I recently purchased a set of the Lie Nielsen mortise chisels. I did so at my own peril, knowing that my wife would either (1) be outraged at the cost; or (2) retaliate by purchasing something equally as expensive. After having used the chisels for a few weeks, however, I have to admit that they are worth every penny and the several week wait. Yesterday, for example, I chopped out a 5″ long, 1.5″ wide, and 3″ deep through-mortise in sugar maple (I’m building a workbench). The chisel made short work of the task — levering out large chunks of hard maple was a breeze. And, much to my surprise, the chisel was still sharp at the end of the task. I just took a couple of passes on a piece of leather charged with green honing compound and it was shaving the hairs off my arm again. I am, in short, thrilled.
I know there have been some posts over the past several months questioning the long wait for the chisels (I waited about 10 weeks) and there have been some suggestions that the steel in some of first chisels produced did not hold an edge like it should. After having used the mortise chisels, I am here to say that I would not hesitate to wait even longer (although my understanding is that the wait times are much shorter now) and there is certainly nothing wrong with the steel in the chisels I purchased. To the contrary, they are easily the best chisels I have ever used, and will likely be the last mortise chisels I will ever purchase.
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Wow! Thanks for the report. So, what did your wife buy??
I see that the steel is "cryogenically treated" -- that probably helps a great deal with the long-lasting edge, no?
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I'm not sure, forestgirl, but I've got to convince my wife that non-tool purchases are a terrible waste of resources.
Regarding the steel, the LN web page says this "Our Mortise chisels are made of A-2 Tool Steel, hardened to Rockwell 60-62, cryogenically treated and double tempered." To be honest, I'm not educated enough on steel to know what difference cryogenic treatment or double tempering makes, or how that differs from the steel used in other mortise chisels, if at all. Maybe another poster can educate me. I do know that I'm a happy customer
I should also have mentioned that I am very pleased with the hornbeam handles. I gave the 1/2" mortise chisel are really good pounding this weekend. But the handle looks like it has not even been touched. Not so much as a blemish. That is some tough wood.
Hornbeam is also known as ironwood, for good reason.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
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