I have 4 Sorbys, one was really soft, another a bit soft, and the remaining two, good. After grinding back about 1/4”, both softies were fine. The chisels feel really nice in hand, but the washer? Paring chisels are pushed! I find it funny how some brands introduce paring chisels that are anything but! Length alone does not make a parer.
But you seriously ought to market a few of yours! To me, they’re far more attractive, than, say Blue Spruce.
I once said something like "what are you getting with a blue spruce chisel when it appears to just be A2 bar stock stuck in a modern looking ferrule to hide the connection. "
I made a certain person very unhappy by saying that - but it may be safe here on the UK board. There is a humanity and artfulness in the UK chisels that went on very long, and that didn't just involve having a set up machine cut one blank after another out of bar stock.
Maybe I'm being idealistic, but beyond that, there's something sweet about the steels that hand work well - forgeability usually comes with plainness in the steels and plainness leads to a chisel that doesn't hold a were edge long and has very good grain fineness. But it definitely doesn't come along with steel well behaved in a quench!
If I start selling chisels, I'll have to shut up, but also, I wouldn't do it until I get consistent with forge welding the bolster in place (which I have done a few times, but it's a bit of a three handed operation with two hands (forge running, then cutting torch to bring just the bolster area to welding heat ,and then a quick couple of taps to forge weld and a careful temp cycle to bring the toughness back to the steel after it cools. )
But the bigger problem vs. just making a set a month or two sets a month and dumping them on etsy to learn from "Actual customers" is that it becomes a business and that implies a bunch of things that I want to avoid (not being able to talk openly about the chisels as it's seen as advertising, having to get some kind of commercial insurance for the basement and declaring the income). So I operate as a hobby with large losses
There's a whole lot in the tank yet, though. I'm going to ultimately go back to three things - one specific model of heller farrier rasps (to get consistency on file alloy - they really differ a lot, even in little things like forgeability and resistance to the hammer at the same heat, which leads to different tempering, etc. and - and then probably two steels - O1 and 52100 so I can really perfect temperature cycling to get the steel at the business end like butter fineness. )
Planes taught me the joy of making one thing and getting a little better at it so that it becomes half mindless exercise, but of a pleasant type. I'm looking to get there with chisels. I hope when I retire (which would be in about a decade if I'm lucky) that I can make tools full time for a while, and if I do that, I'll go bonkers making them traditionally, and maybe get a power hammer.
AS it is now, I plan on making a few tapered irons for wooden planes as it's something I've always wanted to do, very easily doable hand and eye (but without lamination - that requires a power hammer). The biases in the sheffield and early american tools make both for a good fitting bias in the tool and a bias in favor of the maker making things.
There will always be a group of folks who really like a surface ground piece of bar stock and a modern look, and I think that's fine. There's a place for all of it, but the aesthetics of those tools that look like they've been styled to fit equipment or assembly, it's not for me. Anything more complex than O1 in chisels, again, not for me.
