Narex chisels

[Phil Pascoe]

Has anyone any experience of older Czechoslovakian Narex chisels? Are they worth having?

 

[Bram]

I have a set of 12 cabinetmaker chisels and I am very content with them! Sharpen wel en nice to use. But my experience is at a novice level...

Bram

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Bump. any ideas ,anyone?

 

[Blister]

If you use the search option it has over 500 narex comments :wink:

 

[Modernist]

Interesting that they have lost their previous elevated status. Oh the whims of the market.
I sense a bit of "when in a hole stop digging"

My morticers seem OK but that's not such a demanding application.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

If you use the search option it has over 500 narex comments :wink:

Thanks, I hadn't thought to do it. It proved fruitless, though, as all the comments are regarding new Narex - I'm wondering if the old Czechoslovakian ones are any good. They might have been made to completely different standards.
Phil.

 

[Blister]

I'm wondering if the old Czechoslovakian ones are any good

Old is normally better , new is now made to a price not a standard ( in most cases )

 

[Phil Pascoe]

So, you reckon an unused box of four for £5 might be worth a punt?............why didn't I buy them when I saw them?....Yes, I know, I should know better....how old am I ?.....

 

[marcros]

probably worth it for that. but there is old and old- if it was mid 80's for example then the quality may well be pretty rubbish. If it was mid 1880's, i would agree with Blister. I dont know how long Narex have been going?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I suspect these are '70s - 80s They have awful, cheap handles.

 

[matthewwh]

Narex Bystrice, were originally called Vaclav Richter and have been going since 1919 in the same building.

Unlike western manufacturers they didn't go down the impulse hardening route (a fast, cheap but not particularly accurate hardening method which I believe contributed significantly to the fall in quality among most, but not all, western brands in the 1960s).

Instead Narex were effectively a department of a huge state owned company with all the associated research and development funding to find another way to make very good blades in vast quantities.

The result was the isothermally hardened CrMn that they still use today.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Thanks, Matt.