Chisel shopping
Time to buy myself some non-horrible chisels. I was over at Scott’s house using his crosscut sled (something I haven’t had time to build yet). He had a set of Irwin/Marples Blue Chip chisels straight from Home Depot. These are your classic “eh” tool. They’re not total crap, but they’re not the chisels you’re going to take to your grave by any means. The handles are plastic, the metal and quality control are so-so, and they’re generally adequate.
I used the 3/4″ to clean up a cut that was a bit ragged. As soon as the blade hit the wood fibers I was brutally reminded that *my* chisels are absolute, unmitigated, crap. Not only that, but my wife recently used them to chip some cement out of a crack in the tiles. Frankly, at this point I’d be better off with a butter knife. They’re new and the blades aren’t chipped (and proposing this alternative to my wife will prevent any complaints when I actually do buy a set of chisels).
So I did some homework, and I’m sharing the results with you. This is a pretty good wrap up of some nice chisels and comparisons; mostly useful as a checklist of things to consider when you decide what’s right for you. This is a good summary of chiselspeak.
Now comes the decision: how much to spend, and what chisels to buy with it? I decided to set myself an arbitrary budget of around $60. Here’s what I considered.
1) Get a set of 4 Blue Chip chisels and blow the extra $35 on a good bottle of wine.
2) Get a set of 4 Crown bench chisels. Mm, pretty rosewood handles.
3) Get two badass chisels that will last forever, and deal with only having 1/4 and 3/4 sizes
4) Ditto, but they’re turning japanese (These are Fine Woodworking’s #1 rated chisels). Note that these are a buck or two cheaper here.
Hm, will have to chew on this for a bit… I’ll repost when I have chisels in hand & let you know how things turned out.
(Not that my wife complains when I buy woodworking tools–seriously. She’s awesome.)
(Bonus points if you know the artist who did “Turning Japanese” without referring to Google…)
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