new Irwin/Marples blue chip (M444) chisels - side bevels

[foo]

Hello,

I've looked at older samples of the Marples blue chip chisels, and the side bevels are ground almost to the face, the side face even along the entire length.

A recent sample of chisels I've seen have the bevel very high up and somewhat angled, ground to maybe 2mm of the face at the tip, less than half the thickness at the middle, and are effectively useless for doing tight-quarters maneuvers such as cleaning up dovetails.

Has anybody else noticed this? Is this the new style of grinding that Irwin tools is doing for these chisels?

Thanks!

[Mzone719]

Marples was bought out by Irwin which is owned by american tool which has since been bought out by rubbermaid which is now rubbermaid/newell or something like that. You can definitely see the change in quality over the years in these chisels and IMO there are better chisels out there for the money. They have just become another line of ok chisels.

[John Horobin]

Yes, the latest "Record" 09-1/2 block planes I have seen from China are unusable due to the blade not fastening down properly. The iron is bad too...

A real shame - they should have put money into producing high quality made in Sheffield products.

John

[D. Mo]

FYI Rubbermaid merged with Newell back in what waas it 99 making the company Newell-Rubbermaid. Use to work for one of their companies back then..

[RB]

Why should Marpels be different. Many of the other Newell Rubbermaid products have become junk too in my opinion. It's too bad because Rubbermaid used to be a quality supplier.

RB

Mz> Marples was bought out by Irwin which is owned by american tool which has since