Chiba,
Define "better". :wink: They'll both cut wood. But then so will "7 + an oilstone, yours for a tenner" chisels. I suppose it's avoiding the pain involved in getting them to do it that you're mainly paying for. Not just sharpening or flattening the backs, but also comfort in actual use. Yep, people often argue that handles and balance and such aren't important, but then there are also people who say using hand planes is a waste of time. If you don't know what you're missing, then yep, you're right, it's not going to make any difference to you. Once you
have felt the difference, or seen the surface left by a well-tuned plane, it's very hard to go back (DAMHIKT). :roll: It's not for nothing that L-N have been handing them to people to hold at shows for the last year or so; they know once you've got the feel of them it's very hard to go back to other chisels. :lol:
One other thing that I think people might be getting for that extra cash is
consistency. How many times have you read someone say such-and-such a chisel holds its edge brilliantly, and isn't the handle great? And then along comes someone else who says they're useless; the edge was like cheese and the handle wasn't fitted straight. (Heck, I've done it myself). Now I've tended to put that down to the personal experience of the individual in the past, but that doesn't always work. I think you get more inconsistency in the quality of supposedly identical chisels then we'd like to believe (I think Sorby suffers from this problem quite a bit, for instance). Now unless L-N have had a total turnaround in their ethos, I reckon
their chisels will be consistently well finished, heat treated, ground etc etc. So you, and your bank account, will know
what you've paid :shock: but you'll also be confident in what you're
getting for it.
But whether they're 3 times better is entirely down to the individual to my mind; for lots of people the answer will be no, but others will consider them worth every extra penny. The beauty of woodworking is that we can have such diverse viewpoints about the tools, but we all still have the actual
woodworking in common.
Oh, and this is absolutely no place for such heresy. Didn't you get the memo? :roll: :lol:
Cheers, Alf
