Thread: Why Did Bevel Edge Chisels Win?

To throw a curve ball into your discussion.

Japanese chisels also moved from a firmer style (Kaku-uchi oire-nomi chisels are of a traditional style with a square/box type (Isosoles Trapezoid(US)/Trapezium(UK)) cross section) to the bevel style (‘Mentori’ literally translates as ‘chamfered’) since WW2.

Why I do not know. However the firmer style (Kaku-uchi oire-nomi) are still made and many people like me prefer them aesthetically and functionally to the mentori versions.

Remember that Japanese chisels are still hand made by a blacksmith, people distantly removed from marketing departments & accountants that you would see and run the likes of Stanley, Record, Lie-Nielsen or Veritas.

Also even basic house construction in Japan still has proper joints in them. Many are cut with ultra modern CNC. However handwork still continues and the carpenter in Japan has not become the emaciated version of antecedent self like Western carpenters have become.

I would therefore believe that their must have been something in both the East and West that pushed consumers to demand / seek /prefer bevel edge chisels.

That is is not simple a question of marketing or saving materials costs.

Originally Posted by Fergiz01

The Seaton Chest seems to be the equivalent of the first year student buying textbooks from the set list. "Gotta have a set of these, and these, and these. I'll use them all the time!"

I'm not sure how much people know about the Seaton chest.
From what I've read, the chest was assembled for and by Benjamin Seaton to be a complete working kit to take to America. Why he didn't emigrate to America is uncertain, but the tools in the chest represent a snap-shot of a complete working kit from about 1795.

This thread is about chisels, but the Seaton Chest saws, do not appear to contain any duplicates, which possibly makes the 16 "cast steel" and 18 "firmers" the only duplicate tools in the chest. Given that these two groups represent different manufacturing techniques, it's possible the "cast steel" chisels were an insurance against the "firmers" delaminating.

This Sellers video is worth watching and may answer some of the questions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_NXq7_TILA

I suspect that the answer to your question is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot.

Originally Posted by rob streeper

I suspect that the answer to your question is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot.

Struggling to grasp your point here, Rob. Which unverifiable assertion are you referring to?

Not unverifiable, un-falsifiable or less accurately un-dsiprovable.

Hmm, I think I get your drift, Rob, but unlike Russell's orbiting teapot, which is an assertion that is implausible as well as unverifiable, the various reasons that have been proposed are (reasonably) plausible explanations for the ascendancy of the BE. But they are un-falsifiable given what little factual knowledge we can muster.......

Cheers,