I’m looking for a set of bench chisels. I love woodworking but at the hobby level. Marples sells them for around $80 or less for a set. On the higher end, Lee Valley sells a 5-pc set of Veritas chisels for $399 ($80 each). Then there are sets in between such as Two Cherries.
Update: I will be cutting dovetails and mortices and similar work. I have a few chisels now and have a good sharpening kit with diamond stones and a strop.
What is the difference between these extremes? What should I be looking for? What should I be aware of?
Thanks to all
Replies
The difference is usually the quality of the steel, how well it is heat treated, and how much work you need to do to flatten the back. Inexpensive vhisekks arent worthnit, in my opinion, unless you have time on your hands, and are willing tyo take a risk. Good quality chisels you can hone and put right to work.
You also don't need a set. Over time, most woodworker's reach for the same 2 or 3 chisels 95 percent of the time. If I were starting over, I would get a 1/4 and 1/2 Lie Nielsen chisel, and look around for a long 1-1/2 or 1-1/4 vintage Buck, Witherby, or other quality vintage chisel. No one makes those anymore in that length. All you should care about that is the lack of pitting on the back of the chisel.
That's what I would do at least.
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Jfsksa, a few questions to try and help: Do you own any chisels at all now? Do you already own a full sharpening kit? What do you want to build? That is do you aspire to doing hand work so you will be cutting dovetails and deep or through mortises with them? Or you will mostly machine cut your joinery and use them more along lines of installing hinges on boxes and general paring/fitting here and there?
So as previous people suggested, you’ll need to also invest in some method of sharpening so keep that in mind for your total initial purchase. To a certain extent you do get what you pay for but as a beginner I would humbly suggest you won’t likely recognize the difference between a $15 chisel and a $150 chisel SO start with the $15 chisel. The 4 piece set of Narex bevel edge chisels give very good quality for the price. Readily available, easily sharpened, high quality, low price. These are probably the best entry level chisel and we’re pretty highly rated by FWW. https://www.finewoodworking.com/2008/09/01/bench-chisel-review1
Highland Hardware sells a 4 pc set for $33. You don’t need much more than this and you can always add to the set as you need.
I’d avoid the current production Marples blue chip chisels. Quality of steel was pretty questionable on the last set I sharpened with a student last year. YMMV. I have a different opinion than John on both vintage chisels and L-N chisels. I didn’t care for the L-N chisels as I prefer O-1 steel vs. A-2. That’s my personal preference for a number of reasons. Regarding vintage, for the price you pay, you’ll have to invest significant time to get them up to snuff so why?
Get the inexpensive BUT good quality set and get to making! You’ll always have a use for them even after you decide to graduate to a different set. My 25 year old set of Marples still get used daily, they’ve been rehandled with turned wood handles and are used whenever I don’t want to use my more expensive chisels such as cleaning up glue or when I’m concerned that there might be a nail hidden in reclaimed wood.
Good luck and welcome to the fold.
I would suggest buying three high quality chisels which will be a pleasure to use and last you a life time of woodworking. My choice would be Lie Nielsen 1/4, 3/8, 1/2 inch. These will fit most of the dovetail and mortising work you will do. You really don't need a complete set. If you can do it I would add a 3/8 inch mortising chisel.
I’m also a hobby WW. I have done mostly power tool WW for years but now want to do hand tool joinery. IMHO, chisels and planes are one class of tools that we get what we pay for. And they can be “expensive” depending either on your income level and/or on your mindset. A few years ago, I received my first LN block plane. But I didn’t own the sharpening system to support it. I discovered water stones and flattening plates would also require a sizable investment. I now want a complete set of chisels and planes, but I couldn’t work chisels and stones into my budget immediately. So for me, I had to do it in stages and I didn’t want to waste money buying cheap and then have to start over saving to buy quality. Learning the lesson from the block plane, I bought my sharpening stones first. And am now planning on adding my LN chisels. But instead of a complete set, I can only add a couple at a time. I’ll chose 1 or 2that I will use most frequently and expand from there. But I’ll be able to immediately use them and keep them properly sharpened. Just my $0.02
I have some Narex bench chisels from Lee Valley that I got when I got more serious about woodworking projects. They are decent quality for the price. It took some work to flatten them, they don’t hold their edge for long in my experience and steel seems brittle at the edge, but again for the price they perform quite well. I learned to hand cut dovetails using them. I also have Narex mortise chisel set - very happy with those too. I don’t own any LN chisels but have tried one at their factory store and own other LN tools - if you have the budget, I doubt you will ever have regrets if you chose those. If LN isn’t in the budget, you might give some consideration to the Stanley Sweetheart socket chisels. I went with those as an “upgrade” to the Narex set and am very pleased. They are about twice the cost of Narex but still 1/2 price of LN. Definitely some work to flatten them, but very doable. They seem to hold an edge better than Narex. Really like the feel, the weight and shape of handles and how they fit in hand when paring. They got a pretty good review/ recommendation in a follow-up note to FWs bench chisel tool test a few years ago.
I use Pfeil and Two Cherries. The extra cost if far out weighed by the quality of the steel. Easy to sharpen and holds the edge much longer.
For me, $80 spent on Stanley sweethearts would be a much better buy.
I started woodworking as a hobby and my first chisels were a set of POS Stanley yellow acrylic handled chisels. I learned a valuable lesson....buy the best tool you an afford and only buy it once! By the time you upgrade once, twice, three times the money you wasted could have been spent on good chisels. Hotdogman makes a great point, don't run out and buy a set of six, or eight chisels, when you will probably only need two or three "go to" chisels. The same can be said of bench planes. Some guys love to have the full array of bench planes, from a block plane all the way to a number eight jointer, yet they only reach for three of them. Get yourself some Lie-Nielsons or Ashley Isles and you'll pass them on to your grandkids
I would suggest buying Pmv-11 chisels by Veritas from Lee valley, they hold an excellent edge, are easy to sharpen and are well made chisels. I happen to own a lot of chisels and am very fortunate to own a full set of them as well as a full set of lie Nielsen, as well as blue spruce, an older marbles set as well as 2 japanese sets, yea I know I have to many chisels LOL! any how, my first preference is japanese chisels and then the Pmv-11 so I think they would be an excellent place to start -you can purchase a couple of key sizes to start rather than a whole set as you use certain sizes more than others anyway.
The two most important criteria for chisels, for my work, is hardness and flatness. If the bottoms are convex (bowed out), you will spend a day or more trying (and maybe not succeeding) to get them flat. My use of a chisel requires as flat a chisel as you can see using a straight edge. Otherwise, they will ride over what you are trying to cut and you'll have to raise the handle to get the edge to bite (and usually gouge). The second criteria, hardness, cannot be overstated. If the edge rolls over, you will never get them sharp enough. I think in general, the harder the chisel, the more durable the edge.
So... I love, love, love Ashley Illes chisels. They are hard and flat! They have narrow lands and are beautifully ground–just a joy to use.
I used a set of Marples for 12 years before finally upgrading to a set of the PM-V11's. I disagree about not buying a set, I have a 1/8" to 1" and I use every one of them. I think 12 yeasrs is enough use out of a basic set to warrant an upgrade and not feel the original purchase was a waste of money. The Marples or a set of 2-Cherries would be a great start.
For dovetail work you need the double bevel type of chisels. That said, I've ground my own bevel on a couple chisels I had and they work fine. I have the Narex mortise set and agree with the comment on it above. I have some other chisels the maker wasn't proud enough of to put their name on :) But they work fine. I don't recall where I got them.
I have found Buck makes a decent chisel. While I would completely avoid their planes, the chisels hold an edge pretty well and you can find them at the orange stores for a reasonable price. I have one Stanley 1/4" chisel and a Narex 1/4" paring chisel that seems better than the mortise chisels. Then again, I beat those mortise chisels to death!
The only 1/8" chisel I have, which I do use sometimes for dovetails believe it or not, is the Narex mortise chisel. I have a home made 1/16" chisel for cleaning out grooves for laying stringing and banding. It doesn't have to be very good, just sharp. It's basically a sharpened small screwdriver.
I've found that a very wide chisel, 1 1/2" to 2" is great for back-notching saw lines when hand sawing wood. Easier to align than any smaller chisels. But beware, if you do mis-set the wide chisel, the mistake is larger! :)
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