Is a $100 Chisel better than a $1 Chisel? | Hand Tool Shootout

hey guys welcome to woodwork life today I'm going to take a look at chisels I've got seven western chisels from some of the most popular manufacturers everything from five dollars for four with the Aldi workzone chisel all the way up to over 90 with the Veritas pmv 11 chisel I've got all 3/4 chisels and I'm sharpen them all to the same 27 degree bevel angle I'm going to try to put these through the paces and try to really find out what's what and see if cheap chisels are really worth anything and see if there's more expensive chisels are really worth the extra money so thanks for joining me today and please like and share this video if you find it useful let's jump right into it [Music] a couple initial observations on these from the lee nielsen all the way down to the urban marbles i took them all to the course stone just kind of test to see how flat the back was now the Veritas and the Lee Neilson were dead flat the surprising thing here was the the Stanley sweetheart was very near dead flat he just has the one little hollow in the middle and that really isn't going to affect the format of these other chisels which I'd probably put in the budget category from the narek to the urban marbles the Irwin marbles was actually reasonably flat it's got a little bit of a hollow still but the steel is fairly soft so it's easy to get was easier to get this one closer to flat I've still got some work to do on these of course the we weren't expecting a whole lot out of the Harbor Freight and the Aldi compared to its competition but the aldis actually even reasonably flat I'm actually comfortable for the Marik's which is quite a bit more expensive I mean the Aldi is $5 for a pack of four these lyrics are significantly more expensive now the one big disappoint within Erik's is this steel is actually very hard but the back of this chisel out of the box is nowhere near flat we've got this incredible hollow right here on the edge of the back of the bevel which this is a critical component to be flat so that was actually kind of disappointing as far as economics and ease-of-use you have two ends of the spectrum here the narak and the Erwin marbles have the thicker carpenter style handle on the other end of the spectrum the Li Neilson and the Stanley sweetheart have the smaller socket style handle used generally for cabinet making and more fine joinery to my taste the Harbor Freight the Veritas and the Aldi works on chisel are just about right as far as ergonomics goes the Aldi is probably just borderline maybe close to too big the Veritas is perfect with the smooth edges and just the right size the Harbor Freight I don't really understand what's going on with this design but it is a good sized handle for a balanced playing field I corrected the angle on all of these chisels to 27 degrees which is a couple degrees off of what they came out of the box i ranked them from easiest to sharpen to hardest and most frustrating to sharpen in this case the stainless sweetheart was the easiest to flatten and easiest to correct the bevel angle on the Harbor Freight chisel although not flat out of the box was soft enough steel to correct and very easy to get a razor-sharp edge on the Veritas and leniently niall Center only here in the middle because the steel is so hard it took a long time to correct the bevel angle but the back was already flat out of the box so that was nice to not have to deal with but it took quite a bit of time to correct that bevel angle even by a couple degrees the Holly and this might vary just because of the inconsistencies in manufacturing but this Aldi chisel was nowhere near flat just took a long time to flatten the steel was soft enough where it was easy to remove steel as I went and the narak from the urban Marples were really cursed by the same plug they had very hard steel but were nowhere near flat so took a long time to flatten the back and even so I just got a small section of the front flattened and then of the on the other end it took a long time to flatten the bevel as well the only thing they edged the narak slightly ahead of the Irwin marbles is probably that it was the chisel of all this group that was closest to 47 degrees right out of the box [Music] now those are the basics it was time to try some joinery I laid out some basic dovetails nothing special here I just want to try clearing out the waste with the chisel I use this ancient really dry splintery pine just to make sure I didn't have any fun I also laid out some tenon joint so I could test how well the chisels compare this just construction-grade Douglas fir last but not least was hand cut data I laid these out in that awful pine as well I tried all these joints actually several reach of these joints with all the chisels it is by no means a scientific test but I just want to get a feel for each of them and see how well they handled all the different joining tasks chopping the paring - clearing out dovetail ways all this isn't went through a little bit of everything there's a couple of standouts but they were all pretty capable I mean they are just tools right to me the lenient chisel felt like it was built for chopping out of tune it's great for chopping but it does still have a little bit of surface area to double that's what the very top feeds out for clearing out waste in the tight area it's nice to be able to use all the surfaces of the chisel those sharp corners really helped you with giving sharp edges on your data the Veritas was really the master of the hand cut data this isn't a really surprising was all detail it did pretty good as everything all around when it came to the straight paring test though the narak show that was very very capable the only place where Indies really let me down was with the old hand hammer technique or whatever you want to call it the narak and the hover freaked has they'll have a little nub on the back end so when you hit it with your hand leave the nice wealth on you the old socket sizzles the Lee Neal Simmons Family sweetheart are perfect at this technique [Music] after all that joinery teaching will have a nervous still be sharp so I figured I'd fix that with the torture testing from Osage orange I cut mortises with Osage orange one of the densest hardwoods in America that will test their edge retention so not really surprising but after all those torch tests none of these chisels are really what I would call sharp anyone those three real standouts that kind of came away from me in this shootout the number one would probably be the Aldi chisel Paul so is recommending this thing and obviously for a reason it's held its edge pretty well it didn't roll an edge through all that it's very easy to sharpen and it's just a fantastic tool for I mean it's five dollars for four of these or on Father's Day so keep an eye out for these these are pretty awesome the other one if I were to upgrade from the Aldi to something that was a little more precise I look at the Stanley sweetheart it's got that classic socket chisel design it's even actually got a little bit longer blade than the the chisel to design that that's designed after at the Lee Nielson which can be nice for like pairing activities and things like that still still a little bit pricier a lot pricier than the old a chisel but probably worth it easy to flatten comes fairly precise from the factory good to work with if I were to pick a lifetime chisel is be a tough bet between the Lee Nielsen on the Veritas they're both very very strong steel they're both very very well manufactured totally flat backs right from the factory I mean they're basically sharp out of the box but the couple edges I would give to the Veritas is the blade is just a little bit longer which makes it just a little more utilitarian for me the handle is a little more comfortable in my hand I don't love that old Sokka shoes will feel but that's just me and overall they're both just really good and they probably both have a good place in your shop but I would pick the Veritas the other piece that the other thing the Veritas has over Lee Nielsen is that it doesn't have that splat on the edge it's actually a pure bevel edge especially sharp right there at the edge of the fate of the back so can we get a little bit nicer for cleaning up dovetails or like sneaking in there to you know get the edge of a dado that you're trying to flatten out it's really useful really helpful so if this your first time finding me please take a second subscribe down below and if you like this video please like it and share it with your friends thanks for joining me today with wood work life and remember keep your tool sharp keep your mind even sharper [Music]

Channel: Wood.Work.LIFE.

Views: 315,496

Keywords: shootout, chisel review, chisel shootout, Veritas Chisel, Narex Chisel, Sweetheart Chisel, stanley, hand tool, shoot out, woodworking, woodworker, sweetheart, hand tools, tools, review, harbor freight, veritas, shoot outs, tool review, tool reviews, sharpening a chisel, sharpening, sharpening a dull chisel, hand tool shootout, how to sharpen a chisel, how to sharpen, woodworking tools, chisels, hand tool woodworking, wood working, cheap tools, budget tools, best hand tools

Id: QoeyWO5jKW8

Length: 9min 40sec (580 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 03 2017