to me that you denied having a connection in your post above.

Doug, please read carefully (I know you can do it)..I said COMMERCIAL connection. I also know very well Steve Maskery, Ian Styles and Philly and also count them as friends, in the same way that you probably have friends and are connected to them, but say again, just so you completely understand...there is no COMMERCIAL connection to either of them - Rob

 

[Jacob]

Pretty sure that's not the case - the black ones I inherited from my father who only used oil stones ( he never possessed a grinder).
The blue ones I bought new, I used oilstones until I bought a Tormek about 5 years ago.

Rod

All I can say is that my few 5001s are noticeably harder than the 5002s and Marples blue handles, which are hard enough themselves.
When I'm sharpening a 5001 I get the impression that they are laminated with a hard edge and softer back, but I don't know if this is the case.
They are all excellent.

 

[Doug B]

Doug, please read carefully (I know you can do it)..I said COMMERCIAL connection.

I can & did read carefully (i`m glad you have such faith in my reading ability :roll: ), you made no mention of the word COMMERCIAL in the first instance, & this first instance is what my posts have referred to.

 

[woodbloke]

Doug, please read carefully (I know you can do it)..I said COMMERCIAL connection.

I can & did read carefully (i`m glad you have such faith in my reading ability :roll: ), you made no mention of the word COMMERCIAL in the first instance, & this first instance is what my posts have referred to.

...but I did explain it very clearly to you in the second post, where 'commercial' was written bold type, but perhaps it wasn't clear enough...clearly the third post made it crystal - Rob

 

[János]

Dear Jacob,

Excuse me for my fault. Actually, the book is “The Complete Japanese Joinery” ISBN 0-88179-121-0. I have bought it in the middle of the 1990s through Weatherhill. It is a bound toghether volume of two books:
Sato Hideo: Japanese Woodworking
and
Nakahara Yasua: Japanese Joinery

The sharpening reference is in the first book.

I have find (remembered faintly, so looked it up, in fact) an interesting article in FWW No.51. (1985. III/IV), pages 44~48. Worth a look. I copyed the table comparing different makes of chisels:

And there is an interesting sentence from the article:

“Apart from the metal quality and hardness, we noticed some other things about the chisels that shed some light on how carefully they are manufactured. The Japanese chisels were carefully prepared at the factory. They came accurately ground to the 30 deg. bevel recommended by the manufacturers. Setting the steel ring on the handle was the only "tune-up" that these chisels required. The Western chisels, however, were less carefully prepared. Some were ground to a bevel that was way off the 25 deg. most woodworkers aim for, and this required quite a few minutes at the benchstone to correct. The Stanley had a doublebevel knife-edge grind, so the back had to be ground down to remove the extra bevel. I found the Hirsch to be buffed so heavily that the edges were rounded, making it difficult to see if the cutting edge was square to the body or shank.”

The best book about Japanese joinery I have ever seen is:

Sumiyoshi Torashichi and Matsui Gengo: Wood Joints in Classical Japanese Architecture.

Have a nice day,

János

 

[Schtoo]

Hi Mark,

I'm new here, but I was alerted to your plight by a friend.

Here's the problem, as I know it to be...

Those Iyoroi chisels are being sold, retail, for about $25-41 (sorry, no pound sign!). That puts them at a Japanese market retail price of about 3200 yen. I regret to say that at this price, there are scant few 'good' Japanese chisels, and none of them have the name "Iyoroi". You can spend more money and get good, proper, no nonsense Iyoroi, you can spend the same money and get a reasonable, non-named (but branded, the guy who made is is un-named) chisel, but you can't buy a 'name' and a 'decent chisel' for that price.

Caveat, you can luck out and get some fantastic chisels for real cheap, but it's pot luck. Spend more money and buy a known quality chisel, and it's guaranteed to be good.

I only know this because I've seen both sides of things here in Japan, retail and wholesale because I do run a Japanese tool store. :wink:

I try my hardest to make sure I keep my prices as low as is reasonable, and I wouldn't sell a chisel at that price without openly stating some reservations about it. I'd still be quite happy selling them, so long as whoever bought it was under no illusion that there is a good chance there might be some reservations...

I also sell some chisels that carry no reservations whatsoever. Almost to the point that if you have problems, I'll be shocked, impressed and astounded, all at the same time. I've sent off chisels that have been asked to do what the uninitiated would consider to be horrific, nay, verboten things, and they just keep on going. Just ask Derek what he does to the mere slips of metal he smacks through that crazy stuff Aussies (me included) call 'wood'.

But I didn't come here to rattle on about chisels, no, I came here because things are slow at the moment (massive natural disasters are terrible for business...) and because it was mentioned to me that the old fallacy of "Japanese tools are only for softwood" has been marched out of it's stable again.

You know something, the folks who make the tools here haven't heard about that one yet. Well, that's not entirely true. They have heard about it, but they don't know who started it and can only shake their head at how incorrect it is.

The biggest plane maker in Japan, Tsunesaburo, dedicates half their impressive catalog to planes that have blade intended for use with hardwood. Half their output is planes intended for hardwood. Of the 20+ standard kanna they list (was mentioned here a week or so ago, yeah, that's me) there are 3 or 4 that are really only intended for softwoods, but to counter that, 5 or so intended ONLY for hardwood, and those ones sell at a rapid clip.

What those planes are being used on, who can say, but it's not only softwood, especially considering most trim work in houses (and housing is where the fallacy began I believe) is nowadays, Japanese ash and oak. Last time I used them, they were pretty hard woods...

(That kanna are difficult to set up is yet another fallacy, sometimes. But nobody's thrown that bull into the ring yet. Yet...)

Same thing for chisels, no real adjustments needed. Make sure your bevel is at an angle suitable to the work, and have at it. If the edge is failing, it's a case of the chisel is inexpensive with a relative drop in outright quality, the chisel has too fine an edge that is too weak for the task or the person hanging off the end of the chisel is doing something wrong, and on that point ladies and gentlemen, it doesn't matter what chisel you have in your hand, if you're driving it wrong, it's going to give you problems. In my own experience, there's a bit of give and take between Western chisels and Japanese chisels in terms of toughness, durability, edge taking and edge holding. I'm not going to come out and say which is 'better' because that also depends very much on the person hanging off the end of the chisel.

(I will say that a good quality Japanese chisel is surprisingly tough. I've done crazy stuff that "isn't allowed" and got away with it, to my eternal astonishment...)

I'll be the first to admit, Japanese tools are not for everyone. But on the point of them being intended only for softwoods, regrettably, that is a lie that's taken hold and is difficult to shake.

I'm trying my best to correct it, and have the back up of some of the biggest and best tool makers in Japan to try and erase the error but it's still an uphill battle.

(And I got none of this out of a book either. From the mouths of the folks who make the tools seems to be a little more reliable.)


katellwood; Koyama, Iyoroi, Koyamaichi (dragon chisels, with ebony handles! Mr. Koyama will be interrogated on that score...) are the brands I can see, although it's difficult with some being out of focus a little. The ones up back look to be 'tataki-nomi' which means they're made to be hit, all day, with a big hammer.

On Japanese planes, what do you want to know?

Stu.

 

[woodbloke]

Stu, welcome to the forum...please stick around as your knowledge in this area is invaluable. Thanks also for your insight into a commonly held fallacy ref hard woods and Japanese blades. A voice of reason...praise be =D> =D> - Rob

 

[Alf]

I'll be the first to admit, Japanese tools are not for everyone. But on the point of them being intended only for softwoods, regrettably, that is a lie that's taken hold and is difficult to shake.

I'm trying my best to correct it, and have the back up of some of the biggest and best tool makers in Japan to try and erase the error but it's still an uphill battle.

You are making progress, Stu, really you are. Keep plugging away. And welcome aboard.