Lidl/Aldi chisels, on the soft side?

[JohnPW]

I hit a Lidl chisel, with a mallet, on a hardened screw and the edge rolled over, I also got a slight folding of the edge when cutting ebony. This is with it sharpened on a single bevel at the factory bevel, I presume 25 degrees.

Has anyone else noticed this? I guess they must be on the soft side, which I read makers go for in preference over a harder temper.

 

[D_W]

I have the HF version of those chisels, and they are soft, But.
* give them an 8th of an inch or so of steel if new
* add two degrees to the bevel at a time to see if you can tolerate where they don't take on damage like that. Most of the chisels that I have that feel soft hold up fine with 2 or 4 degrees more than a harder chisel needs to be set at. It'll be up to you whether or not you can tolerate the increase

 

[Sheffield Tony]

Could be like the Narex ones - ground before heat treating, so the thin first mm or so is not so good - possibly decarburised ? Could try grinding it back a bit and see if it gets you to better metal. Looks like you need to now anyway !

 

[BearTricks]

Funny. I bought some last time they were on offer, got them out for the first time yesterday, got them to mirror polish on the waterstones and strop, then promptly whacked the widest one on a screw that I'd missed.

Very little damage - so much so that I got away with finishing my job without resharpening. Maybe the better steel is a bit further down. I maybe ground a mm or two away before use as mine had a couple of issues out of the box.

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

 

[matthewwh]

In fairness your test is quite a long way beyond what it would be reasonable to expect from any woodworking chisel. A chisel is designed to cut wood, not hardened steel screws.

Normal practice is to hone them at 30 degrees for general work and maybe a fraction steeper if they are primarily used for chopping work.

The other respondents are correct in saying that it is worth taking a new chisel through a few honings before attempting to make any assessment of the edge taking or retention qualities.

A better way of assessing the steel would be to hone the chisel and take a shallow paring cut in freshly sawn softwood endgrain looking for a clean smooth surface with no cracks in it. Then make the same cut in hardwood endgrain, back to the softwood and compare the result, and repeat until you see a deterioration in the cut softwood surface.

On its own the information gained would be of limited relevance, but put two or more chisels against each other in the same test on the same timber and you are beginning to get somewhere.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

In all fairness, ebony is fairly hard stuff, and would defeat a 25 degree bevel in pretty well any steel. It may be worth honing at 30 degrees or so, and having another go, and even going to 32 degrees might be a good plan if a lot of ebony work was planned to find a better balance between edge life and ease of cut. Following the meeting with the screw, it'll need showing to a grinder to get that nick out anyway!

 

[Jacob]

I hit a Lidl chisel, with a mallet, on a hardened screw and the edge rolled over, I also got a slight folding of the edge when cutting ebony. This is with it sharpened on a single bevel at the factory bevel, I presume 25 degrees.



Has anyone else noticed this? I guess they must be on the soft side, which I read makers go for in preference over a harder temper.

If you are going to chisel them a lot I'd suggest using softer screws. And hone at 30º

 

[G S Haydon]

Agree with posts above. 25 deg or less great for light paring cuts. 30deg for general purpose work, some high end chisels and plane irons seem to need angles steeper than 30deg to prevent edge fail. So honing a set of supermarket chisels to just over 30deg is fine. And avoid the screws!