Aldi Chisels better than Premium ones????????????????????????????????????

[RayG]

What I want to emphasise is that they are not my idea of a useful bench chisel as they stand: horrible handles and lands that you could land a Zeppelin on!

Just as a matter of interest, what would be considered an optimal side land on a bevelled chisel, the ones I'm doing at present, are 0.5mm side land. Some earlier forum chisels were so sharp on the sides, they were uncomfortable to use.

Ray

[IanW]

Just as a matter of interest, what would be considered an optimal side land on a bevelled chisel, the ones I'm doing at present, are 0.5mm side land. Some earlier forum chisels were so sharp on the sides, they were uncomfortable to use.

Ray

Ray, I suggest a theoretical "optimal" would be corners that are sharp. That would ensure the chisel can get into any corner with an angle greater than or equal to, the angle of the bevel, with absolutely no impact on the side walls. But that would be quite impractical. As you say, if you go too fine you are likely to end up with fragile edges, not to mention cut hands. I just rushed down & measured my Lie-Nielsens, and they have lands that are close enough to 0.75mm according to my dial calipers. It's hard to get an absolutely accurate measurement, even with my magnifier on, but I'd say that's in the ball-park. I find he LNs perfectly satisfactory, they don't leave any visible 'bruising', so I'd reckon 0.5 is more than fine enough for all but the most demanding user!

Cheers,

[derekcohen]

Just as a matter of interest, what would be considered an optimal side land on a bevelled chisel, the ones I'm doing at present, are 0.5mm side land. Some earlier forum chisels were so sharp on the sides, they were uncomfortable to use.

Ray

Hi Ray

I'd say what you are making sound very good. I've had chisels with lands so sharp that I cut my fingers and hands each time I sharpened them. They end up being dulled on a fine diamond stone.

It is really also only the smaller sizes that benefit from very small lands. These are the ones that are for tails on dovetails. The pins are usually wider and their straight sides are easily pared with any chisel.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[IanW]

........It is really also only the smaller sizes that benefit from very small lands. These are the ones that are for tails on dovetails.....

Maybe if you only cut dovetails with very fine pins, Derek.
I know you like the decorative appeal of narrow pins, but I prefer wider pins on drawers & items that are going to get a lot of use. I would rarely use a pin of less than 12mm wide on the drawers for a chest of drawers, for e.g. When joining the sides of a large carcase, I may use pins of varying width, up to 38mm wide, & I'm pretty sure I've seen you do similar 'decorative' dovetail layouts? I do it for practical reasons perhaps more than decorative, since I'm an old-fashioned galoot that usually tries to hide as much of the joinery as I can. ( ) My reasoning is that it's the outer edges that take most stresses on a carcase, & you don't really need much holding-power in the centre when joining wide boards. So I put more narrow pins & tails on the outer edges, widening them successively towards the middle. Reduces the total number of D/Ts you have to cut, too..

Agreed, any old chisel can clean up 'through' pins. For half-lap pins, though, you need to clean out those corners at the bottom of the socket. With some woods you can pare down from the top with a BE chisel, then twist it to break off the shaving at the bottom of the socket, but a pair of skew chisels makes life easier, particularly for tough woods. I tried being clever & converted a chisel to a diamond point so I could do 'left' & 'right' corners with the one tool, but the one I chose to modify was a bit brittle & the point kept breaking away. That's an occupational hazard with any skew due to that fine pointy end, but this one was particularly bad, & I was forever having to regrind it. It was also much too wide (3/8") for small sockets, so I gave up & went back to using simple skews, which are ok, except I always pick up the 'left' when I need the 'right', or vice versa.....

Cheers,

[GraemeCook]

Good Morning Ian

Hell, I am going to disagree with you on this one, Ian, even though I essentially agree with what you say.

The scary sharp technique that Paul Sellers demonstrated does produce results that are better than 95% of the tools in use. Add a honing guide and the system is almost idiot proof. [I say almost because us idiots are very creative.] The advantage of scary sharp is that it is cheap to set up, the results come quite quickly and then you can move on. Agreed, on-going sandpaper costs are high if you stay with the system; But it is a great learning system.

Years ago, I asked for advice on sharpening and got some really helpfull assistance, especially from Derek. Derek introduced me to MIROS - the Most Important Rule on Sharpening - get a perfectly flat primary bevel. With a Veritas honing guide and sandpaper I quickly achieved that. Previously I had produced multi-faceted primary bevels! And after about a month I achieved levels of sharpness whereby my chisels would cut paper - as Paul demonstrated - and on which Derek was not totally convinced. I did not know that I had previously never before had a sharp chisel.
https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...ht=scary+sharp

Most importantly, the use of sandpaper taught me that I could sharpen tools "scary sharp" which was an immense improvement on 40+ years of "unsharp" sharpness.

Now I use course diamond plates for initial flattening and forming the primary bevel, and Japanese water stones for the real sharpening, finished off with Veritas honing compound. This is undoubtedly better than scary sharp, but the latter was a very important part of the learning process.

In my opinion, proper sharpening to the limits of scary sharp would be an improvement on over 90% of the chisels and plane blades in existence - that must be better than the status quo. The top 5% of blades will continue to receive better sharpening with more rigid abrasives, as they do now.



Fair Winds

Graeme

Another paper "flattener"!!! It curdles my blood to see the way the paper lifts up ahead of the chisel on every stroke he makes. That, plus his side-to-side action will ensure a lovely rounding of the back. I would bet a few good dollars that the "hollow" he shows as a 'good thing' is partly an illusion (de-lusion?) created by cutting away more of the edges. I tend to Like Sellars' no-nonsense approach as a rule, but his back-flattening method is definitely not one I would advocate.

OK, whatever works for you, works. For many applications it doesn't matter if there is a slight curve on the back of an edge tool, as long as the edge is sharp, it's even desirable on some tools (carving tools for e.g.), but in my hands, there are a few tools like paring, mortise & dovetail chisels & the backs of plane irons (especially where they contact the last bit of the frog) that do their jobs far better when truly flat. I find that difficult enough to achieve with solid sharpening media, and impossible with paper....

Cheers,

[IanW]

Graeme, I didn't say you can't get a sharp edge with paper cutting media, I said you cannot get a back truly flat using any sort of compressible medium. So if sharp is your main goal, it's not a problem, but if making a back as close to flat as possible is the objective, I just don't think you will ever achieve it with sand paper stuck to glass.

In fact any kind of lapping will not get a surface absolutely flat, from edge to edge, because the slurry cuts away more of the leading edge as the tool is moved over it. The effect is much less if you use a non-compressible sharpening medium, but it still happens. Whichever direction you move the tool in, either side to side, or back & forth, the leading edges are going to be cut a little more as the slurry containing loose cutting particles and bits of metal build up & move under the advancing edge. It's only fractions of thousandths of an inch, but add that up over hundreds of strokes & it is significant. It becomes very obvious as you go from coarser to finer grits. Reason & empirical evidence have convinced me the effect is greatest with compressible media like paper, & least with diamond plates, because you don't have (many) loose cutting particles in the slurry, but you still get some rounding, because the particles of metal cut away by the abrasive get into the action (the honeycomb pattern favoured by one diamond plate manufacturer is supposed to minimise this, but I can testify it doesn't stop it altogether!).

So even what I consider 'flat' is just 'nearly flat'.....

Cheers,

[Old gunnie]

So, for "fine" woodworking, where do these Aldi chisels fit in when compared to say an old titan and a Lie Nielson? Do they have a place in a reasonable woodworkers toolbox, or perhaps a beginners?

Cheers
OG.

[Old gunnie]

...
In fact any kind of lapping will not get a surface absolutely flat, from edge to edge, because the slurry cuts away more of the leading edge as the tool is moved over it...

So even what I consider 'flat' is just 'nearly flat'.....

Cheers,

I had exactly this problem with Scary Sharp on a thin paring chisel - highly polished, VERY Sharp, wouldn't pare flat. Got me some Japanese water stones, problem solved! (Nearly, I think Ian has a point).

Cheers
OG.

[Pearo]

I had exactly this problem with Scary Sharp on a thin paring chisel - highly polished, VERY Sharp, wouldn't pare flat. Got me some Japanese water stones, problem solved! (Nearly, I think Ian has a point).

Cheers
OG.

I would suggest this is user issue rather than the technique itself. My father is a toolmaker by trade, been doing it that way for years and he can measure the error. I also use glass and sandpaper for lapping fibre optics where the surface is absolutely crucial.

[GraemeCook]

Good Morning Ian

No arguements whatsoever. As I said in my original post "...Hell, I am going to disagree with you on this one, Ian, even though I essentially agree with what you say....."

The point that I was trying to make is that perhaps 90% of woodworkers have not reached the nirvana of having truly sharp tools - this is an essential stage on the continuum towards sharp and flat. Before they get to that "Ah-ha moment" they may see little merit in investing in higher capital cost diamond and/or waterstones. Sandpaper is a cheap learning process. Period.


Fair Winds

Graeme

[IanW]

Hi Graeme - no probs, I agree that whatever works for anyone, works. A sharp tool will at least cut the mustard, so to speak, even if its back ain't flat to some ridiculous fraction of a micron....

Pearo, you are may well be right, and it all hinges on technique. P'raps I just gave up too easily....

Cheers,

[brontehls]

So, for "fine" woodworking, where do these Aldi chisels fit in when compared to say an old titan and a Lie Nielson? Do they have a place in a reasonable woodworkers toolbox, or perhaps a beginners?

Cheers
OG.

I've bought few sets of these over the last 4? years as I've found it better to have a basic tool kit at all the family houses as many will understand.

They are not fine chisels they seem to me to be well made bevel edged firmers. Quick to flatten and sharpen on my oilstones and keeping an edge for a reasonable time.

After reading old gunnies post this morning I had a search through the odds and sod box and my bench chisels for similar chisels and came up with five chisels about 12mm. The ALDI, my 60 year old Berg a wooden handled Toledo, plastic handled Toledo(bought new in the late 60's) and an Eclipse which I bought new when I had to do something in Bungendore and the cheap set was better than a 90 minute round trip.

They had all had their backs polished previously so I put them through the normal sharpening and stropping

The Aldi and Eclipse chisels looked far bulkier than the three Swedish chisels as the transition from the shoulder to the bolster was not as refined and the bevel was much narrower with a wider flat along the top. The three Swedes and the Aldi had virtually identical vertical wall heights at the side - the Eclipse was close to a millimetre higher.

I went through the offcuts to find some test pieces mainly sections of T&G in Radiata, Cypress, and miscellaneous well aged eucalyptus. All of them with tight knots

End grain
Goodbye Mr Eclipse struggled with the Radiata to cut cleanly and even with a shearing/slicing cut folded at the first knot

The others handled all of the end grains

Long grain
All four handled this without recourse to a mallet for knots and difficult

These were only small tests but all four were capable of taking a clean shaving from Radiata end grain at the end though I feel that the older wooden handled swedes were cutting easier

Inspection of the edges showed no chipping or other damage

There has been discussion in various fora about the handles on the ALDI chisels. The only thing I bother changeing on them is to flatten one side of the smaller ones to stop them rolling as the long handle balances the blade above the work surface

[Five Thumbs]

Hi Doggie

You must have been a very patient collector to get all the Titan chisels with the same decal and hence the same general production time. My congratulations. Cheers. Five Thumbs.

[chook]

I have had the Aldi chisels for a while now. The sides may be wide and they may be cheap. But they hold an edge very well. I have other chisels that are ground to 25 degrees so I saw no point in repeating this with the Aldi ones. These I hollow ground to about 20 degrees and they hold a really nice edge. Next time they come up for sale I am going to by a bunch of them to give as gifts and presents to my friends (if I should ever get any).

As for narrow sides on chisels, I wonder what sorts of chisels the craftsmen of old had access to. Some of the picture I have seen show quite wide lands.

[section1]

I'm pretty amazed with this that something cheap can be so valued by woodworkers I guess that's why Paul has created many enemies amongst the tool makers.