Woodriver chisels

[Ralph Wiggum]

Got a sale flyer from woodcraft tonight, they have a 8pc set of Woodriver bench chisels on sale for $49.99. Anyone have any experiance with these, are they any good? Looking for a starter set, probably won't see a lot of use, and the price is right.

[Larry Laffer]

Re-branded Pinnacle? Never heard of Wood River before I got the flyer.

[John Todd]

Never heard of these.

If you need a starter set of very inexpensive chisels, why don't you go with the Marples/Irwin "Blue Chip" chisels. Woodcraft has them. They aren't that much more expensive and while most people here have moved past them on to something they think is better, many started out with Blue Chips. While their edge retention isn't wonderful, most would probably say they aren't a bad place to start. Buy either the 4 or 6 piece starter set, or just buy the sizes you need as you need them. When you move up they make great carpentry/home repair beaters for two by fours or window repair on your home, or pass them on to a friend, son or daughter as their first.

[Thomas Knighton]

For a starter set, check out the Narex chisels at Lee Valley. They're actually cheaper than the Blue Chips, and Lee Valley has a great reputation for solid products. Before I found the deal at Grizzly for Japanese chisels, I was going to get the Narex chisels.

Never used them myself though, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

Tom

[Thom Sturgill]

I bought the Narex, but have little to compare them to yet as I'm just getting back into ww after several decades away from it.

They are way better than the old plastic handled Stanleys I had, but might not be as good as the newer 'Fat Max' that I bought about 5yrs ago.

They definitely needed sharpening and were not usable out-of-the-box, but I was warned of that when I bought them. When I used a mallet on one (on red oak) I had to reshape the end as it chipped badly. My finger can attest to the fact that they do take a sharp edge though. (It's kind of hard to type this now as I slipped with the chisel this afternoon.:eek: Not bad, no stitches, but I take an aspirin a day for a heart condition, so lots of blood.)

[Glenn Madsen]

Aren't those flyers wonderful? Stuff we didn't know we had a need for, and now we're out searching for whether it's any good...

There are several factors for me with buying things. Do I trust the product, based on someone's experience with it? These are new to me products, so...

Do I trust the seller? At least MY Woodcraft retailer has been good to me, and my woodworkers' club over the years, and they have a bring it back policy worth exploring.

Is it good enough for a long term deal, or will it be used once and put away? I have four sets of chisels, maybe more, and the ones I use most are the ones from Maine, with the neat handles and A2 construction. Everything else is something to distract the young uns that borrow my tools without specific permission each time. And there are some Stanleys and Marples in that pile. Not bad chisels.

What would I do in your situation? Well, if I read it right, probably go down to the local hardware store, and buy a couple of those that the owner recommends. The sizes I wanted. That, or drop the bigger bucks on the LN or Japanese specialty varieties. But those run each what this set asks.

But then, I'm seldom one to simply buy a new product first, without a reasonable track record.