Are Disston lathe tools of equal quality with Disston saws?

[robert king]

Does anyone know where I can find information about Disston chisels and gouges for the lathe. I recently bought a set of eight tools in the box never been used. They are labeled Henry Disston and Sons, PA. They have maple handles with Disston insignia and the cutting steel also has Disston insignia. There is no zip code so they must be somewhat old. Every thing this doctor had was very old and of good quality. Are they collectors items? Are they made of the same hardness steel as the saws. How can I date them? I don't want ot use them until I determing their value, but I am almost certain I will keep them as users. Thank you for your help!

[Jim Becker]

Robert, I suspect that these older tools are probably carbon steel and will be very touchy to sharpen due to heat sensitivity. You may want to use them for "show" for that reason as there are a great number of HHS tool offerings avialable today which are much more forgiving. Remember, turning tools get sharpened very, very frequently...

[Dave Anderson NH]

Older turning tools are almost alsways made form high carbon steel. The use of high speed steel such as M2 is afairly recent innovation perhaps only dating back 25 years or so in most cases.

For their day, I'm sure the Disston lathe tools are of high quality. Henry Disston the elder came over from the UK where he had learned the saw making trade. One of the most important reasons for his success is that he had one of the first steel mills in the US. While his competitors were buying good steel from the UK, he was making his own, to his own specs, for his own needs. This became a major profit center for him during the Civil War when the Union took most of his capacity for military use. The capacity to manipulate the formulation of alloy steels allowed him to make quite a number of tools other than saws.

[Alan Turner]

In my purchases of quantitles of older tools, I have managed to snag a disston marking guage, and a disston card scraper. Pretty cool. The point of the marking guage is as hard as a file, so it is to the diamond stone with that guy. Whether they have any collector's value I have no idea. I don't use them much. I have a couple of older Sandvik's, and a patternmaker's marking guage, which are my go-to guys.
Alan

[Guest]

They do not carry the same collector value as a old Diston saw..

Like the others said for users you would be better off with a cheap set of HSS tools..

If you have access to a near mint set or a set with orginal box with the box being the big money getter then I would consider them a good innvestment.. I dont know of them being sought after like thier saws