Chisels, Draw Knives, Etc. - Recommendations

This perhaps should go in the Finer Things sub-forum, but I'm going to put it here because I intend to use them for restorations.

I'm interested in a good quality set of basic furniture or carving chisels. Most of the "basic" sets I've found come with between 5 and 8 chisels. I'm looking to spend $100.00 or less and would take higher quality over a larger set, although I expect I'll need a minimum of five to really find them useful. I intend to use them for scale shaping/carving.

I live in a very small studio apartment and, while I would love to have a fine belt sander, scroll saw, etc., I simply don't have the room to store these items when not in use. I rather enjoy working with hands anyway and this method would allow me to work on scales inside. This also means I can work through the cold Minnesota winters (my small garage is uninsulated and not heated.)

So, for any of you wood-workers, I'm looking to your experience and expertise. Chisels, mallets and draw-knives. Companies to look at, companies to avoid, things I should look for or specific chisels that I should have in a set. I don't need fancy, but I would prefer wood handles, with or without a mallet plate (furniture vs. carving) and harder steel as I do want to work with some exotic hardwood.

Thanks up-front for any and all input.

Only my opinion,
I would start with USA, German, or Japanese steel. Then find the one that fit my hand with the most comfort. I have only got a very few chisles which are Stanley, I think. I think if I used them any more than I do, I would go to Woodcraft and buy better and more specific tools. I am thinking of doing some wood carving on a set of scales or a knife handle. When I do, I will get a couple of more specific chisels for the job.

As important as steel is how sharp you keep it.

Jeff

I am not sure if quality and low price go together with chisels and wood working tools in general, I may be wrong though.
You might have luck getting second hand, e-bay (if you know what you are looking for) or some estate sale etc.

Japanwoodworker - Home - The Japan Woodworker Catalog

Hida Tool & Hardware Company

Either place has a spectrum of cost/quality. But, even the low end stuff is made by craftsmen. I have not been disappointed by any tool purchased from either place.

Now, as to small tools for the size shop you describe... Shop Small Hobby Tools & Miniature Tools from Micro Mark

If you hate me after showing you that last link, I understand. They are oriented toward hobby-ists. The tools are really pretty good despite their size. I have way too many things purchased from these guys. I hate the guy that gave me my first catalog from here. He's one of my best friends. As soon as I see their catalog in the mail it goes straight in the trash. Opening it costs money. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mike Blue

Japanwoodworker - Home - The Japan Woodworker Catalog

Hida Tool & Hardware Company

Either place has a spectrum of cost/quality. But, even the low end stuff is made by craftsmen. I have not been disappointed by any tool purchased from either place.

Now, as to small tools for the size shop you describe... Shop Small Hobby Tools & Miniature Tools from Micro Mark

If you hate me after showing you that last link, I understand. They are oriented toward hobby-ists. The tools are really pretty good despite their size. I have way too many things purchased from these guys. I hate the guy that gave me my first catalog from here. He's one of my best friends. As soon as I see their catalog in the mail it goes straight in the trash. Opening it costs money. :)

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The low end stuff is not made by craftsmen, they are factory made. The craftsmen stuff is pretty expensive.
For example my first kogatana was a $20 from JWW, it bent in ~2 months, and I trashed it. I found out later that it was a stamped blade not forged. My current forged kogatana is made by a smith, it cost several times more and is still considered low end.

I stand corrected.

Falingore, look into used tools, I have found excellent quality used hand tools locally at flea markets and pawn stores. Complete sets or better single old Marples, Buck, Freud and old Sheffield chisels, under 5 dollars each and cheaper in sets. They may be a bit rusty but what better way to practice your buffing skills.

Caution, tool collecting bugs are rampant at those places, you may get bit.

FWIW --

You can buy Japanese chisels -- traditional laminated blades -- from Lee Valley:

Lee Valley Tools

They also carry other Japanese tools, and just about everything a woodworker would need.

. Charles

FWIW --

You can buy Japanese chisels -- traditional laminated blades -- from Lee Valley:

Lee Valley Tools

They also carry other Japanese tools, and just about everything a woodworker would need.

. Charles

Personally, I'd seek out the flea markets.
I often find old chisels and drawing knives. Usually covered with surface rust, but that's easily fixed.
There is almost no market for old tools here, and people on flea markets often sell their grandfathers' tools when he passed away. Generally, the price for any old tool is between 50 cents and 2 dollars (unless the seller is a merchant).

I've bought a couple of antique sheffield chisels for a couple of bucks.
A blacksmith's hammer for 90 cents.
A huge handmade rasp (with irregular aligned teeth) for 1 euro.
A huge nicholson file, never used. For 1 or 2 euros...

As long as the temper is still good, an antique chisel will serve you as good as a new craftsman chisel which costs 10 to 20 times more.

If you are going to carve furniture then there are a few different styles of chisels to chose from I would look at woodcraft and some of thier swedish stuff. I like palm chisels because I can use them for palm and chasing work... And the steel is superb...takes a while to build a nice kit, but you can start with a basic set of five and do quite a bit.

Thanks to everyone who's replied so far. I'm gathering from what I've read here that I should look for pieces at estate sales and flea markets and that $100.00 is probably not enough to get what I'm really interested in.

So, thank you Wintchase for the Woodcraft recommendation, it seems like a great place to start.

Anyone have any other specific brands I should keep an eye out for, now that I've removed my original price point?

Thanks much!

If you go the vintage route, don't discount Stanley. It wasn't too long ago that they made high quality tools, especially their chisels and planes.

I can't really gather what you're going to do, are you going to do restoration carving (which would require gouges) or are you going to be using straight chisels?

Straight chisels can be had cheaply. The best inexpensive chisels are probably narex brand, which can be had for about $8 each.

Carving tools not nearly so, and you will not get by with a few carving chisels, especially if you're doing restoration.

A trade carver would have probably 100-400 gouges, depending on what they were doing. That said, carving, to get something professional looking, will take a lot of practice.

I am not aware of any good and cheap carving tools. Austria, switzerland and germany make good western style carving chisels that require little prep work, but two gouges of any size will eat up your $100 budget.

Carving is not something to do on a budget.

If you're just looking for chisels and you have minimal kit to restore tools, I would just buy the narex chisels or something similar. Log yourself into sawmillcreek.org or one of the other specific forums where the current crop of beginners is hanging out and where the cost and benefit of various tools is discussed in detail.

If you are thinking of just carving more sculptural, or just wide open in general, then you have more room with carving tools and can acquire a little bit at a time. In terms of inspiration for wide open, check out Randall Rosenthal's work.

What's New

All the work on those pages is carved from wood, including the money, the boxes, etc, it's all wood.

(the only danger in looking at randall's work is not noticing that you're actually looking at wood carvings that he has hand painted, and despite the newspapers in the picture looking like newspapers, there is no newspaper there, it's carved out of wood to fool you into thinking you're looking at newspapers, boxes, baseball cards, etc when nothing of the sort is present in any pictures, just painted carvings that look *an awful lot like* the real thing).

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Originally Posted by Theseus

If you go the vintage route, don't discount Stanley. It wasn't too long ago that they made high quality tools, especially their chisels and planes.

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Somewhere around WWII is pretty much the cutoff. The 50s and 60s pretty much killed cabinetmaker quality tools from stanley, marples, etc. The era of industrial design took over and plywood and straight lines relegated a lot of new tools to wood shop in school.

Most stanley planes that don't say "defiance" or "handyman" and that have wooden handles can be made to work very well, though. Same with the chisels - if the handles are wood and they aren't really shiny and/or don't have clear plastic handles, they're probably pretty good.

Theseus and Dave,

Thank you both for the information. I'm primarily looking at straight chisels/furniture chisels and a good draw knife.

Two Cherries or Pfeil seem to the brands at the top of the list. I'll probably get a small set of gouges, but don't intend to do any intricate carving in a restoration sense. Perhaps this thread actually belongs under scale making?

I had a draw knife when I was younger that we used for carving longbows, but I lost it somewhere in a college move. Something I'd like to back into and razor scales seemed like an alright place to try it... I suppose we'll find out.

So, this is going to sound like confessions of a pig. I had a set of 2 cherries chisels and I have used pfeil chisels.

The pfeil chisels are nice, but they are highly priced at woodcraft (as is all pfeil stuff) and you likely will want to make sure you get chisels where the sides are delicate, for a lack of a better way to put it. The bevel should go down almost and touch the back, unless you're going to have various sets. It's not absolutely absolutely necessary, but you will bruise your work a lot less if you have a chisel set that has those delicate sizes, and you'll be able to get the chisels in tighter spaces (like between dovetails) if they are set up like that - otherwise to avoid putting dings in joints like that, you'd have to skew the chisels and in some cases there will be no room.

I would buy the narex faster than I would buy the two cherries, they are both some sort of chrome vanadium steel, the narex chisels have a more delicate edge and you pay czech labor instead of german on them. They are also not buffed to death on each corner, which is a major detriment - i don't know why 2 cherries still does that, certainly no vintage maker ever did, and vintage makers had to please people who were using the tools to make a living. And the icing on the cake is that the 2 cherries chisels don't have the most desirable handles for cabinetmaking work.

Old marples (boxwood handled and blue chips) were probably a mainstay in a lot of shops for the last 50 years, but they have gone into the toilet since selling the brand around and moving production to china. But you can learn from the profile of the older ones, about what is going to be nice to use and why they were in so many shops.

Fine woodworkers now, at least those involved in traditional work, will generally consider the old forged bolster tanged chisels that are in the range of 200 years old as the best chisels that have ever been made. They are lighter than chisels that have to do double duty in cabinetmaking and construction, and made exactly to the specifications of cabinetmakers who used only hand tools. That's just for reference, though, you won't find them.

Aside from that, I would go to antique shops for drawknives, you should come across something with minimal wear in the $25 range, and something small enough that it's sensible for your work. A lot of drawknives floating around are big hulking things that won't serve you too well. New drawknives are generally not better, and they are a lot more expensive.

If you have any questions about other specific brands of chisels, let me know. I have probably used them, I am a pig of the first degree when it comes to tools.