David Savage on Lie-Nielsen chisels

[Hilton Ralphs]

David Savage is a "Fine Furniture Maker" who operates a school out of Devon in the UK.

Please excuse some of the grammar.

Prelude

As I wander around the twenty or so benches here at Rowden Workshops I see four or five favourite brands or furniture makers bevel edged chisel. As none of them seem to be perfect I will describe each in turn giving you pros and cons in each case as I see it.

On LN chisels

Workshop favourite are the bench chisels offered by the American manufacturer Lie Nielsen. These are without doubt beautifully made tools. The bevelling is accurate and well cut you can see the corners clearly and the backs of these blades invariably come to us straight and true. This is an essential quality and don't let toolmakers tell you different. The key surface of a chisel is the back, if you're seeking to create a flat surface with a chisel it is the back you will be pressing on to the job extending a surface that you've already cut to left and right using the corners of the blade. If the back of a chisel is not flat you have a great deal of work to get it flat. Or, you could use it for opening tins of...

The handles of these blades are good and two versions a long handle and a shorter handle are offered different sized blades have different sized handles. The manufacture of the blades is of exceptionally high quality it is a design that gives me a problem it is a relatively heavy blade and I personally find it rather clumsy. The steel used is a modern A2 cryogenically treated steel. The characteristic of the steel is to take an edge and then hold it exceptionally well. The challenge I have is that I feel that this is quality steel takes a good edge but not as keen as that offered by high carbon steel even cold rolled high carbon steel. I don't see the advantage of holding an edge for a long time as being a great one in a professional workshop as a skilled maker you will be able to put an edge on a blade in less than a minute I do see as a disadvantage the fact that these blades don't take the keenest edge.
For that reason alone I would not be buying them. Sorry Mr L N.
David Savage

[Chris Fournier]

I do see his point, sharp vs edge retention. It all depends on what kind of work the craftsman does and what materials are used. I personally prefer a tool steel that allows me to get the sharpest edge that I can attain, touching the edge up is indeed quick. This being said it can be a drag when you are to a fro between the bench and sharpening.

Even with metal working I prefer to use HSS cutters over carbide because of the sharpness of the edge attainable and the resulting finish. I resort to carbide cutters for machining of harder and more abrasive materials only.

Two faces of the cutting edge coin.

[John Sanford]

David needs an editor. I read the same thing, and was left wondering "Perhaps you should ask/answer why they are the workshop favourite then...."

[Hilton Ralphs]

David needs an editor

Exactly, hence my small disclaimer.

[Jim Koepke]

Please excuse some of the grammar.

Is there a date associated with his statements?

To me there is a finite point where a chisel needing too much time on the stones is abandoned for one that can retain an edge awhile between sharpenings.

None of my chisels are A1 or A2. Can not make any comments about their edge.

jtk

[Derek Cohen]

I wonder what medium he is using to hone his chisels? When it comes to A2 it does make a difference between sharp and close.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Hilton Ralphs]

Is there a date associated with his statements?

Is today current enough?

savage_david.JPG

[Chris Griggs]

I wonder what medium he is using to hone his chisels? When it comes to A2 it does make a difference between sharp and close.

Regards from Perth

Derek

That was my exact thought. In theory A2 is probably not the best choice for chisel, but in practice the LN chisels take and hold a very very good edge when honed on modern abrasives. On the other hand it is harder to get an edge as sharp as plain high carbon steel when honing A2 (or V11) on natural oil stones. I also find his comment about them being clunky odd. They are some of lightest most well balanced chisels I've ever handled. While I have used them a fair bit I don't even own the LNs so I'm not trying to "defend" a purchase or anything, but that evaluation is pretty incomplete, and doesn't really provide any context.

[Hilton Ralphs]

Looks like he's going to post his thoughts on four other brands over time. I guess Lie-Nielsen was just the first brand.

This is what he said before the part I posted earlier;

Again, excuse the grammar, spelling and English.

Not all tool manufacturer's do a good job of applying a bevel down the top of a chisel. Some like Lie Nielsen do beautiful job taking that almost right down to the back of the blade, and others like Crown put a little camfer on the top of the blade and call that a bevel. As far as I'm concerned this is taking the p...s, almost to the point of contravening the Trades Descriptions Act. I don't like manufacturers who play around like this and I won't hesitate to point it out and steer less knowledgeable people away from them.

In the same way that the Jack Plane is a multipurpose tool, so the bevel edged chisels used in lots of ways. Opening tins of No.....dont go there. It must function when we want to pare horizontally or vertically and where we want to strike it with a mallet not forcefully but with purpose. We need a delicate precision tool that will hold an edge well that will take a keen edge and will take a gentle battering.

[Derek Cohen]

Exactly Chris.

The interesting thing is that David Savage is saying that he cannot get the LN sharp enough to work on furniture (presumably with grits up to at least 6000), while Paul Sellers is saying 250 grit is enough. I wonder who is correct?

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Chris Griggs]

I wonder who is correct?

Oooo Derek, you're bad...you're just trying to start a riot.

[Hilton Ralphs]

I wonder who is correct?

Paul Sellers' workshop is in a castle so that trumps everything

[Keith Outten]

A review that seems so contradictory has little value.
.

[Chris Griggs]

Seems like the new thing for sale is how to woodwork with no investment.

Send me $5000 and I'll tell you how to make masterpieces with nothing more than putty knife honed on a brick...you have to supply your own wood though

(sorry, too snarky?)

((not that I think boutique tools are a requirement of good woodworking nor am I in any opposed to the idea of being able to woodwork with a minimal investment. I'll be the first guy to agree with Paul Sellers when he says how much you can do with Bailey no.4 with a stock blade and I am happy to tell you how to get a great edge with nothing more than a $20 india stone and a $5 stick of honing compound....but really, some of this stuff is starting to seem contradictory just for the sake of being contradictory....everyone loves a rebel right?))

[Simon MacGowen]

Exactly Chris.

The interesting thing is that David Savage is saying that he cannot get the LN sharp enough to work on furniture (presumably with grits up to at least 6000), while Paul Sellers is saying 250 grit is enough. I wonder who is correct?

Regards from Perth

Derek

The obvious answer, which Derek probably already knew, is both are right. The right answer depends on what the user or holder of the chisel so sharpened expects to achieve. I now use both the traditional sharpening method (waterstones up to 8,000 grits) for both blades and chisels as well as Paul's diamond stone approach (up to the stropping) for chisels only. I have not detected any major differences between the two in terms of the outcome of my work. Paul's method does have the advantage of using little water which can be unpleasant in a cold shop during the winter.

As for grammar and spellings, the source (magazine, blog?) is not revealed and we have no way of telling the need for perfect grammar and spellings. Bloggers, unless they are on the English language, tend to be less concerned about such aspects as their intentions are to share their observations and knowledge. In the business context, emails have replaced traditional letters and memos; people these days are, sadly, not putting the same kind of effort they used to when writing them.

I would have expected the magazine's editor to clean up David's prose if indeed it was a magazine piece. The writing failure here is the editor's and not David's, in my opinion.

While on the subject, I found Tom Fidgen's first book full of errors and was surprised that it was edited by PW. His second book, by FW, has just come out and I haven't had a chance to lay my hands on it yet, but I surely expect it to be well polished by the editorial team at FW. Tom is a skilled craftsman and it was a shame that his fine work was distracted by the editing deficiency in the first book.

Simon