Thread: Stainless steel rifflers from Lee Valley

I have now!!

I decided against purchasing those and went for the better quality rifflers. https://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/store/item/AU-PYER1

Stewie;

Who is to say what is "BEST Quality"? How is that judged in working woods?
How many hundreds of hours of work will demonstate the wear and tear? None.
I have some. I use them.
Hand-stitched don't leave repetitive scratch marks as machine stitched ones might do. That's a plus.
The LV rifflers are easy to clean with a cheap brass bristle BBQ brush. That's a plus.

None of them finish a carving. There's still lots of fine work to do.

If there's any real advantage to any rasp or riffler, it's this:
Try to rough-finish any carving with any grades of any brand of sandpapers and you have made a nightmare.
Sandpapers wear out. Yes? Where is the grit? Some of it is stuck in the wood and you cannot see it.
Try to do "one last cut" with a gouge or a knife, hit a sandgrain, and I have serious edge damage to deal with.

I'd like to meet the carver who can show me that they actually wore out any rifflers, let alone a set.

Wow... Rifflers are, admittedly, pretty low on my list of future purchases, but that's a killer price.

On my list for 2 years. Got them.

Originally Posted by rmihai

On my list for 2 years. Got them.

Are you in Australia? What was the shipping cost, or did you order some other items at the same time?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5aDKMyS4Us

Luke

I think rmihai's in Canada

but he could tell what he thinks of them???? hint

Originally Posted by Luke Maddux

Are you in Australia? What was the shipping cost, or did you order some other items at the same time?

To Australia;USD$$ (Quote from Lee Valley).

*Surface Mail 8-12 Weeks $14.76
*Air Mail 2-4 Weeks $25.13
*Xpresspost 8-10 Business Days $58.45
*UPS Express 5-6 Days to Major Centers $31.36

Originally Posted by planemaker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5aDKMyS4Us

I'm pretty confident that those are not the same rifflers in the set which is for sale. The video rifflers are darker in color and have octagonal handles.

I just don't understand the price here. This is drastically cheaper than any other riffler, but yet they claim to be hand stitched.

The Auriou rifflers cost almost ten times as much as these from Lee Valley.

http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/pag...24,53823,53809

So confused...

I'll let you know in a few days when I get mine.

I have some but these are a little larger than the ones I have. Looking forward to playing with them actually.

Cheers
Bevan

With anything, especially hand made items, you get what you pay for. I'd be on the lookout for consistent stitching (tooth height)which can play havoc with deeper scratches than required.

They may well be ok, but the price is just too suspicious. USD7.50 each at a retail level means the guy who stitched them must have earned about $1-2. That tells me they come from Asia somewhere.

There's a very good reason why Auriou and Liogier don't use Stainless Steel, but for the life of me I can't remember what it is. Liogier does use surgical SS for their surgical rasps of course, so they are well versed with it, and yet continue to use tool steel for their normal range. It may be a longevity thing - a surgical rasp is used once only and then thrown out (each one is bespoke for the implant which is bespoke for the particular hip or whatever, is my understanding).

Having said all of that - crikey they're cheap! Not a whole bunch to lose there.

I think no-one will know how they go until they get a good workout in some of our gnarly Aussie woods. The ad says "hardened to R55-60". That's quite a range, given this is a logarithmic scale. The lower end (55) is about as hard as the hardest saw plate gets, so that might give you some idea of how hard they are.

Brett: As I understand it, the main problem with hardening SS is that it gets brittle more quickly than tool steel, so if you crank it up to chisel hardness (R60-64) it will chip like glass.

Luke: To me, rifflers are a carver's weapon, I can't see any advantage over rasps for cabinet work (or even making saw handles ), so I reckon you could safely leave 'em low on your priority list ....

Cheers,