42 Chisel Test With All The Data The Great Chisel Test

hey y'all i'm james wright and welcome to my shop today we're talking chisel test and you know what that means spreadsheets so if you're the type of person where you just want me to say this is the best chisel go buy that one hop over to the other channel i kind of speed through information on there and that's kind of the channel you probably want more that's where i just spit out information on this one i'm going to go through the whole why and actually look at the data and numbers and really dig into this but to answer for everyone for me personally out of all the numbers i've seen it's the narex richter but let me explain why so without further ado all of the chisels that i have in the test we have the aldi chisel ashley isles bacco ergo which is actually a lot of people consider this the best chisel ever made and they're actually kind of collectible because of that but it is where bako bought out ea berg and they started to do a few things with it if i were to include the bakko ergo i would have nine different baco or ea bird chisels but for the average test with the ea burg i just went with the ones that were actually branded ea burg not the ones that were branded bako we also have a blue spruce we have the blue steel we have the bucks brothers we have a craftsman black we have a gerbrick which is a cheap one from amazon we have a harbor freight plastic a harbor freight wooden holes first black handle which has a flat bottom holes first red handle which is a little more cost effective one ibc irwin marple's clear or when marple's blue we have the kimin's chisel as well as a new prototype he lent me to test out the steel cobalt chisel a kelby which is another amazon type lee nielsen nerix richter naric's standard nuka digi godziki it's a it's a swedish chisel i have a file that is now 22 years old as well as a brand new file or list it was two years ago robert sorby the stanley everlasting chisel stanley sweetheart a two cherries a veritas pmv11 white steel wood river with the green handle and wood river with the socket handle lots of chisels choosing a chisel is a very personal thing and what feels good to me probably will not feel good to you like for me socket handles i really don't like them they just never feel good they're not what i want i want a good tang so that's that's a personal thing for me and i'm not going to hold that against anyone else so one of the interesting things is on the spreadsheet i've got a place where you can put different weightings for different characteristics so you actually can look at the chisels and find out what ranking works for you and you will probably find that a very different chisel is going to be the best one for you for me it's going to be the nerex richter but that's because i have different weightings i have on there and one of the cool things about this is you can find the best chisel for you not just the one that i say this is the best so yeah spreadsheet number two big caveat i'm not going to be showing the actual testing this video that would make this video incredibly long i have an entire video dedicated to how the test is conducted as well as another whole live video where i took one chisel and i went through the whole procedure with that so you can actually see the live detail of how the test actually functions i'll have links to all of those down below as well as links to the spreadsheet and the quicker video the two big questions i had in the first video were why i didn't test a lot of older chisels antique chisels why didn't i test a lot of those good old brands that everyone swears by and the reason being is that before you had a computer-aided thermal system where you could control exactly the tempering and the hardness there was a decent amount of variability from batch to batch and just testing one chisel i wasn't going to do it very good if i picked up a bad one from that group then i probably ran into issues and telling people that yeah this whole thing is bad so picking one out of there isn't going to be very good the second question is why in the world didn't i test an ea burg which is an antique chisel because i have heard this probably two or three hundred times that ea burg is the best chisel ever made so i had to test that but because it's an antique chisel i didn't want to just test one so i've got a bunch of chisels that came from a few different people and we have six or seven of actual ea berg as well as a couple of the bacos when bako bought them out and they come from a bunch of different age ranges so we can actually do a test of a decent selection now it's only you know six or seven depending upon how you count them so it's not a great selection but it will give you a decent idea to how do they stand up i also need to say a huge thank you to everyone who has provided me chisels to do testing there were a bunch in the previous test but in this one i really had a lot from you the viewers so thank you daniel jansen adam fought aaron finn randy ridley ava sato james waplon i'm sorry i'm butchering names matthew wright peter boncinieri and kimminstools so thank you all for sending these in to be tested you'll be getting them back here soon and if you do ever meet any of them on social media or in person tell them thank you because they are actually being able to provide these so i can get the data out so without further ado let's head over to the computer and take a look at the spreadsheets so number one first and foremost when you get into the sheet you can come up here to file you can click make a copy and then you can do any changes you want to your copy this sheet mine is locked you cannot edit it but if you make a copy you can make all sorts of changes you can scroll down to the bottom and you can change your values here so you can actually put different weights to different values and parameters speaking of parameters let's look through this number one is price that comes over here to the price the more expensive you're going to get a really low score the high uh the high score on this is a really cheap 1.50 for the harbor freight wooden chisel number two is feel feel is really it's very subjective it is how i think the chisel feels uh now everyone's gonna have a different feel and so it really comes down to you which one do you like more feel you can change those numbers all you want the rest of them are very objective numbers but feel feels subjective number three we have hardness and this is straight over here on to the hardness the hrc numbers the harder it is the higher the number the softer it is the lower the number sharpenability sharpenability is the sharpening test which i actually have farther over here whoop sharpenability that's right here and so these numbers the easier it is to sharpen the higher the number the harder it is to sharpen the lower the number keenness this is the actual the average of all of the sharpness when i actually sharpened the chisel and i checked it we have the sharp the starting sharpness here and so the average number of all of these starting sharpnesses is its keenness on average how sharp can you get that particular chisel durability is the main majority of the test that's everything from this point over and there is a lot on this so each one of these sections is the durability test so here we have the douglas fir at 20 degrees so test a b and c every chisel is tested three times and then it's the average of that then the next section we can slide over a little farther we have douglas for 25 degrees and then of course we have douglas fir at 30 degrees and we're going to do it again with hickory 20 25 and 30 and then again with lignum to tie at 20 25 and 30 and so all of this information test a b and c is then averaged over here and the difference is the average difference between beginning and after this difference number is the number that goes into the durability because all of these differences then get pulled back over here to the average durability and so this is the average difference from beginning to end on that chisel and this is where the durability number comes from is this row right here average durability there you go this is in my book one of the most important things but everyone's book is a little bit different so you can scroll down here and you can change these numbers what is most important to you is price the most important thing then change that to a 10 so we can go 10 feel you know feel may not be important to you let's change that to a 2 hardness some of you are going to be like oh yeah hardness is just about everything let's change that to a 9 sharpen ability i don't care let's make that at zero keenness uh keenness let's make that uh you know it's a six that's a six durability durability is almost always important but maybe not as much to you so let's make keenness and eight not 88 but eight these numbers can be anything you want i generally suggest keeping them on a one to 10 scale but you can change them around if you want to go negative or you want to go you know 100 or whatever it's a multiplier so you can flip it over so we changed all these numbers let's actually come up here and see what ranks out so i'm going to come up here to d with all the variables i'm going to click this and i'm going to go z to a that puts the biggest number at the top so z to a let's see what we get and now we have the aldi chisel is the best number two is actually the kimmins a2 chisel kind of spreading blue steel file the other kindens the new prototype narix richter is now down at number um it would be six so you can change these parameters around and find the chisel that works better for you unfortunately aldi doesn't make those chisels anymore which is really sad because they're really really good if you go for price you just generally can't beat the aldi chisel but it's surprising how these all flip around and different things come around in this case the cobalt chisel is even worse than the harbor freight plastic so you can make these numbers whatever you want them to be but for me uh here are my parameters that i pick price really isn't that important to me the most important thing to me is feel you how does the chisel make you feel that's where all the fun comes with hardness i really don't care about hardness it's just it's not a point that really matters sharpenability and keenness matter and so that's where i throw that and of course durability is the most important thing to me how long will this edge last so all of this is raw data and you can look through all this raw data but there are several things down below i actually broke them all out into characteristics here so you can actually have a direct look at the charts either by in this case douglas fir by its different angles and each of the colors matching to that or hickory or the lignin vitae or down here i have just the angles and the woods are the variables so douglas for hickory licking the tie and so you can come over here and see that you know a lot of these chisels are really really good to say that you know the lyrics richter is so much better than everything else it's kind of a all of these chisels look at this they all did really really well with ligninforte they're all pretty close to the same it's when you actually get over here under some of these other ones that they the other things start to show up and and make a difference so it's one of those things that you know the difference between the best chisel and a few down isn't that big but if you want the best chisel well here's how you can figure it out the new page i have on here you come down here to the ea burg and this is just the ea bird chisels and the other ones like it and so you can actually see the comparison um one through one through six and they're out of rank because of date this one is 50s through 70s then we have the bako ergo the red plastic um and then this is the one that was actually still labeled ea berg with red plastic and then there's the bako which is the same format but dropped the ea berg and so you can actually come through and see all their numbers and rank these out specifically but it's interesting to come over here and look at the the durability and hardness and that type of thing so here are all of the numbers of each characteristic side by side so the difference if you just look at the old ones which are from here over this one from the 50s was actually pretty crummy in comparison but then you come over to this one which is another one from the the 50s and that was a really nice chisel so there was actually a pretty wide smattering of marincos rankings and then you start getting here to these new ones like the ea bird plastic handle and the bako red handle and these did not do very well so it's pretty obvious but it's interesting to actually get a little bit of an idea about antique chisels so let's go back over to the raw data sheet and look at some of the interesting things on here number one i expected there to be a lot of correlation between hardness and some of the other standings like you generally expect a hardness to durability correlation there really isn't much correlation between durability and hardness it's one of those things you expect but you don't because if it gets too hard it chips if it's too soft it curls you're kind of looking for that butter zone and hardness so the harder the chisel it's not going to make it a better longer lasting chisel also when you come over here to sharpen ability there is actually a pretty close correlation between sharpen ability and and hardness if you sort these out by it the numbers actually match up pretty closely which is pretty obvious because hardness is sharpenability so yeah there is a strong correlation between those two there is a little bit of a correlation between hardness and keenness though keenness i have to say be very very careful with that because that is how sharp can you get this chisel it doesn't matter what type of chisel you have that really really high shine clean sharp edge is going to dull off rather quickly after a few strokes it's going to get down to an average sharpness so the keenness is not one i put a lot of weight in because it's really only there for the first few strokes but if i'm doing some ingrained pairing keenness is very important for that on all of the chisels i have rankings over here with total length balance from the tip how far back does the ch tizzle balance some people want a really heavy handle some people want a really heavy tip height on the side wall so how tall is the sidewall three quarter inch back from the tip of the chisel listed size in other words was it sold as a 12 millimeter or a half i do have a few other sizes in here i was able to get those in this time and then the actual measured size so you can actually see how close is it to its reality measurement total weight of the chisel and on some of these with the ea bergs i have n a because um they're antique they have been worn back in good ways and so putting data on there isn't really a good one for that and then of course their final weight so yeah there's a lot of interesting data you can pull through on those one of the interesting ones i want as i want to test this file chisel this i want to test others from this age range and just see if this was a weirdo that stuck out but it had amazing durability it was far beyond any others really really cool chisel but i i i'm i'm kind of thinking it was a fluke and i'd love to test others on there um that was a bit of a surprise the kimmins that one came out really close even the new prototype was really close um you know durability they're right about the same so you kind of expect that so really really good chisel and you do see a lot of the high value chisels up here at the top the wood river socket and the wood river green are pretty close to each other um the socket did ever so slightly better though in my book the the feel on that's a little lower so it might actually bump up a little bit higher on yours the white steel and blue steel this is what i did a lot last time last time i did the blue steel here and a lot of people said oh you got to try white steel it's so much better than blue steel and for those who don't know white steel and blue steel those are cost-effective japanese chisels they have a hard steel on one side and a softer steel on the other so they sharpen a little bit faster and they did fairly well i mean they were they were both in you know 13 and where's the other one number 10. so they're very good chisels but they're relatively close so there isn't too much difference you know in all honesty in the the top 15 chisels those are all really really good chisels you're not going to feel that much difference between any of these so if you pick any of these you're going to be getting a good chisel i was expecting leniency to be a little higher did not did not make me as happy as i wanted it to as we scroll down to the bottom some of the ones that really surprised me number one the two cherries from last time i just didn't do very well it's right down there with some of the the cheap ones uh the stanley sweetheart the new ones that they that they sell it's not a great chisel it's okay it's functional but i don't know um then you got a lot of the the standard ones you find in the big box store the irwin marple's the the uh well yeah the neric standard was down here good ways uh then you have the amazon list the cobalt another amazon list harbor freight buck brothers and not really really good i was expecting naric standard to do a little bit better it's the exact same steel they have in the premium one the premium one just has a better handle that was kind of surprising to see it all the way down here but again if you change the parameters you might find something better it actually had a pretty solid keenness at seven some of these actually did the erwin marbles had a pretty decent keenness but then you come down here to like the harbor freight plastic and yeah that's pretty much worthless there are a lot of other interesting data points in here that just kind of surprised me some of the the outliers and things like that and i try to keep those outliers in here so you can see them like with the hardness testing some of the numbers that didn't quite pop out i do have differences between the working edge the the flat side and the back the side that has the the bevel so you can see if there's a difference like in the japanese the blue steel here with the blue steel and then again with the white steel you can see these ones had an incredibly soft back but a very very hard edge and the blue steel actually had a very hard edge at 66 i think that was the the hardest of any of them whereas the white steel was a little bit more mild you generally want a chisel to be around that 60 to 61 range that's i think why a lot of people like it because it's a little bit nicer you're not going to get quite as a chipped edge from it i really do want to see you guys dig into this and and let me know what what information in here was interesting like occasionally come out across somewhere out here with the in a uh these are chisels that didn't even make it through i couldn't chop all the way through at some point it just ended up being a flat blade screwdriver so that that tells you yeah they're not going to work and then this one this one is actually the ea burg average chisel so the average is taking the the six main old style ea burg and averaging them out and you get this one here so that was up here and up here and here and then a couple down here so the average ends up being number 21 right about the middle of the pack put in your values here and you might find these all reshuffle and change to something different because everyone wants something different this is a way that you can find a chisel that matches you not just what i say is the best so i do really want everyone to dig into this fill out the information on here and tell me what you like what other surprising things came out in this chart what is interesting to you and what would you like to see me test next time i do encourage you all to go take a look at the spreadsheets make a copy and then change the weightings at the bottom so that you can actually find out which chisel works best for you it's one of those fun things where you can actually see the data come to life and how it actually affects you personally rather than just data i really had a lot of fun with this it was just absolutely an absolute blast it is one of the more expensive things i've done because actually doing the testing and getting everything together on these is rather expensive so thank you to everyone who supplied the chisels also a huge thank you to patrons on patreon and members here on the channel i we say it every time but without you guys this wouldn't exist and you guys are directly funding this if you think of a chisel that i should have done let me know that down in the comments down below um i'll probably be doing another one in the future where i'll be adding more onto it that's kind of the way this type of thing goes but we'll see how that goes if you do have something then let me know and maybe we'll add that next time also i'd love to hear your thoughts what was surprising to you was there anything that really popped out to you that was very interesting or something you weren't expecting let me know that down below all of the comments as well as hitting like share and subscribe those help out the channel so thank you and i do read through all the comments and i answer as many as i can so thank you for that and i hope you like it i do also want to say a huge huge thank you to all of the patrons on patreon they're the people who are scrolling over on the side literally providing for this channel and keeping us on the air without patrons and members this channel wouldn't exist and they're one of the reasons why i can spend the money to create the tests and actually do this type of thing thank you for that if you'd like to find out more about patreon there are links to that down in the description or you can click the little join button to become a member here on youtube we do have special perks for both one of them was actually early access to the data as i entered the data they could actually go in and see it i had quite a few of them giving me comments of hey maybe you should change this or show this in the data or how you can fit this in there it was kind of interesting to work with patrons and members so thank you i think that'll about do it for now and until next time have a wonderful day the other day my wife said you know i really just want to cuddle up in some sheets and go to sleep i said yeah i think i do too so i went downstairs and i got at the computer and pulled up google sheets and she was right why is it that every time i open google sheets i hear love music playing in the background

Channel: Wood By Wright How To

Views: 20,060

Keywords: Wood By Wright, wood By Wright 2, Hand tools, Handtools, Woodworking, Chisel test, Narex Richter, Veritas PMV11, Kimmons chisels, IBC, Wood River, E A Burg, E A Berg, White steel, blue steel, blue spruce, Pfeil, Lie Nealson, robert sorby, Bahco, Aldi Chisel, Everlasting chisel, hultafors chisel, Sweetheart chisel, Two Cherries chisel, Craftsman chisel, Irwin Chisel, Narex chisel, Kobalt chisel, bucks brothers chisel

Id: qVb3QcIVVIo

Length: 20min 55sec (1255 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 01 2022