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Old 03-15-2019, 11:46 AM
Truckjohn Truckjohn is offline
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Of the current new production chisels I have personally owned - here's my recommendations:

Budget: Marples blue chip.
Mid price: Stanley Bailey
Good: Two cherries, Ashley Iles, or Pfeil.

Of these - I think the Stanley is probably hardest to sharpen on conventional stones because of their alloy steel. Marples is very easy to deal with on conventional stones, as are the Ashley Iles. Two Cherries and Pfeil are in the middle.

The Two Cherries I bought required extensive prep. They are fine chisels otherwise. They hold their edge at least as well as any others on the list - maybe better.

Pfeil is probably the most expensive of the bunch. These are probably the easiest to prep out of the lot.

Recommend you stay away from Aldi, Lidl, Harbor Freight, and other cheap discount chisels - the quality is way too inconsistent. I was able to improve a set of HF and a set of Aldi chisels to the level of current Marples chisels - but it it required removing the blades from the handles and then doing additional tempering and freezing processes to "finish" the heat treatment. It's a lot of work to turn a $1.50 chisel into a $6 chisel .

Last edited by Truckjohn; 03-15-2019 at 12:02 PM.
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