Thanks, James - they look like this. The side lands are fat and what you'd expect on a chisel from a home centre (though getting them through harbor freight means they'll be a fraction of the price of even those types). You can get an idea of the side lands by looking at how tall and squarish they are at the bevel.
I thought they'd be a decent chrome vanadium type steel with only minimal chromium and vanadium (adding more than is needed to improve hardenability would do nothing but make the rod/bar stock used more expensive, and they wouldn't do that on chisels that are less than $2 each). The interesting thing is that chisels are generally better if they aren't so alloyed up - but what I was intending to do was find their limits and sweet spot rehardening them, but to my surprise, they kind of came already in their sweet spot.
All that said, for $10 out the door in a blister pack with beech handles, who could really complain (i prefer them by miles to the narex types as their edge holding is as good or better and they don't hold on to a wire edge tenaciously).
I thought they'd be a decent chrome vanadium type steel with only minimal chromium and vanadium (adding more than is needed to improve hardenability would do nothing but make the rod/bar stock used more expensive, and they wouldn't do that on chisels that are less than $2 each). The interesting thing is that chisels are generally better if they aren't so alloyed up - but what I was intending to do was find their limits and sweet spot rehardening them, but to my surprise, they kind of came already in their sweet spot.
All that said, for $10 out the door in a blister pack with beech handles, who could really complain (i prefer them by miles to the narex types as their edge holding is as good or better and they don't hold on to a wire edge tenaciously).