Buck Bros Chisels

[Curt Taylor]

I'm looking for openions concerning the quality of the modern Buck Bros chisels. Does anyone have experience using these. How good is the steel and do they hold an edge. Are they still made with CS or HSS They are priced very reasonable at Craftsmanstudio so they perked my interest a bit. http://www.craftsmanstudio.com/html_p/BuckBrosChisels.htmThanks for any feed back.

[Bob Barkto]

Those aren't current production chisels. They are new, old stock.
Buck doesn't make them like that anymore.

They don't hold an edge like the really old Buck's, but they are much better than the new ones.
The steel is a high carbon steel, not hss.
They're not bad, but not great.

[Tyler Purcell]

I believe they are also available at the big orange borg.

[Matt Meiser]

Those aren't current production chisels. They are new, old stock.
Buck doesn't make them like that anymore.

The Buck page on that site says the paring chisels are NOS but says something to the effect that the bench chisels haven't changed. The way I read it, these are the same Buck bench chisels sold at the Borg, but I could be wrong.

[Michael Schwartz]

The Ones you buy from the home depot are beaters for rough carpentry work. They won't take a much better edge from sharpening them on a 8000 grit water stone than sharpening them on a concrete floor. I own a handfull of them and they have served me well for rough work.


The chissles Crafsman Studio are selling are the last of the production stock of the factory that made the original buck brothers chissles. I can't comment on their quality as I don't own any. I would imagine they are far better than the generic chisels sold with the buck brothers name today. I would expect them to be along the line of Marples in terms of quality at the very least.

The really old buck bros chisels are worthy of their name and are good tools. If you find any at flea markets or garage sales, buy them, even if they are missing their handles or they look like they have been used as nail pullers or used to open paint cans.

[Bob Barkto]

The Buck page on that site says the paring chisels are NOS but says something to the effect that the bench chisels haven't changed. The way I read it, these are the same Buck bench chisels sold at the Borg, but I could be wrong.

I don't think they are currently manufacturing any of those, but at any rate they are definitely better than the variety sold at the borgs today. I own both and there is a big difference in quality.

I recall an interview with a Buck Bros rep many years ago who stated at the time that the butt chisels sold at hardware stores and home centers used a different temper (and handle) than the bench and paring chisels sold to professional woodworkers. Liability issues...

The current crop of butt chisels seem to be a different steel too. It's not only softer than the old Buck butt chisels I have but it just won't take a good edge. It's gummy and smeary on the stone.

[Curt Taylor]

Thanks for all the feed back guys. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Think I'll save my pennies and go for the LN's as needed.

[Michael Pyron]

I know, its 'bad taste' to drag a thread out of the cobwebs, but I found a link to this when searching (with no success) for an email addy for Buck Bros.

I just bought a set of new chisels at Hell Depot because I was too lazy to spend the time hand honing the ones I have which have a lot of chips in the edge from hitting nails and such (not intentionally, trust me, there were some choice words uttered at these occurences!)...I always give a new chisel a hair shaving edge before using them....the chisels I got were so fekked up (out of square, rounded/chipped edges, and nicks in the edge) it took me over an hour to give 4 of them a decent edge....the point I am making is I will never, ever buy one of their chisels again and am currently really pissed off I don't even have an email or phone number to contact them..screw the snail mail....

[Joel Moskowitz]

the point I am making is I will never, ever buy one of their chisels again and am currently really pissed off I don't even have an email or phone number to contact them..screw the snail mail....
Here ya Go:
Buck Brothers
P.O. Box 192
Millbury, MA 01527
Phone: 508-865-4482
Fax: 508-865-1172

[Johnny Kleso]

Buck Bros was bought out by Great Neck Tool years back..

They made not so good tools and guess they just bought the name like Black & Decker did with DeWalt but Great Neck never had a brand as good as B & D

[Bill Keehn]

I bought a full set of those butt chisels from the borg when I started getting into this hobby a couple years ago. That was before I knew better, although I don't have a problem with them. They definitely aren't ready to use out of the packaging. You have to spend the time putting the edge you want on them. This includes polishing the back.

Honestly the only time I've had to spend any effort keeping an edge on them is when I drop them on the concrete floor. Other than that I just touch them up a little with some sand paper on a piece of granite after I use them.

An old timer told me that you can never expect planes and chisels to come ready to use from the factory since everybody has different ideas about what a good edge is. I just accepted this as the truth, so it didn't seem unreasonable to me.


Of course I guess it doesn't seem unreasonable to pull out the torch and temper the edge to my liking either. I mean, are we Neaderthals or not? :)

[Michael Pyron]

hey, thanks for that phone number...

as noted in my post, I always expect to give any edged instrument (yes, even a scraping card) a proper edge when its new...I've bought this brand of chisels from the borg for a while now and have never seen a batch as cr@ppy as this one...way out of line with any idea of 'quality control'...