Anyone try LV's Robert Sorby Paring Chisels?

[Frederick Skelly]

I have a set of NAREX paring chisels. They are thick and dont flex. LV has free shipping and I was considering 1-2 of the Sorby Parers that they sell. I didnt find much in the archives.

I'd appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks!
Fred

[ken hatch]

I have a set of NAREX paring chisels. They are thick and dont flex. LV has free shipping and I was considering 1-2 of the Sorby Parers that they sell. I didnt find much in the archives.

I'd appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks!
Fred

Fred,

I did a recent post on paring chisels. The Sorby chisels are true patten makers chisel with long thin blades and good steel.

ken

[Frederick Skelly]

Fred,

I did a recent post on paring chisels. The Sorby chisels are true patten makers chisel with long thin blades and good steel.

ken

Thanks Ken. I thought I remembered one but must've searched the archives incorrectly and couldn't find it. I'll go look again!
Fred

[jean drabinowski]

I have both. Narex are thick, heavy, and chippy. I definitely prefer the Sorby's.

[Jim Koepke]

Thanks Ken. I thought I remembered one but must've searched the archives incorrectly and couldn't find it. I'll go look again!
Fred

The SMC search function doesn't seem to always work well. Tried finding an old post recently and it was easier to find it with Google. Even though, at least for me, the SMC search uses Google it couldn't find the post with the same search terms. Very strange.

jtk

[Derek Cohen]

I have a set of NAREX paring chisels. They are thick and dont flex. .....

Hi Fred

In my opinion, there is a lot of misunderstanding on the forums about paring chisels.

What is a typical description is a long and thin-bladed chisel that can flex. Often with a low angle bevel (around 20 degrees).

The focus seems to keep returning to the flex in the blade, and that without this the chisel is poorly designed and crudely made.

As I understand, a paring chisel is long .... which aids in making fine adjustments to the paring angle ... but the blade does not need to flex. What on Earth does flex do other than alter the angle at which the blade is cutting? That is not a good thing! Perhaps someone can enlighten me.

What I believe is that the flex comes as a by-product of making the blade as light as possible. Thinner blades will be lighter, and will be more prone to flex. Light is good as this aids in feedback and control.

My Japanese paring chisels (or slicks) have short blades and long handles (below a Kiyohisa), the opposite of the Western paring chisel (below a Witherby). The third chisel in the picture is a Blue Spruce dovetail chisel, which as a nice, thin blade ...




All three of these chisels are beautifully balanced in use. None of these chisels have blades that flex. The Kiyohisa, in particular, has a thick blade. And yet it has a delicacy and agility in the hand.

I am not intimating that thick is OK. And I have not used the Narex chisels, bench or paring (I can see that the paring chisels are chunky and likely to be clunky). I am suggesting that you can widen your search to makes other than Sorby, that is, that flex is irrelevant, and what you will likely find is that lightness and balance are the important factors in a paring chisel.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Patrick Chase]

I am not intimating that thick is OK. And I have not used the Narex chisels, bench or paring. I am suggesting that you can widen your search, that is, that flex is irrelevant, and what you will likely find is that lightness and balance are the important factors in a paring chisel.

I have the Narex parers. IMO there are two significant problems with those chisels:

1. The blades are quite thick and heavy, and the chisels are front-heavy and not particularly nimble as a consequence. Overall they're built in a manner more suitable for framing chisels than for parers.
2. They use Narex's standard process of grinding only before heat-treatment, and rely on the low typical distortion of their austempering HT process to keep geometry in control. The problem is that even small amounts of warpage translate into large flatness deviations over a 9-5/8" long blade, so if you want more than the first inch or two to be flat then you're in for hours of work. I prefer my parers to register cleanly to the bottoms of slots for at least a few inches, and to not be overly concave such that they get "lifted" out of registration when paring long surfaces, so I did the work. Never again.

[Frederick Skelly]

Thanks folks!

Jean - Thanks for responding. Your first hand experience with both brands helps. Hope to see you posting with us more often!

Jim - Glad to know it isn't just me!

Derek - Thanks for your thoughts on this. They're always appreciated. I was thinking the same sorts of things, that Japanese parers are neither long nor flexible.

Pat - I did a fair amount of work to flatten my Narex too. I feel your pain.

[Noah Magnuson]

I have the 1/2" sorby paring chisel. It is fantastic for its intended purpose. The flex allows you to really make sure the blade is flat against a reference surface when paring. For a rigid chisel you would have to make sure it is dead flat and any wobble in your user angle up or down would change the angle of entry. For these, you can just register the edge, and the put a little downward pressure until part of the the face registers. At this point, the cutting part of blade face is dead parallel to the surface. You can wobble up or down, but the blade face stays registered. Think of laying a flexible ruler on your workbench. Lift one end and add a little pressure and the other end lays flat and parallel regardless.

You can do this with a rigid chisel if you lay it dead flat, but the flex allows you to get the same control with less attention. Now, for very short paring like doevtails, there isn't going to be much point, but it isn't long for no reason. These chisels are meant for tasks where you are either paring down a deep mortise or across long surfaces.

There isn't much purpose in owning more than a couple sizes, but it is one chisel I would hate to part with. I have some Witherbys that don't have the flex like the Sorby, and they just don't work the same and serve a different purpose in my shop.

[Derek Cohen]

The flex allows you to really make sure the blade is flat against a reference surface when paring. For a rigid chisel you would have to make sure it is dead flat and any wobble in your user angle up or down would change the angle of entry. ....

You can do this with a rigid chisel if you lay it dead flat, but the flex allows you to get the same control with less attention. ......

This is not so, Noah. It very much depends on the design of the chisel. The good paring chisels are designed to lay flat without the need to flex the blade. They do so by designing in a little offset in the handle. This is my Kyohisa ...



When you lay the blade flat, the handle does not touch the surface ...



Regards from Perth

Derek

[John C Cox]

I have been wondering the same thing about them.... They seem to be about the only English pattern carbon steel paring chisel on the market. Theoretically, Henry Taylor makes them - but they seem to be unobtanium in the US....

and I feel your pain on trying to use a big heavy club for paring.... That 1" Sheldon is gigantically heavy too... And while I suppose it would work - it just doesn't have the right sort of feel in hand for fine work...

[Patrick Chase]

You can do this with a rigid chisel if you lay it dead flat, but the flex allows you to get the same control with less attention.

This is not so, Noah. It very much depends on the design of the chisel. The good paring chisels are designed to lay flat without the need to flex the blade. They do so by designing in a little offset in the handle.

Noah's implied point of comparison is a stiffer Western parer like a Narex. He's explaining why the flexible iron on the Sorby is advantageous relative to that, and IMO he's right.

Obviously the Japanese parers take a different approach more akin to a cranked-neck parer (the "offset" you cite is actually a small amount of cranking). The blade itself is kept relatively short and easily flattened, which avoids the entire issue that Noah described. Different approaches to the same problem.

[Noah Magnuson]

I think your claim of 'the good chisels...' is a bit narrow. The flex just allows for a different technique not available to a rigid chisel. If you tip your rigid chisel in any way up or down, it changes the angle of approach. Not so with the Sorby or any very flexible parer. It maintains the same registration while sliding back and forth with less concern for the handle angle. I made no claim that one was wrong, right or better, just the usefulness of a very flexible blade in different circumstances.

Notice in all three figures, the blade at the cutting edge is fully registered for some distance with no change in angle of approach with three different handle angles. I have found this to be very useful in circumstances where there is a long reach and dark corners. If you find no value in that, then we can respectfully disagree.
flat.jpg
higher.jpg

highest.jpg

[Graham Haydon]

A bit of flex is useful if your view of effective handwork in not copying the working style of a CNC. I must admit I don't often use a paring chisel. I'll most likely switch to using a bench chisel bevel down instead. However that bit of flex allows for changing pressure and emphasis as you work. I went to a winding up sale at a local cabinet works a few years back. Their paring chisels were planer blades with the old cutting edge made safe, bevel ground on the end and a wooden handle attached. Their work was excellent and exported to various locations in the world.
The Sorbys are ok, I have a 12mm and seldom use it, but when I use it, it's fine. It's a good enough paring chisel. I would just give one a go.

[John C Cox]

I think also that some of this flex is incidental to trying to harden a 9" long, 1/8" thick blade without warp....

My own experiments on getting something like this to work right resulted in a chisel body which was normalized with only the last 1" or so hardened and tempered... And it has this flexy sort of feel to it... It's pretty easy to get it to come out right (and clean it up for a decent flat back) with only the last inch hard... Try to harden much more and warp becomes a big fight.... I made some pretty ugly chisels when I was trying to get them mostly hard..... Never mind that 1" of hard chisel end is probably 3 lifetimes for me..