Thread: Recommendation re First Set of Chisels

I would suggest you start with a middle of the range set of 6 which give you a couple of Detail gouges a 1" skew, parting tool and round nose scraper. You can buy a full set for around $130. Add a half inch Bowl Gouge

Regards

Burl

I'd change some of your sizes, try these;

Gouge for roughing 3/4 inch
Parting Tool 1/8 inch
Skew Chisel 3/4 inch
Bowl Gouge 5/8 inch
Scraper Chisel RS2000KT - (good start as you can make your own scraper heads from Flat HSS)
Spindle Gouge 3/8 inch

My recommendations would be a decent roughing gouge as above, 1" skew chisel, and something like a 3/8 detail/spindle gouge. After that, buy them individually unhandled and make your own handles. A straight forward and rewarding experience And it saves you a bunch of money.

A brand such as P&N is a good place to start - they're Australian, good quality, cost a bit more than the chinese HSS but are far better - you will really notice it when turning. And if you don't like it, you can sell them with little drama around here. There are better brands out there, and the prices go up from there as well.

cheers,
Dave

Try the 6 pcs set from carbatec, good hss and a good xsection $ 129, I do personally recomend them

I'd go the extra distance and buy the Sorby starter kit from Jim Carroll. Price from memory is $220 for 6 chisels.

I'd agree with that! Our club just bought the Sorby set for well under $200 but I don't remember who we got it through Great set to start and finish with IMHO - the bowl gouge is every bit as good as a Superflute once you reshape it - just got to get used to the oval skew - took long enough to get confident with a flat one

You can buy a cheap set off ebay which are quite okay for a learning curve.You may have to sharpen them more often than the better quality ones but believe it or not, they do the job and quite well too. I still have a set of cheapies I bought when I first got my lathe about 3 years ago and they are still doing a turn now. (excuse the pun)
Learn on the cheap ones and then you can move up to a nice set later or buy separately as you hone your skills and become familiar with each tool.
I bought a set of Hamlets and find them good for my purpose. Sometimes you see better quality tools on ebay but not very often.

I bought a set of Sorbys from Jim and they are still in the box. As soon as my shed is finished and the lathe set up I'm sure I'm going to enjoy them. Great value....

You can,t beat good quality chisels but I would start with the $130 set of 6. When you master sharpening then get good ones. No point in making really expensive steel fileings when you start out. In actual fact the starters pac from carbatec is reasonable and I still use them. As you get better ones some of the starter ones can be reshaped to try out different things.
Regards
John

I agree with the two Johns - no point buying decent chisels if your don't know how to sharpen. It's a catch 22 really - but if you buy a decent jig set up you will be able to sharpen reasonably well without a Tormek and all that expense.

And once you are there, you will need decent steel.

On that point, I cut some paperbark the other day. Soft as, but very high in silica. One pass on any brand of tool and all done.

I picked up a Schepch? and jigs at the same time, now I have lovely sharp mirror edges........

I'm just starting out as well and have been thinking about chisels. I have a hodge podge set of Marples that came with my second hand lathe, and I did a heap of worrying about the cost of buying more to fill out the set, but my current intention after doing a heap of reading is to make my own in the style of Oland tools. If you don't have any chisels then I imagine you want a set to start with, but look into making them before throwing away huge amounts of money.

My original inspiration:
Wood turning lathe tips:techniques: woodturning instruction
and then just google to see more options and guides. There's a few discussions on this forum if you search the archives.

It's easy enough to make a sharpening jig as well if you already have a bench grinder, although I didn't even look at buying a jig so perhaps I don't know what I'm missing out on.

Brendan

Brendan,

I'm sorry to disagree with you on your comments re: making your own Oland tools and saving / resolving all your tooling needs.

I have a few Olands and most are used rarely, if at all. Traditional tools do the bulk of the work, with some carbide tipped tools filling in a few gaps.

Oland tools will never replace traditional tools IMHO.

New starters need to get a decent set of tool steel chisels. As I said, Sorby's for $220. Six tools in all, so not a bad start:

- a spindle roughing gouge
- a parting tool
- a scraper
- a bowl gouge
- a spindle gouge
- add a skew for the purists.

Why would you direct newbies on any route other than the traditional one - which is to learn tool control using tried and true methods. As they say, nothing is new in wood turning.

Just my opinion (coming from the owner of over 100 chisels who was once in search on the tool to make it all easy. It aint.)

Buy the best quality you can afford at the time even if it only
means a couple to start with.

Get the family to chip in each birthday, Christmas etc and
gradually increase your chisels.

You will soon recognise how much easier you can work with
good quality steel ... it is faster, easier and most of all ... safer.

Allan