Wood by Wright chisel trial 2022

[John C Cox]

Hey all,

Not sure if you saw Wood by Wright's new chisel test, or had a chance to poke through it. This one was interesting in that it included a whole whack of Swedish chisels of various eras.

Not too many surprises, but I did plow his data and came up with some interesting observations:

Edge prep swamps almost everything else in his cutting tests. Surprise? Well, not really. This is the third test I've seen by somebody else that shows this. One home store chisel I recently tested ran 16.5x longer once appropriately prepped vs just sharpening it out of the box. It went from the edge falling off to cutting so long I got bored.

His results sort of confirmed a suspicion I've had for a long time... It would be fairly easy to game the results of a test if you didn't hold the edge angle consistent. Many of the older woodworking rags did chisel tests, and the angles varied considerably... Suspicious... Then, they gave A2 chisels a 35 degree bevel vs conventional at 25 degrees... Bang, test over. They measured edge angle, not steel...

Anyway, none of his 40 chisels really did well at low angles. Surprise? Well, not really... None of mine really do well at low angles. The "#1 best at 20 degrees" would only make it into the bottom quarter if it got mixed into the 30 degree stack. The "#1 Best at 25 degrees" would barely land mid pack if it got mixed in the 30 degree stack by mistake.

More than a few "pigs" that barely cut at low angles subsequently finished in the top half once sharpened to 30 degrees... His Harbor Freight wood handles chisel went from dead last to #13 when changing the angle from 25 to 30. (I still think he got lucky. I've gone through three packs now, and they never got better.). I've had plenty of chisels that went from edges falling off to great just from changes in sharpening routine. It swamps everything else assuming appropriate steel and heat treatment. If you're satisfied with the edge life you're getting, chances are that you already sorted out an appropriate sharpening routine.

One of the interesting observations was that quite a few of the chisels that seemed to do "decent" relative to the pack at lower angles didn't really do wildly better at higher angles. It's like either they gassed out, or maybe the edge geometry still was too fine... For example, Lee Nielsen improved but didn't really hit it's sweet spot. Most magazine trials ran those at 35 degrees where this test topped out at 30. Two cherries looked abysmal until it hit 30 degrees.

what did you guys think?

[Scott Winners]

I really like the hand feel, the balance, the whatever objective feeling with my LN chisels. I was not happy with edge retention at 25 degrees, I was not happy at 30 degrees. At 32 degrees on the secondary bevel I am somewhat happy. For now I am sticking at 32 degrees and brought in a 8k stone, so I can over a few months decide if honing to 8k improves edge retention at 32 degrees, compared to 32 degrees honed only to 4k grit.

It would take me about 5 years to thoroughly review 40 chisels, happy for the guy.

[Luke Dupont]

Curious, what, besides the primary (/only) or primary + secondary bevel angle, and level of polish, is relevant when it comes to tuning up a chisel?

I haven't watched the Wood by Wright chisel trial yet, but I'm curious. If there are more factors besides steel and bevel angle that I'm overlooking I'm curious to know.

I'm not sure what method was used to test the edge retention, but I'd be curious to see a test done cutting mortises or chopping out dovetail waste or something. That puts a lot more stress on the chisel and usually is what causes me to need to resharpen, as opposed to just paring with or across the grain.

Certainly technique can cause a chisel to chip easily, IE, if you do things like lever out waste against the unsupported back (as opposed to the supported bevel) of the chisel, you'll very quickly chip the edge.

[Scott Winners]

With a lathe you can cut your own handles, which is nice.

My personal free (and worth every penny) opinion is hand feel trumps all. If a chisel feels good in your hand, you like it; learn to work with the steel. Buying a chisel, or set of chisels because the steel is xyz123 can land you in a place where you have excellent tools you don't like or don't want to use.

I personally really like (subjective opinion) the hand feel of my LN chisels and have not yet given up on A2 steel. If you really like the hand feel of Stanley 640s or Buck Brothers 10,000 series you should use those. It is the same with cameras and hunting rifles and snow shovels. If they fit you well, you can learn to excel with them. If the item is a poor fit for your frame, your bones, your hand; keep looking.


my two cents

PS: oh sweet, I made the edit window. If a tool feels good to you, rifle, camera, shovel or chisel, you will look forward to using it. I don't really look forward to using my snow shovel, but I have been known to day dream about the other three. Tools I feel good about I keep in tip top shape. Tools I feel good about, I use. Tools I use I become proficient with, and with extended proficiency comes excellence. It doesn't matter how technically excellent a tool is. If it feels good to you you can become proficient and excellent with it easily. If it doesn't feel good in your hand, reaching proficiency will be a battle. There's a blue million excellent chisels out there. Find one or the ones that feel good to you and buy them.

[Luke Dupont]

With a lathe you can cut your own handles, which is nice.

My personal free (and worth every penny) opinion is hand feel trumps all. If a chisel feels good in your hand, you like it; learn to work with the steel. Buying a chisel, or set of chisels because the steel is xyz123 can land you in a place where you have excellent tools you don't like or don't want to use.

I personally really like (subjective opinion) the hand feel of my LN chisels and have not yet given up on A2 steel. If you really like the hand feel of Stanley 640s or Buck Brothers 10,000 series you should use those. It is the same with cameras and hunting rifles and snow shovels. If they fit you well, you can learn to excel with them. If the item is a poor fit for your frame, your bones, your hand; keep looking.


my two cents

PS: oh sweet, I made the edit window. If a tool feels good to you, rifle, camera, shovel or chisel, you will look forward to using it. I don't really look forward to using my snow shovel, but I have been known to day dream about the other three. Tools I feel good about I keep in tip top shape. Tools I feel good about, I use. Tools I use I become proficient with, and with extended proficiency comes excellence. It doesn't matter how technically excellent a tool is. If it feels good to you you can become proficient and excellent with it easily. If it doesn't feel good in your hand, reaching proficiency will be a battle. There's a blue million excellent chisels out there. Find one or the ones that feel good to you and buy them.

Great point. I guess I was focusing on steel since that's what the test seemed to be testing objectively, but I agree 100%.

Feel is very subjective, of course, but at the end of the day, almost all steel used in chisels old and new is quite up to the task. Feel, however, is a much more difficult thing for manufacturers to get right, and many don't put much thought into it at all.

I'm yet to try making my own handles as I don't have a lathe, but I know there are definitely designs I can try that don't require a lathe. Maybe one day! I already bought chisels that have ergonomics that I like though, and that, indeed, was my primary consideration.

Ergonomics are definitely the thing that make me reach for one tool over another, given that they both are capable of the same job, and getting the ergonomics right is quite a tricky thing. I've been on a bow-saw making spree as of late, and I think it's taken me 3 tries to come up with ergonomics that I like... (which happens to be a light-weight, but not *too* lightweight, Chinese style bowsaw that you grip with the bolt(mounting the blade) between pinky and second to last finger, and a subtle curvature to the handle). Finally got the shape and weight and everything just about where, or close to where I want it, and it's a joy to use. I don't think I could manage those heavier ECE saws all that well.

[Thomas Wilson]

I really like the chisel and plane blade tests by James Wright. He has designed a test procedure that really shows differences that would be hard to detect from normal experience in the workshop. We rely on our subjective judgement but that is nowhere near as clear as Wright’s quantitative measures. Are the tests realistic measures of chisel performance? I like the chopping test as a measure of durability. His controlled chopping tests give accelerated dulling of the edge compared to my usage. I rarely chop like that. I pare and trim mostly. The impact is low. The cutting action is more like slicing which, I would suspect, has different dulling mechanisms. But I still value the comparison for how well a particular steel holds an edge.

The test method measures sharpness of the chisel edge with device that detects the maximum force for the edge to cut through a thread. The thread is manufactured to tight tolerances and calibration tested. Is this a good test? There is no highly accurate reference test for comparison. There are indications that the tester measures a real difference. Multiple tests of the same edge give closely grouped results. Tests of wear as the chisel is used give the expected trend. We could apply statistical tests that measure whether the differences between two results are real difference or just within random variation of the measurement. I did not do the math but suspect the differences greater than 6-10 grams are real.

What did I do after reading the first round spreadsheet and watching the video? I bought a set of Narex Richter chisels and a Bess Edge-on-Up Pro sharpness tester. I like them both.

[John C Cox]

I'll admit to buying a set of Narex Richter chisels after last year's test came out. I haven't really tested them. It's on my list for the next few weeks, but subjectively the handles are comfortable. Feel wise, Ashley Iles chisels just feel good in my hands. They remind me of old chisels, lacking the "Bulky" feel of most modern chisels.

Sharpening wise, Narex's Richter steel is quite hard, but not out of bounds compared to several old Marples and Ward square neck chisels I own. It's nowhere near the difficulty of dealing with high speed steel plane irons, and not nearly as gummy feeling as A2 or Stanley's Sheffield steel (a proprietary flavor of 52100.)

One interesting outcome of the test is that Woodcraft's socket chisels performed quite well. I have several of these and really like them. Easy to sharpen, good geometry, they hold up well, and have comfortable handles. My only complaints are that the side bevels are too sharp and I'm not much on bubinga handles - I feel like they fall off too easily. They certainly are pretty, but I'll take standard, garden variety hardwood handles that grab the sockets at half the weight.

[Larry Frank]

This is a very nice job of testing the chisels. The only thing that I would have like to see is the chemistry of the chisels. This could be done with a spectrometer without destroying the chisels. Most manufactures do not even tell you the grade of steel used.

[Monte Milanuk]

I'm curious as to what people here think about the relative impact of something like the 'Unicorn' sharpening method on the edge durability tests?

IIRC some of the tests done on the Unicorn method ended up showing a cheap Buck Bros chisel holding up *markedly* better, possibly even comparably to the Veritas PMV11 chisel also tested (https://www.popularwoodworking.com/t...pening-method/).

I'm not saying that it completely negates that particular factor... but it seems like it might reduce the weighting of it a bit.

What do you think?

[chris carter]

I'm curious as to what people here think about the relative impact of something like the 'Unicorn' sharpening method on the edge durability tests?

IIRC some of the tests done on the Unicorn method ended up showing a cheap Buck Bros chisel holding up *markedly* better, possibly even comparably to the Veritas PMV11 chisel also tested (https://www.popularwoodworking.com/t...pening-method/).

I'm not saying that it completely negates that particular factor... but it seems like it might reduce the weighting of it a bit.

What do you think?

My chisels are 25* and I add a micro-bevel (about ten swipes on a strop) at 30*. It pretty much doubled the edge retention. Based on this, I think the unicorn method is like trying to fill the bathroom sink with a firehose.

I bought one Richter based on James Wright's initial test. After a year with it, it lived up to the hype so I filled out the rest of my daily bench chisels with Richters.

[John C Cox]

I'm curious as to what people here think about the relative impact of something like the 'Unicorn' sharpening method on the edge durability tests?

IIRC some of the tests done on the Unicorn method ended up showing a cheap Buck Bros chisel holding up *markedly* better, possibly even comparably to the Veritas PMV11 chisel also tested (https://www.popularwoodworking.com/t...pening-method/).

I'm not saying that it completely negates that particular factor... but it seems like it might reduce the weighting of it a bit.

What do you think?

2 questions in here...

In the Popular Woodworking article, a Buck Bro's is tested against a PMV-11. Both are sharpened at 30 degrees prior to buffing.

In Wright's test data, conventionally sharpened at 30 degrees, the Buck Bro's chisel showed better post-test sharpness than the PMV-11 by a factor of 2. It hit it's "sweet spot" and cutting performance sort of took off. Probably the PMV chisel needs a bit more angle to really hit it's stride. So, there's that...

Next...

The Unicorn method is a beast unto itself. Things don't always go quite like you would think they would. Everything I tried so far got "better," but the how much better doesn't seem to follow non-unicorned performance differences. My own trials so far - ironically, a Chinese Buck Bro's (one of the individual packaged ones from BORG) is running far and away in 1st place. Why? No idea, I'm trying to figure that out.

But... Assuming the writers of the PW piece got Unicorn results on the Buck similar to mine, it would have further stacked the deck in its favor. Ironically, the PMV may have come out on top if a "better" chisel was unicorned against it, say an Ashley Iles or a Narex Richter instead of the BORG Buck.

So.. Do you go throw away your PMV-11 for BORG Bucks? Mmmm, not yet.

[Jim Koepke]

In Wright's test data, conventionally sharpened at 30 degrees, the Buck Bro's chisel showed better post-test sharpness than the PMV-11 by a factor of 2.

Was there any method used to control how much a blade would be unicorned?

Would the hardness of one chisel compared to another be a factor if they were held to the buffer for the same amount of time?

My question on secondary bevels and unicorn treatment is do they end up requiring one to regrind the blade more often than a flat bevel?

jtk

[John C Cox]

The buffed end of the bevel is a lot smaller dimensionally (length and depth) than a typical secondary bevel, so if you grind back till it's gone and no further - it's less work than grinding past a secondary bevel.

On the question of do you have to grind more... I think that's more a factor of your work flow and whether you're seeing damage. The thing is, grinding usuallly goes pretty fast vs honing.

For example, tonight I was fooling with a Pfeil. I prepped it and tested it. It picked up one single teeny little chip, so I took it back to the buffer. It cut great again, but on a whim, I checked the edge after some more work, and it was destroyed. Chipped all to heck. Not sure what happened there, but it was a catastrophe. Was the edge already damaged, but not showing it, full of chipping/cracking and the buffer put a ton of stress into the cracked edge? Not sure, but it was impressive.