Harbor freight chisel angles

[Mel Fulks]

Recently David mentioned HF chisels are on the edge of being useable,or something along that line. It takes a powerful intellectual curiosity to discover that ! Owing a friend a favor I just bought him a set. He buys only high quality tools but often uses them for demo work and such. Just for fun I measured the grind angles. Three are about 30 degrees, one is 39 degrees,one is 40 degrees , and at 47 degrees one seems to be a masonry chisel. I will of course regrind all six. And try them ,might have to get myself a set.

[bridger berdel]

they sell a variety of chisels. I have used the ones that look like these:
http://www.harborfreight.com/6-piece...-set-3816.html

they are useable, if you don't have high expectations. fit and finish is very rough. expect somewhat inconsistent heat treatment. being plain high carbon steel the heat treating process is something you can do at home.

if you are willing to put a little time into lapping the flat and smoothing the rough edges, turning some handles and perhaps rehardening and tempering, you can have a set of bench chisels in a very useful pattern for under $10.

consider them a chisel kit more than a set of chisels.

[george wilson]

Let me guarantee you that if you go heating these up orange hot to re harden,they will certainly warp when you quench them,due to the bevels on 1 side. This causes one side to have more surface area than the other,and it will cool quicker,warping the chisel. Plane blades that just have a beveled edge do the same thing. Chisels will do worse.

If they are too hard,you can heat them up to a medium brown color to draw some of the hardness out of them,so long as you do not quench them. Quenching is not necessary when tempering,provided that you do not exceed the desired tempering color and have to suddenly cool them by quenching to prevent the color from going higher. Getting away with re tempering without quenching is a tricky operation,which I suggest you do not try.

Do not expect Chinese chisels to have sufficient carbon in them to hold a decent edge even if they will get sharp,or even if they are quite hard. The wear resistance of the too low carbon content of the blades will be a permanent problem no matter what you do. You will get what you pay for.

This set would have been more useful if it included 3/8" and 5/8" instead of 1 1/4" and 1 1/2".

[Mel Fulks]

Thanks but I won't try to change them that much. I got the idea of getting these when I saw his Pfeil chisels badly nicked and covered in putty .The backs are fairly flat.

[Harold Burrell]

I saw his Pfeil chisels badly nicked and covered in putty .

NO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!!!!!!!

[Mel Fulks]

Bridger ,that's like the set I bought and I notice the angles vary even in the picture. So there IS some quality control !

[Jim Koepke]

They look like a good set to use when working on trees, fence posts or loaning a tool to the neighbor.

Having that covered, my interest is minimal.

jtk

[David Weaver]

Can't make any guarantees about any of them, but especially not anything new now, as I got mine about 6 or 7 years ago and the sizes and handles are different.

I can't imagine they're unhardened or anything, though. Mine are about like any other hardware store chisels, but they're very light weight.

[David Weaver]

I don't think they sell anything that's high carbon steel without being alloyed to be induction hardened, though. Their written specifications don't mean a whole lot.

Figure they're some sort of chrome vanadium, chrome moly or chrome managanese concoction like most other cheap chisels.

IMG_20131109_185225_352.jpg

You can see how big the batch that I got was. On the left is a typical japanese chisel, then the HF, then an old butcher chisel and on the right a stanley 750-type chisel. I would consider the butcher to be a pretty long chisel. Not as long as a parer, but long and thin. I ground both the butcher and the HF chisel, recognizing that the ground corners on the HF chisel make the corners fairly weak (they do on the butcher, too).

At least in the case of the butcher, I haven't had any issue with the weakened corners actually causing chipping.

[Curt Harms]

They look like a good set to use when working on trees, fence posts or loaning a tool to the neighbor.

Having that covered, my interest is minimal.

jtk

They work pretty well for scraping partially hardened glue and opening paint cans, too.

[Mel Fulks]

I just ground and honed one of the new HF chisels and a chisel from a set of Ulmias I bought back in the 80 s for 70 or 80 dollars. There is not much difference. At 8 dollars for 6 chisels they are a useable good value and will save my friends better chisels. And it's back to opening paint for the Ulmias .