Thread: Luban Chisels any one used them?

Hi,

I do not know these chisels at all, so I cannot comment on them. But I understand that Narex from the Czech Republic, Narex® Classic Bevel-Edge Chisels - Lee Valley Tools -- received very good reviews by FWW and forum members too.

I do not know the above Narex chisels either. But I have this skew pair Narex® Skew Chisels - Lee Valley Tools. I am happy with this pair.

Regards,

...behai.

They make good planes so chances are the steel is ok.
Another reasonably priced chisel to check out is Narex. They have had good reviews and a few of us on here have got some. Here is an old thread about them.
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f171/r...hisels-132119/

Regards
John

Nope. I purchased narex mortise chisels and stanley bench chisels a few years ago.

I have a set of Luban chisels. I like them, they sharpen well and keep their edge for a long time. I use them on a mix of soft and hardwood.

Your eBay link didn’t work for me, so I did a search for them.
Interesting that a seller on aliexpress had them for $119 , and Mcjings had them for $99 ( sets of 6) not sure what price you saw on eBay.

Originally Posted by Ironwood

Your eBay link didn’t work for me, so I did a search for them.
Interesting that a seller on aliexpress had them for $119 , and Mcjings had them for $99 ( sets of 6) not sure what price you saw on eBay.

Brad, thread is 8 years old, so link would’ve expired by now

I've got a set of these and am happy with them. As Cal says they hold an edge and they're certainly good value. McJing would be my go to place to purchase, but Timbecon sell them as well.

I also failed to notice that this is an ancient thread that somebody has re-birthed.

Originally Posted by DJ’s Timber

Brad, thread is 8 years old, so link would’ve expired by now

Ahh.
Caught by the dreaded dredged up old thread . I normally check the dates before I reply, but mustn’t have had enough coffee this morning.

good to bring things back to the front. Chisels do well in plain steels that are reasonably low toughness (toughness isn't an asset in chisels, but edge strength is). I learned this the hard way making chisels. 52100 is notorious here as a high toughness steel, even at high hardness. What ends up happening with the edge is that little bits that start to fail hang on and the edge is better if they'd just come off instead.

Kind of explains why high toughness steels aren't used in chisels.

That said, CrV steels if they are of reasonable carbon content should make good chisels (the cr and V are in them in small amounts, vs. A2 and others where the chromium content is higher and coarsens the grain).

What can't be known is what you'll get of the claim of the listed chisels (63 hardness and 59 hardness are like two worlds apart in edge performance and behavior) - the range is enormous. That, and the side bevels are coarse given where they're made and the price.

In order to get a good sense for price that these things get passed to retailers or distributors, you have to go to the alibaba side (the price is often a third or a quarter of the single shipped set).
New Items High Quality Rose Wood Hand Woodworking Hoppy Chisel Set - Buy Wooden Chisel,Chisel Set Woodworking,Chisel Product on Alibaba.com

This is the comparable butt chisel set - woodcraft here sells them for $70 plus tax and shipping. They're $14-$16 for you or I to buy 500 sets (that varies a lot). I don't see the bench chisels listed, but if you looked long enough, you could probably find them. Also probably for about $25 US (woodcraft sells them for $110 - but woodcraft has a very high bit of overhead with their structure here and generally you're far better off finding someone else private labeling the same thing).

I reground and rehandled a set of $10 bench chisels sold at harbor freight here, and while I can make a better chisel (At much higher expense), the result is perfectly usable and at least as good as the robt-sorby labeled sets (I'd say better). These are $10 for 6.

0.6% carbon crV steel is popular over there, but there are a bunch of types. 0.8 and 1% are around (and the english standard for silver steel is more or less the same thing, depending on the country of origin, around 1.1 or 1.15% carbon). edge strength is a little lacking with 0.6%, but chisels are usable with it. I've rehardened a couple of the HF chisels and they are only slightly better than as delivered.

long story short, probably fine. Kind of expensive for what they are (the lubans), but that's the nature of import and markup. Here are the $10 reground chisels (the wood is afro pear - not a great choice, but good and looks nice - probably about $10 worth just to make the handles) and a couple of bucks for the brass.

https://i.imgur.com/Unac3Nd.jpeg

Luban chisels ...

Linky above. I'll bet woodcraft initiated these chisels being made as they couldn't again help dead copying something else they had. The tool roll is an exact copy to my eye (color scheme and all) of a roll that comes with pfeil, which unfortunately, woodcraft has exclusive rights to sell in the US (which makes them drastically overpriced).

It's a little bonkers to me, and just supposition, but...LN planes ended up getting copied, presumably by woodcraft, and then WC later had the patterns changed in version 3 (?) to get rid of LN-like elements. You'd think there would be some decency in not copying the tool roll of something they're selling. If anything, wouldn't you send a roll that someone else makes other than one of your own brands? Why off your own business relationships?

To be fair - the roll is blue coming from pfeil and green only on the woodcraft-only sets (not as if the change in color is anything other than WC's request, though). The fact that the luban version of the copy is green makes it even more likely that it came from woodcraft.

Originally Posted by D.W.

This is the comparable butt chisel set - woodcraft here sells them for $70 plus tax and shipping. They're $14-$16 for you or I to buy 500 sets (that varies a lot).

That's a huge distortion of the real cost of the item once it's in your warehouse and ready to sell. Although I don't know the costs that are particular to the US if you were to import these in to Australia you could count on an additional 21 to 25% in shipping, port charges, taxes, internal freight etc. There may be another 5% duty on top of that. In Australia, unless you are a major retailer, I imagine it would take you at least 3 or 4 years to sell 500 sets direct to end users.

I take your point about Woodcraft though. Their model, franchised stores, is inherently more expensive. We have similar setups in Australia, Total Tools is an example, and we also have distributors who have exclusive right to particular brands, Ehoma is an example. If you have Ehoma tools (these are marketed under a couple of different brands) sold in a Total Tools store there are so many links in the supply chain getting a bite out of the product the shelf prices are off the planet. This provides a huge opportunity for the likes of Bunnings, they won't stock the exclusive brands, but what they do sell can be cheaper whilst still providing a huge margin. No wonder they make so much money.