Originally Posted by
Stanley Covington
Since you are not looking for a Ferrari but a Honda, you need to decide what you need your chisel to do, and then, you can formulate your quality criteria.
All chisels need to cut. So, a high-quality chisel will (1) Become very sharp; (2) It will stay sharp a long time; (3) It will not chip or roll or dull quickly. These three factors are decided by (1) Steel quality (chemical content and purity); and (2) Fabrication (forging) technique; and (3) design. A high-quality chisel, therefore, will have a time-tested design, be made from high-quality steel and other materials, will be properly forged with a proper combination of the right hardness and toughness, and with high-quality crystalline structure.
All chisels need to be resharpened. So a general-purpose (versus High-speed steel chisel) high-quality chisel will be easy to sharpen. Sharpening quality is driven by hardness, but more importantly, the steel's chemical composition. Anything with tungsten is hard to sharpen.
A sharp edge is decided by the precise intersection of two planes of a blade. On of these two faces in a chisel is the face. If this is not a flat plane, truly sharp will be very difficult to obtain quickly. Plain flat faces tend to get rounded over during use and sharpening. The Japanese chisel is hollow-ground and easier/quicker to keep in shape, and quicker to get sharp. It is the only design with this feature.
A quality chisel must be durable and efficient. It is, after all, a working tool, not a decoration. If you strike it with a hammer, a high-quality chisel will accept the maximum possible force without the blade bending or breaking, and without the handle splitting or breaking. Look carefully at handle construction. The best chisels are either socket construction, or better yet, tang and ferrule construction with a steel hoop on the end to keep the handle from splitting. If you must baby the chisel by using a plastic, urethane, rawhide, or wooden hammer, it is not a high-quality working tool, even if it is pretty.
The Germanic tradition places priority on ease of sharpening, so blades are soft. The Japanese tradition places priority on edge durability, so the cutting edges are harder. The current American tradition has medium-hard blades.
The American tradition places priority on ease of manufacture, medium quality, medium to high price. The Japanese tradition is high quality, medium to high price. The Chinese tradition is low quality, low price. Most of what is sold in America nowadays is Chinese, so caveat emptor, baby.
You can't judge a chisel's quality hanging on a store wall or on an Amazon webpage.