chisel question

[Mike in Mystic]

I just ordered a set of 6 Two Cherries bench chisels from

. A great deal, by the way, at $80+shipping (with a

15% automatic discount and a coupon I had).

These are a special set and differ from the "normal" chisels in that they aren't mirror polished and the handles are different slightly. So, my question is, does the mirror polish have any impact on performance or is it just an aesthetic detail? (I admit the polished chisels look great) Second, is it easy to polish the chisels myself? I have a Beall buffing set and a 1725 rpm buffer.

At any rate, I think that the $80 difference for this set vs. the polished chisels made these a much better deal, I'm just curious about these points.

TIA,

Mike

[Silvan]

You and I live in different realms, Mike... $80 _difference_ for shiny vs. non-shiny. Sheesh. Oh well, your job and/or locale probably suck(s) worse than mine. :)

My fancy $20 chisels are almost mirrors all over. Getting them the rest of the way to being mirrors with a buffer would be pretty easy. I'd say you have little to worry about.

[charlie b]

This may come at a shock to some. I picked out 6 Two Cherries chisels

- the shiny ones - at the German equivalent of the Borg in Messen, near Munich. They were hung up by sizes on a peg rack. The total came to about $89 US two years ago. Couldn't find Stanley or Buck chisels but Two Cherries were relatively cheap and readily available - though not as inexpensive as Marples Blue Handle.

As for buffing your chisels to a mirror finish - DON'T buff the back anywhere near your cutting edge and try a hard felt wheel rather than a stitched or unstitched cloth wheel if you really feel shiny is important to you.

BTW - if shiny made chisels work better I'm pretty sure good Japanese chisels would be shiny. The fact that they're not tells me the answer to your question.

charlie b

[Larry Blanchard]

Bzzzzzt! Wrong answer!

You can't sharpen an edge properly if there are still milling marks on the back. That's why the "normal" chisels he referenced are shiny. The "special" set apparently leaves the polishing up to the user.

Every chisel I've ever bought had to be polished. Apparently the expensive Two Cherries have it done for you.

[CW]

[Peter Wells]

Even the polished ones I bought (and love) needed some flattening. They were shiny, but with small corrugations on the back.

You may find it useful to run some acetone over the chisels before starting: Two Cherries coat the blades with some sort of varnish that is difficult to remove with abrasion and seems to me to clog my waterstones. May not be true of the non-polished chisels, of course.

Only one P in my real address/ Un seul P dans ma véritable adresse

[Mike in Mystic]

Hi Charlie,

That doesn't surprise me one bit, considering you bought them in the country of manufacture and didn't deal with whatever get's added to the top for shipping, currency conversion, etc. etc. I looked around for awhile and couldn't find a better price than this for the Two Cherries chisels as of yesterday. At craftsmanstudio the polished ones were $165 for the 6 set. I think antiquetools.com might have them for a better price, but probably still $50-60 more than the non-mirrored ones I bought. Inflation is a beautiful thing, no? The way the German economy has gone down the crapper, I'm surprised they haven't more than doubled the price since you bought yours.

At any rate, it looks like I will want to polish them to some extent, although I would always flatten the backs of the chisels (near the edge mainly) anyway. That does get me to a mirrored finish. I guess I'll try out a few things with the buffing wheel, maybe just on the top and side bevels. I don't want to screw up the factory cutting bevel (as well as have a chisel thrown into my foot by the buffer!).

Mike

[Juergen Hannappel]

[...]

Wow. In Germany you get them for 74.5 EUR (87.91$), or 79.9 in a wooden Box.

Readinge the Two Cherries catalog there is no mention of an unpolished version at all, only different sets of handles, wich make some difference in price, starting at 9.9EUR for unhandled over 15EUR for round beech handle to 20EUR for "Vulkanfiber" handle foen one chisel.

[...]

I also get the mirror finish on back and bevel on my fine (400Grit) waterstone, even on old rusted ones.

[BUB 209]

Does all this have anything to do with the cutting performance of the tool? I just set the bevel so its reasonably at a low angle to the shaving on an electric grinding wheel using a dish of ice cubes to keep the edge cool, going by feel not using a tool rest, until there's an even burr on the backside. Then I remove the burr using a medium India stone and mineral spirits, then hone the top till the hollow grind along the edge is flattened and the burr tips over again, then another swipe on the backside with the stone to loosen the honing burr, then just work the edge a few times on a piece of soft wood. Just seems like any more work will give maybe a little better edge but it will only last for two or three mallet blows! Sometimes I do wish I still had surgical black Arkansas stone, though.

[dave]

Yes. If you have imperfections on the back of the chisel, near the edge anyway, grinding the bevel down only places the imperfections into the cutting edge. If you look at the edge with a magnifying glass, or just visualize it, the imperfections keep the edge from being smooth. They show up as grooves and ragged pits. That scores the wood and makes the edge grab so that it doesn't last as well. I hope that makes sense, if it doesn't contact me. Dave in Fairfax

[B a r r y B u r k e J r .]

Which is why you flatten the back. This has nothing to do with polishing the tool.

Barry

[BUB 209]

Yes. Thats....why I wish I still had that surgical black Arkansas. I wonder where you can get a nice big one like the one I had in the '70s. About 3/8"X1 3/4"X

4 1/2".

[Lowell Holmes]

for one, Woodcraft for another...

[--Shiva--]

--Shiva--

[BUB 209]

You know I'm still not used to just snapping my fingers to get everything I could possibly need or want via the internet! Hadn't occurred to me to look online as I hadn't seen exactly what I want in stores. Cool. Put it in my cart.