Slow review of Axminster carving chisel set

[Eshmiel]

Sculling about the various web sellers of carving tools, as a novice seeking tools for relief carving, I noticed the Schaaf tools - Chinese Pfeil copies sold in the US as Schaaf, only in sets (basic 12 plus a couple of secondary additons sets). They get good reviews for steel quality, design and handles. But they're made with at a level below that of Pfeil in terms of their factory shaping/sharpening, handle feel and other detailed delivery-conditions.

I couldn't find a set in Blighty and they cost far too much to import from the US (probably more, soon, if the customs rules and tariffs change because of you-know-who). However, in looking at Axminster offerings I noticed that their Workshop set of carving chisels appears to be identical to the Schaaf set in every particular. They're made in China so presumably the Chines manufacturer sells to other resellers besides the Schaaf brand.

£55 for 12 chisels. I took the risk as at the very least they'll serve as guineapig chisels as I learn shaping and sharpening of such things. And I hope to end up with some good quality carving chisels .... if the US review-praise is reflected in this Axminster set.

Anyway, perhaps a slow review here would be useful to others looking for that "inexpensive but serviceable" thing in carving chisels. It'll take me a while to practice (and hopefully achieve) a good commissioning skill; and even longer to compare the carving performance with some Ashley Iles and Henry Taylor carving chisels I have. But who's in a hurry?

So, next post - first impressions on receipt, which was today.

 

[Eshmiel]

Some attached photos show the chisels as-received. First impressions:

A tough canvas tool roll, well designed to hold the tools in their individual pockets with the (guarded) blades showing so its easy to see which chisel to pick out despite the handles being identical. The Pfeil system for identifying & naming chisels is used and can just be seen stamped on the handles peeping out of the pockets. Flaps prevent the chisels falling out of the roll when its rolled up.

The handles are very Pfeil-like (bulbous but with facets) but are spoilt a bit by the application of some sort of too-smooth lacquer or varnish. I'll be scraping and sanding that varnish off to leave bare wood (which I can't readily identify although it seems to be hardwood not unlike ash but without the pronounced bands of open grain). All the handles were well-located on the chisel tangs with no wonk or skew from the line of the blades.

The blades and handles are both similar in length to those Henry Taylor and Ashley Iles carving tools of similar sizes (20mm wide or less cutting edges). The blades are chunky rather than slim - thicker than Henry Taylors, certainly. They're glued into the handles, not just pressed-in, which would make changing the handles a bit of a faff. The wider chisels all have something of an Allongee shape. The inside of the gouges have no bevel and will need polishing as they have some manufacturing striations (smoother than those on the outside bevels).

The chisel ID numbers on the handles do seem to accurately reflect the Pfeil naming convention, with standard shapes in both the cutting ends and in any bend of the blade, short or long.

The grind of the bevels is "factory ground" with lots of rough striations and a raggy cutting edge. But the bevels aren't badly misshapen, just not-finished. The corners of the edge-ends are very slightly rounded as well. The bevel angles vary from 17.5 degrees (on both sides of the V-chisel) with the gouges between 20 and 27.5 degrees, most at 22.5 degrees. The #1 and #1S have 27.5 degree included angles (sum of the bevels on each side of the blade). They'll all need a full (re) shaping.

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Assuming the steel turns out to be good, that's not bad for about £4:60 per chisel (with a tool roll tossed in).

I'll post again when I've shaped, sharpened, honed and cut with two or three of them.

 

[mwinfrance]

Appreciate this ..thanks..I was looking at the Schaaf ones last year ( one can never have too many gouges, just as one can never have too many clamps ) .., but I wanted to phone them to see if they would ship to France.No matter what time I phoned, they would never answer their bluddy phone.So gave up.

Someone here ( might have been yerself ) linked to the Axminster site the other day, I clicked the link..it said hello in french..Oh ho thinks I ..they ship to France now..so I had a look at said gouges..Depending on your review, I might be ordering some, ( two sets maybe, one for me and as usual, one for son ) I'd make them leather tool rolls though as I have a half dozen industrial leather sewing machines, the big ones, that go through layers of thick leather here, ( one of a few businesses ) and a lot of leather.

 

[Eshmiel]

Last night was first-stage in shaping these Axminster-Schaaf carving chisels. I'm trying (and not always succeeding) to follow the Chris Pye method albeit with different gubbins than his grinder and Arkansas stones, as I have a belt grinder rather than a wheel grinder and diamond & 3M-on-glass papers stuff for doing the finer sharpening. Honing is done with various dowel sticks coated with pastes of various grit but these are made for green woodworking tools like carving and hook knives rather than for gouges, although they will sort-of work with at least some gouges.

First step was to grind the edges to a small flat and square-to-chisel-shank condition. I did this on a 400 then 1000 grit diamond plates, keeping the chisel vertical and making a ground blunted edge a fraction of a millimetre wide. It was noticeable that the factory grind wasn't straight, with two very slight wings on nearly every edge before I ground them flat & square.

Next step was to grind the main bevels to 20 degrees. (I'll eventually be putting an inside bevel on them all circa 5 degrees to increase the included bevel angle to about 25 degrees). I didn't use anything but the Sorby ProEdge angle-setting platform to guide the chisel when grinding, as the V-shaped insert for the ProEdge couldn't allow the tool to be rotated uniformly to grind the bevel sweep uniformly. The chisel blades are too irregular and tend to change the angle of grind as one rotates them in the V-cradle. Freehand it had to be, then - but it seemed to work well. I rested the chisel bolster on the platform edge to keep the blade extension and hence the bevel angle the same as I rotated the chisel by hand (carefully).

I began the grind at 120 grit then repeated it at 240 grit once the excess metal had been ground down to a smidgen from the blunted edge. Again at 1000 grit with a 3M Trizact belt, then a 3000 grit belt, each time getting closer to the blunt edge and eventually (with the 3000 grit) beginning to narrow that blunted edge to the start of "sharp".

This went well although it's a delicate business getting the grind evenly across the whole sweep without taking off or missing the corners at each end of the edge. It's noticeable that the blades/shafts/bolsters of the gouges aren't formed very regularly, with various little bumps and asymmetries. These show up in the shape of the bevel, to a degree, as its ground. If you look at the pic of the buffed-back of a gouge, you can the various bumps that the polishing-shine reveals.

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So now I have several gouges with reformed bevels just a final sharpen (with a fine stone) and hone away from completing the main bevel. Next step is to attempt the production of a small inside bevel to get rid of the "line of light" still showing on the blunted edges. Here is where I may need to make better devices to bring the two cannels (in & out) of the gouges to a sharp edge. Chris Pye uses slip stones but I'll make some wooden slips to be coated with various fine-grit 3M or Hermes blue papers and honing pastes.

I did attempt to do the final sharpening & honing on one chisel using the stuff I have but its not ideal, even though I have got a sharp edge making clean cuts with no "snail trails" where there's a blunt or damaged section of edge remaining. But they don't yet seem as sharp as my green woodworking tools. I suspect I need to refine my techniques, since a lot of the actions are just hand held and I am no Jacob.

 

[AJBaker]

Very nice work on sharpening! I doubt they can hold a candle to Pfeil out of the box, but the careful job you're doing will likely go a long way towards bridging the gap in quality between those brands.

For the handle, my guess would be elm, or maybe acacia. Elm is the classic choice because of its resistance to splitting.

Otherwise I'd recommend Pfeil for most people, even for a beginner. Often, it's better in the long run to buy fewer high quality tools than many cheaper tools. They're the default choice for carving tools for a reason, and the factory edge is almost perfect out of the box. Plus, it's a small family business that's worth supporting (and their factory lies a 10 min drive away from my mum's!).

 

[Eshmiel]

Very nice work on sharpening! I doubt they can hold a candle to Pfeil out of the box, but the careful job you're doing will likely go a long way towards bridging the gap in quality between those brands.

For the handle, my guess would be elm, or maybe acacia. Elm is the classic choice because of its resistance to splitting.

Otherwise I'd recommend Pfeil for most people, even for a beginner. Often, it's better in the long run to buy fewer high quality tools than many cheaper tools. They're the default choice for carving tools for a reason, and the factory edge is almost perfect out of the box. Plus, it's a small family business that's worth supporting (and their factory lies a 10 min drive away from my mum's!).

Agreed - although I prefer the Ashley Iles carving chisels having discovered their virtues after buying four big ones for hollowing out green wood bowls. They too come well shaped and sharpened - good enough to use on greenwood without a final hone, even - and their guarantee, lifetime warranty and so forth are all well ahead of most other retailers of such stuff ..... although perhaps Pfeil has similar after sales service?

The Ashleys are now all honed too and make that lurverly whisper-crunching noise as you glide them through the wood to take a pretty curling shaving.

The Ashley Iles handle shape suits me too. I've never really liked faceted handles, which supposedly give a better grip as they stop the handle rotating in one's grasp .... but I find the edges of the facets make my delicate little paw ache after a bit, which isn't the case with round handles. These Axminster/Schaaf items may have to have their handles not only stripped of the varnish but smoothed to a round profile - more work, not least in getting the handles off for easier spokeshaving to a round, as they're glued on, no doubt with bluddy epoxy. Cuh!

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The main point of buying these Axminsters is to serve as experimental fodder in learning to commission carving chisels. I've bought four Asley Iles carving chisels (besides the big green wooders) & two Henry Taylors so far, for my relief carving attempts. I managed to shape, sharpen and hone five out of the six but made a right mess of the #9-12 gouge (the most difficult to sharpen of the six). £55 quid for some practice chisels to learn how to do it reet seems little to pay, especially if I get a selection of those chisels well-fettled and I don't have to eventually buy the Ashley, Henry or Pfeil versions at £25 - £50 each.

 

[Eshmiel]

Today I used two Beavercraft sharpening/honing boards and a Flexcut wooden profile honing board to perfect the edges of the Axminster carving chisel set. I haven't taken photos yet but I'll do so tomorrow.

The Beavercraft boards have two rounded sides and two hollows in between (one each side). The curves are of quite a large radius but skewing a gouge when rubbing it along sandpaper or honing paste, applied to convex or concave surfaces, can make the thing fit the different sweeps of various gouges of the larger sizes.

The Flexcut little profile board (several hollows and rounds as well as peaks for V-tools) is good for honing the smaller gouges but has no facility for sharpening so I've been using pieces of Hermes blue very fine grit papers (300, 800, 1200 and 2500 grit) bent to shape over some small hard rubber profile "slips" that I bought years ago for sanding awkward shapes.

Photos tomorrow will clarify.

The carving chisels are cutting very cleanly; but I'll use them to make a Chris Pye practice board in Tulipwood, which should show up the quality of the cut and the resilience of the edges better than carving at bits of scrap wood.

 

[Eshmiel]

Finishing the sharpening, honing and buffing.

The stuff I have to sharpen and hone curved edges isn't ideal. Still, it sufficed for now. I need to make better wooden slips of various radii (convex & concave) on which to stick various fine grades of micro-grit papers and honing media.

For now I use Beavercraft hook knife sharpener/honers and the Flexcut mini honing board, with fine grit wet & dry papers and Flexcut gold honing compound or DMT diamond honing paste.

I looked for any "lines of light" on the edges - those very thin shiny sections of an edge that show it isn't really an edge but still a miniature flat surface able to reflect light. I rubbed the inside of the gouges to get rid of those lines of light but also to put on the beginnings of a small incannel bevel, to increase the included bevel angle from the 20 degrees of the outcannel bevel to about 25 degrees cutting angle. When I've made the better slips, I'll perfect those incannel bevels.

Larger gouges can be successfully rubbed on the larger Beavercraft sharpening/honing boards, varying the angle or just rotating the gouge a bit to get at the whole edge in/on the grooves/humps. The Flexcut honer is only good for honing smaller sizes (and tighter sweeps or Vs) so the gouges done on that needed also the use of those black rubber sanding fids, with a piece of microgrit paper held over their profile then rubbed on the gouge edges. It works but its clumsy.

Once the edges of every gouge except the V-gouge (I need to do that later) were perfected as best I could get them, I used the buffing wheel on the Sorby ProEdge to shine all of the shafts, being careful to give the areas next to the edge only a very brief feel of the cotton wheel, to avoid round overs of the edge.

The bevels and the outside & sides of the gouges are now mirror-finished. The inside of the gouges still show the very small striations of the factory grinding process. I think I can ignore these as the making of a small incannel 5 degree bevel automatically rubs off those striations at the cutting edge.

I cut various woods with all the gouges and they do now produce clean-cut surfaces and fine shavings, with little resistance from most woods excepting the old-growth ash with about 25 rings per inch. That cuts cleanly but takes a lot more effort as the late-growth rings are rock 'ard. The ash didn't bend or fracture the edges, though. That hazel scoop, nearly dried out from green and due to be made smooth & nice, cut very nicely with the large spoon long-bent gouge, across the whole cutting edge, which was the most difficult to shape, sharpen and hone because of its shape.

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I don't have the experience or impending workload of carving yet to do a decent test of the resilience of the edges. I can say that this carving set can be fettled relatively easily, though, to give what appear to be good quality edges that have an apparent good strength, if the horrible-ash test is anything to go by.

The fit and finish doesn't match the likes of Ashley Iles, Henry Taylor, Stubai, Pfeil or Auriou but it isn't awful. The handles are coated in cheap poly varnish but the worst aspect is that the blades are not as well-formed as those of the more expensive chisels. This does affect the ability to shape and grind them evenly if the shafts are rested on a grinder platform or other guide. Hand sharpeners won't be bovvered.