Chisel Buying Advice
George VondriskaPurchasing new tools can be a daunting task. In this video, George answers a question from one of our Woodworkers Guild of America community members, giving his advice on how to purchase chisels. What can you expect to pay when buying chisels? Are some chisels better quality than others? Find the answers to these questions and learn what chisel is right for you in this video.
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Hi, George, Josh here. I have a question for ya. I feel like I need to get a set of chisels but I don't know what to get. I bought a set a long time ago thinking I needed 'em for whatever reason, but the ones I got didn't hold up too well. They didn't last needless to say so I need a little help.
What kind should I get? Where should I look? What size and about how much should I expect to pay? Thank you very much. Have a great week.
Hey Josh, thanks for your chisel question. And as you may have learned, regarding how much should I expect to pay? It doesn't pay to go cheap on chisels. My particular set are Lie-Nielsen bevel edge socket chisels. Socket means they are, let's see if I can get one of these to open up, they may not.
Socket chisel, means there's a recess here in the chisel itself. And the handle has been turned to fit into that recess. Bevel edge means just what it sounds like. The edge of the chisel here has been angled away. So for me, the reason I particularly got bevel edge chisels was I'm going to use these when I do hand cut dovetails, which isn't often, but I wanna have them available for that.
And the bevel edge allows this to fit when I'm paring away at the bottom of a tail. And it just literally allows that to slip past that tight inside corner. So, in the world of buying advice, my buying advice was, a friend of mine said, you're really gonna like the Lie-Nielsen chisels, so that's the set I bought. And I really do like them a lot. They hold an edge great, like I said, for me, the bevel edge was a deal because of my dovetail application.
I do have a set of marginal chisels. This is something like I just picked up at a home center. This is a buck. And these get used in my shop as glue chisels. So, completely separate from the Lie-Nielsens.
All I do with these is cut glue beads, cleanup glue, maybe scrape wood dough. These are banger chisels. I sharpen them on a belt sander. My go-to chisels for fine work, mortises, joinery, that kind of stuff, are the Lie-Nielsens. So, I think that good advice would be look at specialty woodworking stores, more so than home centers when it comes to buying them.
And they'll have, as a rule, they're gonna have better quality stuff. So, just to kind of revisit the overview here, mine are Lie-Nielsen socket chisels, bevel edge. They're not inexpensive, but they're a really, really good set of chisels. And it's one of these things of, cry once, is that how that expression goes? In other words, save your pennies, get a really good tool, and then you're not gonna be buying that tool over and over and over again.
So hopefully Josh, that gets you on a good road to a chisel purchase in your life and have fun with your woodworking.
I have never seen one of your vidios.
I agree with George on general approach. It's great to have a nice set of quality chisels for precision work, as well as a cheap "beater" set which you can use for things like glue scraping, or home handyman tasks. That said, my "nice" set is a four-piece set by Narex, which would admittedly be considered mid-level quality, with something like a Lie-Nielsen at the top of the heap. They have been a good starter set for me, as I have only been woodworking for a few years so far. At some point, I will likely step up to a top-quality set.
Good quick answer (the world of chisels could easily lead to a 3 hour discussion), but just a couple of quick points I thought might be helpful. 1) At first I was going to say don't forget vintage chisels, but have decided not to for 2 reasons. The first, and main reason, is that it always seems to take a larger time investment than initially assumed to get an old chisel back into working order. If one isn't going to be using said chisel all that often, the time/value benefit just might not be there. The second, and almost as important, is that any vintage/antique tool purchase can immediately lead to "oldtoolitis", or the immediate addiction to purchasing more cool old tools than you need which drains your bank account, leaves you divorced, and inevitably takes up all the time you should be spending using the damn tool you wanted to buy in the first place. Avoid at all costs unless retired or independently wealthy. 2) Something I've found as someone who has gone from using all traditional handtools to 90% machinery, due to starting a production shop, is that I find myself using my pairing chisels far more often than my bench chisels. Since I'm no longer chopping out waist for joinery, most of my chisel use occurs when I'm fine tuning a machine cut surface. It could very well be worth it to refrain from buying a full set of bench chisels to be able to purchase a couple of pairing ones. I'd say start out with possibly a 1/4" and 3/4" bench chisel, or similar sizing, and then add as one finds need. If you find yourself using only one chisel 95% of the time, and a large majority of that time fine fitting joints, go ahead and give a pairing chisel at that size a try. I've never used the Lie Nielsen's, but I know they have an optional pairing handle that could provide an introduction to pairing chisels without another major purchase. 3) Lastly, as with any bladed tool, your happiness with it is going to come down largely to your ability to get said tool sharp. Take the time to learn to sharpen well. It's not nearly as complicated as many people seem to make it. You don't need an entire book or 3 hour video on the subject. A $10 jig, some cheap Amazon water stones, and a 5 minute YouTube video will do the trick to begin with. Hope this helps
I would add to get a set that is in fractions, if you use fractions instead of metric. I had a set of german chisels that were metric and there were frustrating moments trying to get things to fit. I finally bought a set of Lie-Nielsens myself and they are great. If you don't want to spend that much you can get a decent set from Wood River or Narex.