Japanese chisel selection

[Patrick Kane]

Ok, ok, I know this is as complex a subject as you can discuss, but I’m curious about grabbing a few used Japanese chisels. I already have three sets of bench chisels, and I recently grabbed a set of PMV11s. With that said, I’ve always wanted to try the eastern way of hacking wood.

Guy is selling used chisels he picked up second hand in Japan and I’m thinking of going in $300ish to get a few. I was thinking of augmenting my kit with a few paring, mortise, and then a few bench chisels for good measure. This guy clearly knows considerably more than me, but suggested a shinogi and chu tataki if I wanted bigger bench chisels. What sizes are most common and useful?

For the most part I tend to use my 1/4” and 1/2” bench chisels 50-60% of the time followed by my 1” and 2” 30% of the time and probably the 3/4” least of all. Most of my chisel work is squaring up mortises and hacking out dovetail/other joint waste. I’m 90% a power tool user. If there’s a way to do it with a power tool, that is the path I will usually take.

[Jessica de Boer]

What sizes are most common and useful?

That's different for everyone, isn't it. What other finds useful may be sizes you never use.

Most of my chisel work is squaring up mortises and hacking out dovetail/other joint waste.

For squaring up mortises my go to is a mokumachi-nomi, the Japanese mortise chisel. These have thicker blades with square corners which makes them perfect for this task. For paring and bench chisels I would go with the common oire-nomi and usu-nomi. Maybe throw in 2 or 3 bachi-nomi or shinogi style oire-nomi for cleaning up dovetails.

Did the guy selling them say who the maker is?

[Brian Holcombe]

Patrick, I have a primer on Japanese chisels on my website.

https://brianholcombewoodworker.com/guide-to-japanese-chisels/

[Patrick Kane]

Brian, pretty helpful, thanks for the link.

Subjective, yes, but only to a certain point. For example, i would never suggest someone needs to have a 1/8" chisel and a slick. There are outliers, but at a certain point, most people should have the same core collection.

Here are some pics of what i ended up buying. I think the majority of what i picked are Ouchi and Kunitsuru smiths. I found Ouchi is sold via tools from Japan. Couldnt find much of anything on Kunitsuru. If Tools from Japan is accurate apples to apples pricing on what i picked out, i ended up about 70% off retail for used stuff. Used japanese tools are tricky for an outsider. It seems like there are 1,000 different makers, and some are valued sometimes 10x that of their peers for somewhat undiscernible physical characteristics.

[Andrew Hughes]

They look good Patrick. I like them