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  1. #691
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    That's what I see happening, too. When you get to chopping, then the higher strength steels become apparent - but fine grain still shows benefits. The very finest of grain in high hardness, though, is probably stuff like 1095. 26c3 and white steel have fairly pronounced iron carbides, but they do better with them, anyway (higher potential hardness and acceptable toughness to go with it).

    For limiting effort, preventing edge damage and setting the geometry is key - not that one has to really limit effort, but if working entirely by hand or moving toward it, it becomes very apparent. Doing the tests of two chisels against each other illuminates things further that aren't as easy to differentiate.

    What I've found is that high toughness steels don't minimize the bevel thickness, and lower hardness steels (which also correlates with higher toughness) have less edge strength and then reluctance to release damage (a difficult high effort combination when chopping)

    I started with the yellow stuff, and I just like it because it finishes the job quickly and it seems to draw a slightly longer bevel (but I haven't used much else with regularity). Rule #1 in sharpening is always to finish the job with decent geometry, and then fineness is after that (within reason, of course). The biggest issue with most tools that I get to look at is that the sharpening job isn't finished because the fine work is applied to an edge either not ready for it, or more commonly, it's done in great volume but much is wasted by polishing parts of the bevel not in the cut.

    The difference between a good chisel and a really really good chisel is only a couple of degrees. It's noticeable - but it won't what we make, I'd guess. I could make good chisels out of O1. I like 26c3 because it makes a chisel a little better, just like white 1 does (if done properly). But it's not a material thing as far as I can tell. Anything that's at least "good" can be accommodated.

    The most difficult woods to work? Those - especially if a little older and the latewood gets brittle - with soft early wood and very hard late wood is a rough combination. I've had yellow pine that would destroy chisels that are fine in rosewood and ultimately in that case cut the joints carefully straight off of the saw. The answer to working it sometimes is something like that, or using a better wood. The rings must be as hard as some of the worst of the ultra hard woods.

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  3. #692
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    Is there any chance someone would be interested in doing a summary of this thread ,at present it’s running at over 691 posts.
    Some of us who are neurological dysfunctional may not want, or be bothered to start at the beginning, an i may or may not be asking for a “friend”

    Cheers Matt.

  4. #693
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    Very brief summary:
    * rob streeper started the thread to measure chisel hardness, and then he did some application tests
    * some chisels did not match their hardness spec (usually a bit soft)
    * some did match the spec (irwin) or provided a reasonable spec, but it was hollow, so to speak (in the case of the irwin, once the chisel met hardwood, it failed). (this is my comment - this is probably due to lower carbon steel being left undertempered a little bit to get a hardness spec - there's no free lunch).
    * some inexpensive chisels performed surprising well (Western forge or something of the sort in the USA that made crude hardware store chisels made them
    * chisels that were a bit soft did fine with softwoods (something like mahogany would be very tolerant of softer chisels, especially) but were exposed in hardwoods
    * japanese chisels are definitely hard (this isn't a surprise) and some meet their spec. A tasai chisel had uneven hardness through its length, which was a curiosity because they're well regarded)

    Then after that - my comments for interpretation:
    * about 2 years ago, I came up with a method to modify the tip of a chisel so that the initial damage that brings a chisel down doesn't occur or doesn't occur as quickly
    * the more susceptible a chisel is due to softness, the more it seems to be helped - especially for paring or chopping softer woods
    * in the process, I started making chisels and doing fairly extensive realistic application testing. Not because it was needed, but figured that if I was going to make chisels, they should be made well
    * I found (which matches tests) that generally the best balance of sharpenability and durability is in a hardenable but simple alloy (simple means finer structure, finer grain). When you add wear resistance, then the best you can do is hope to match the simple chisels for durability but the wear resistance impedes sharpness
    * in reality, A2 and V11 chisels cannot match better plain steel chisels (not just mine, but even something as simple as a rehardened stanley 750 will easily match a v11 chisel. A2 generally tempers a point or two softer than V11, so if anything, A2 is somewhat worse yet
    * This finding supports what rob found with some crude die forged chisels performing really well
    * narex seems to make a regular process chisel now that has high hardness potential and is almost certainly a simple steel ( due to cost). Simple these days is chrome vanadium drill rod.
    * the structure and the carbides in a simple steel will support a fine edge better - it's reasonable to assume that what makes the best plane iron and what makes the best chisel are not the same thing (though an experienced user doesn't benefit from something like A2 or V11 at all, it just has trade offs in other ways at best).

    Beware of online tests that are quick or simplified and beware of tests that link back revenue tokens to the channel if they're youtube. The point of those tests is to get you to see the results and buy something so the channel makes money. The tests themselves are rarely motivated from the start out of curiosity.

    Separately, there are harder steels like M42, etc, that are super high hardness but not as wear resistant as V series HSS (but they're at least as wear resistant as anything used for woodworking). I don't know what their grain structure looks like ,but we're unlikely to see them in woodworking tools as their real attribute along with the super high hardness is hot hardness (they have additives to make them wear well at really high temperatures).

    I've never used the narex richters, but they are entirely different process than the standard narex (which will always be mediocre - the latter - as the hardening method limits top end hardness - 59 is about as high as they'll ever be, which is enough to make a usable chisel with the "unicorn" thing that I mentioned above (the tip modification), but it's never going to be as good as a "good" chisel.

    Lastly - the thing that makes the low cost chisels good and easy sharpening but keen, etc, also does nothing to prevent warping. So we're not likely to see most manufacturers on board with it - In the US at least, and for most folks, there's extreme fascination with using an air hardening steel of some sort that doesn't move much in hardening (A2, V11, who knows what else) - which makes sense from a staffing standpoint - it's not reasonable to assume that a factory can hire master toolmakers who will do that efficiently. That leaves you maybe expecting that something like A2 and V11 can easily be made very flat, but something like a richter will be flat only if more follow up machining is done (and I doubt this will be the case).

    The trade off for perfect initial flatness from end to end (or the absurd stuff that woodpeckers-blue spruce advertises now - optical or near optical flatness) is a mediocre chisel all around (and an expensive one).

    Lastly - understanding preventing failure (once a chisel is good enough) is more important than what the chisel is. As in, if you have one chisel 63 hardness and one 61, the latter should do better if they're tempered similarly (to the sweet spot tempering), but your understanding of setting the chisel up to prevent failure can easily make the latter far better than the former if the former is just honed to an apex in a honing guide.

    There are things that our minimally outlying in the results - for example, the nezumi chisel is a matrix steel - a lower carbon version of a higher carbon steel, where the lower carbon prevents big coarse carbides from forming and the result is a super fine steel that's slightly less wear resistant but that can be driven to very high hardness. A chisel like that will make a great chisel, but the lack of carbon will cause a slight loss of holding a very fine edge.

  5. #694
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    One other separate side observation (or a couple, I guess) - sometimes you get pros who work very nice wood all the time asserting that you can do everything with a $10 used set of chisels. You can, or probably. But sometimes what you're working will make a difference - a big one. like if someone is working mahogany to make cabinets and carve things, then your experience with a hardwood isn't going to translate directly.

    This is also in a world of beginners who come along and the first time they test something, they want it to be carved in stone (so anything that disagrees, they'll loudly announce that they don't agree with something stated). I guess that's the essence of forums. If you go way deep in this stuff and are 14 steps past that but know why someone is seeing what they're seeing, they're not interested in finding that they will move closer to what you've found over time (maybe not 100% agree, but will move closer to it).

    Definitive objective findings that are provable don't always go over that well. The nuances sometimes don't, either. Like, I know what makes a chisel used for "regular woodworking" better (sharper, less effort, less total sharpening effort, etc) but I also know that it often doesn't matter. Just as optical flatness is nonsense, but flatness is one of the things a beginner will pay the most for - it's an easy concept. It just doesn't amount to much past a material point - it's a nuance.

  6. #695
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    Thanks David.

    Cheers Matt.

  7. #696
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    TLDR:
    First and foremost, beware of chisel tests where they test some at lower bevel angles against others at higher angles. Rob's data here (as well as James Wright's) points out that edge angle is such a powerfully strong factor that you literally cannot tell a difference if your chisels are at different angles. Some woodworking magazine tests with of A2 and HSS chisels often ran 35 degree + bevels against "conventional" steels at 25, then claimed giant victory for those fancy new steels. Nope... Meaningless. They're measuring bevel angle, not steel.

    Second. Surprisingly, "hardness" by itself doesn't correlate very well with edge life. One reason is that the manufacturers can "cheat" higher hardness on improperly processed steel, but still get poor results on wood. David showed this resoundingly - the "Correct" preparation and heat treatment can give performance results 10-15x better than poor treatment of the exact same steel. David also demonstrated how a poorly chosen "premium Modern" steel can underperform a well chosen "fairly boring, old fashioned" steel.

    Third... Good chisels are good chisels. The best chisels I own hold up well to chopping at 30 degrees prior to buffing. Adequate chisels hold up at 35 degrees prior to buffing. Poor chisels don't even hold up to that.

    The last few pages veered off into different things. One for me is paring vs chopping. I found vastly different chisels performed best at different tasks. Many that chop like mad pare poorly, and some that pare extremely well won't withstand chopping. This is a case of don't pitch your softer, rolly-edge chisels until you test them paring. Grind them at 20-25 degrees, buff, and test. Some will zoom out ahead in this application while some are still trash.

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