Miyanaga oops..

[D_W]

Cutting mortises for face frame sticking, using a fairly expensive chisel, and snap. (Well, it would've been expensive if it wasn't used).

Yet another reason to go back to the old English stuff.

This chisel has some flaws, I'll elaborate when I'm not typing from a phone.

 

[D_W]

I have a set of four of these that I got from someone almost ten years ago for about $170 or something like that. At the time, I think the new price for them was about $100 each or so (they are blue #1, and in the world of japanese chisels, these are sort of mid rangey).

They are ultra hard, but the flaw that they have, or two flaws actually - first, they are forged in a shape that sticks hard in a mortise. The second flaw is the lamination is too thick for their hardness. They are super ultra hard and will hold an edge for eons, as long as anything I've ever seen, and they don't lose the edge even scraping the bottom of a mortise. But they are always hard to move around in a mortise because I think they were ground too bluntly on the side. I don't see that on videos of japanese carpenters cutting mortises, they take a smaller mortise chisel like this and flip the chip out at the end of each stroke. That absolutely can't be done with this chisel because it sticks.

I went back to a sorby pigsticker after this, which I just got in the "invasion" a couple of weeks ago, and it cost about half what this chisel cost used. For little face frame mortises, I thought it would be too large to work the mortises, but fortunately, I was wrong.

Every expensive boutique tool that I have is slowly being replaced by something with a longer history of working well - and that would've been sold to professionals and cast out quickly if it wasn't made right.

 

[lurker]

You can be sure all these fancy improvements must have a downside.

Wood has been worked a long time.
Tools evolved by that I mean really evolved; the good ones survived and the less good ones dissappeared (many recently revived for no real reason other than to generate sales).

I was looking at some 1920-30s furniture made by Earnest Gimson & his mates yesterday.
The woodwork was faultless and I doubt they agonised about their tools being something special.

Further; whilst I understand Japanese sword smiths were unbeatable, why the fuss over their woodwork & tools?
Unless I'm missing something, its all soft wood rather than something hard like Oak.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

A mortice chisel that binds in the joint and snaps when levered. I wonder what the blacksmith was actually asked for?

 

[D_W]

Some of the tools are excellent, these had the potential to be excellent if they'd have been ground to be less tight in the mortise.

Other than being a little large in the top cross section, the sorby pigstickers I got (four for 66 pounds) are excellent and won't suffer the same fate as these.

I've always been half in and half out on boutique tools, but I'm mostly out now except for the tools I make (which, I guess, could be considered white collar boutique tools because I don't really have a need to make them). At any rate, I do get sucked in to buying these things sometimes when they are less than half price, like these. And I can be suckered into buying a norris plane here or there if the price is good and the long term exposure in net cash flow is essentially nil if I want to get rid of it.

I have three more of these chisels from this set, and I'll eventually dump them as this one was the only size I'd use often. I think the maker was focused on edge holding with these chisels - they are super hard and they are really well finished aside from the geometry issue. But this particular one would've survived only if it had been hammered in something and pulled straight out over and over, and that's not very practical for cutting mortises. Plus, that's what you sell beginners, the promise of never ending edge retention, because they don't understand geometry and context. I was a beginner when I bought these chisels, and I was definitely impressed by their edge holding. Too bad the other details that matter for work aren't done as well.

(I agree on the old work - stuff from 150-500 years ago was superb. There are boats that have finer woodwork on huge proportions of them where that woodwork is nicer than anything in my house by a long shot).

 

[D_W]

A mortice chisel that binds in the joint and snaps when levered. I wonder what the blacksmith was actually asked for?

"we need chisels 66 hardness for americans, because they think all of our tools are as hard as carbide and they'll buy the one in the catalog with the highest hardness spec!!"

I recall japan woodworker selling these chisels, and they like to forge the way (poor choice of words) in terms of the largest mark up on tools. They could've been $50 chisels in japan for all I know.

 

[lurker]

"white collar boutique tools"

Brilliant phrase :lol:
And it sums up most of the stuff perfectly

 

[AndyT]

Thanks D_W. It's nice to be proved right.

Since about the 70s there has been a steady flow of sales effort around Japanese tools. Some of it was quite persuasive and attractive. There's often the suggestion that the Japanese people hold their craftsmen - including their toolmakers - in high regard, as keepers of secret knowledge. There's probably a good dose of popular mystery in there too, from popular films about the Samurai warriors and the martial arts.
OK, the tools were expensive, but that was just evidence that they were the best, wasn't it?

As someone who was often hard up and forever cynical, I have never bought a Japanese chisel. I don't doubt that excellent Japanese chisels are available, and there is plenty of wonderful Japanese woodwork, but I bought Sheffield tools because they were cheap and because I thought they would be plenty good enough for my limited uses.

It's nice for me to learn that I made the right choice but it must be really annoying for a woodworker to find that their expensive tool is actually flawed in the design, to the extent that it performs less well than an ordinary looking tool, from a tradition of toolmaking backed by detailed understanding, which sadly never featured dragons and temples. Flat caps and pints of Stones Bitter were never going to be an easy sales pitch in comparison.

 

[RossJarvis]

I've got a couple of "hand made" Japanese chisels and on balance I'd have a hard time saying they were any better than my other chisels. They were not cheap but not eye waveringly expensive. I think they are really a sentimental choice and for me that's where the value is.

I've also got a number of factory made Japanese pull saws. Are they any better than western style ones? Probably not but in some instances yes.

 

[ED65]

Ouch!

How are the other chisels from this set by the way, would you consider 'adjusting' them to help prevent this occurrence?

In the spirit of when life gives you lemons, do you have any plans for the bits you're now left with?

 

[D_W]

Ouch!

How are the other chisels from this set by the way, would you consider 'adjusting' them to help prevent this occurrence?

In the spirit of when life gives you lemons, do you have any plans for the bits you're now left with?

The other is binned. I should probably remove the handle from it, as well as the hoop, as there's nothing wrong with those.

As luck would have it, I was able to complete the mortise because 6mm is 6mm and I have a set of japanese bench chisels that I like a lot (because they're wrought iron and a little soft in the hardened metal making them easy to sharpen - and it's not so much a problem that the really hard to sharpen chisels are really hard, but it does create certain problems when they get to practical limits. I have gear on hand to sharpen anything, including carbide, but I don't like that kind of thing day to day).

The profile of japanese bench chisels and mortise chisels when both are narrower than 12 mm or so is just about identical.

As far as the other chisels go, I thought about that instantly after I did that, relieving the sides on the other chisels a little bit, but it would devalue them and I have so many good chisels of various types that I will just sell them before making a modification and inform the buyer that they may want to relieve the sides if they stick (I haven't used any of the other ones).

 

[RobinBHM]

None of my silverline chisels has snapped like that

 

[D_W]

"white collar boutique tools"

Brilliant phrase :lol:
And it sums up most of the stuff perfectly

I have occasionally taken heat for that, but I am white collar and a buyer, so it's not "tool-ism" if you're part of the class, right? (if we were talking about bearings, I guess it would be races-ism. )

That, and calling the week long basic courses white collar retiree courses (something I saw a professional woodworker say - "who takes these courses, they must be filled with white collar retirees")

I have bought many boutique things, though, including several hundred dollar sharpening stones (which are a complete waste of money, but I am enamored with them like jewelry) and a $600 shepherd infill plane kit that must make a plane worth about $300 after you've spent 45 hours putting it together and correcting its faults.

 

[D_W]

Thanks D_W. It's nice to be proved right.

Since about the 70s there has been a steady flow of sales effort around Japanese tools. Some of it was quite persuasive and attractive. There's often the suggestion that the Japanese people hold their craftsmen - including their toolmakers - in high regard, as keepers of secret knowledge. There's probably a good dose of popular mystery in there too, from popular films about the Samurai warriors and the martial arts.
OK, the tools were expensive, but that was just evidence that they were the best, wasn't it?

As someone who was often hard up and forever cynical, I have never bought a Japanese chisel. I don't doubt that excellent Japanese chisels are available, and there is plenty of wonderful Japanese woodwork, but I bought Sheffield tools because they were cheap and because I thought they would be plenty good enough for my limited uses.

It's nice for me to learn that I made the right choice but it must be really annoying for a woodworker to find that their expensive tool is actually flawed in the design, to the extent that it performs less well than an ordinary looking tool, from a tradition of toolmaking backed by detailed understanding, which sadly never featured dragons and temples. Flat caps and pints of Stones Bitter were never going to be an easy sales pitch in comparison.

I have a large number of japanese tools, but not a single one of them is superior to anything else I have. I need to find a sugardaddy over there who will send me a nice full set of bevel edged ward chisels with a good finish, full length and delicate bevels. There are technical superiorities in the japanese tools (the purity of the steels, etc), but get one detail wrong and they fail just like anything else would. The technical superiorities are all things that make no real difference in work, or in some cases that just present problems.

I've got three chisels from the finest Japanese maker who ever lived, but one of the three is so hard that it will not tolerate being hand ground on diamonds or silicon carbide. You can guess at that hardness, how well it grinds on anything else (not well- little in the world of natural stones can touch it). If you grind the chisel on diamonds or silicon carbide, it will chip as you progress through later steps, just as very hard razors will fail if they are sharpened with aggressive stones. If you do the considerable trouble of using a less aggressive abrasive, it will not, but the threat of having to reset the edge if I chip it lets me set it aside. The other two chisels from that maker are perfectly normal, albeit still very hard.

In short, you haven't missed anything. I am happy as a pig in poo with my record laminated irons -they grind quickly favor a quick sharpener and thus far, experience no odd failures. Same for the ward chisels that I've managed to get. Just predictably very good, and if greatness is to be achieved, it will come from the great craftsman with good tools, not the mediocre woodworker such as myself with great tools.

 

[D_W]

Probably not but in some instances yes.

The saws are very good, but I prefer they not be too overly hard. I started with those and later moved to western saws as I found that impulse hardened teeth are only good if you can manage to keep them on the saws. As you go up in price to the hollow ground saws without impulse hardened teeth, they are not easier to keep in good shape. That said, you can literally hold something in one hand with them and saw it with another, which can be handy if you are in the nether regions of the shop away from a bench and just need to trim something.

 

[D_W]

Not a single person has called me a ham-handed ogre yet for splitting a chisel in two! I thought that would be the first post!

 

[ED65]

I was thinking about relieving the sides but also about annealing the shaft, with the working end protected from heat, e.g. using the old trick of sticking it into a potato.

 

[ED65]

Not a single person has called me a ham-handed mong yet for splitting a chisel in two! I thought that would be the first post!

Clearly a materials fault AFAIWC. Mortise chisels should be able to tolerate really severe levering forces otherwise what use are they?

 

[D_W]

Not a single person has called me a ham-handed mong yet for splitting a chisel in two! I thought that would be the first post!

Clearly a materials fault AFAIWC. Mortise chisels should be able to tolerate really severe levering forces otherwise what use are they?

I had to look up the word "mong" in the dictionary. Apparently, that can be offensive in the UK (here, it just means "idiot" without disparaging anyone), so I have changed it to ogre. I'm all for being offensive, but only stupid people who can help it.

 

[sunnybob]

None of my silverline chisels has snapped like that

No, they bend far too well to snap. (hammer) :shock: