Optimal woodworking chisel steel

M

mendel314

Joined
Jul 30, 2016
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13
Hey all
I've been getting into woodworking recently, and thought some of you would have some insight, since a lot of you have worked with lots of steels and lots of woods.

I want to make myself a set of bench and mortise chisels, which should be pretty easy and well worth the savings I would have over a $500+ set of good chisels. I was wondering what you would select for an ideal steel and at what hardness? I am not very worried about sharpening, as I have diamonds and power sharpening options, and lots of practice with very hard knife steels. I am more interested in something that makes clean, polished cuts for a very long time in very hard woods like snakewood.

Thanks!
 
I made my own set out of A2 and I've been happy with them. W2 would probably take a keener edge, but might not hold it as long.
 
It depends. If you have really good shapening media like diamond stones or high end japanese ceramics then you can go with harder stuff but if you use oil stones then stick to O1. Most old guys prefer O1 because it can hold an edge better at low angles without deforming for things like paring, but you need to touch the edge up on a stop or the like more often to keep it ultra keen. A2 was thought to be revolutionary when introduced in ww'ing and I have lots of chisels and plane blades in A2 and the do well, but you need to keep your angles above 30 degrees or the edge gets chippy. No problem for chopping etc but not ideal for paring.

Veritas seems to have perfected a formula for powdered metal they use and call PMV11 that seems to be hard and durable yet retains the edge at low angles well, but it requires pretty expensive stones for sharpening as oil stones won't cut it worth a dang.

If I make my own chisels, I would go O1 unless you want to invest more in sharpening media than it would cost to buy quality chisels to begin with...
 
I already have sharpening media that can handle anything. I have a few knives in k390 that were a bear to regrind, but sharpening them is trivial. This is largely why i am posing this question.

Fwiw, i use a makita 9820 (if you dont know what it is, google it. I'm surprised more people here haven't discovered it) that I set a norton 120 grit blue stone in. I forget the norton part number, but it's the one carpenter recommends for hardened a11. I also have the oem makita 1k and 6k stones that work nicely with diamond sprays for polishing harder alloys. I also have a set of shapton pros that i use for lapping/creating slurry on makita stones, and for polishing at higher grits.

All commercially available chisels prioritize ease of sharpening. If this is taken out of the equation, how much better can I do? I saw the veritas chisels, but I am skeptical of anything that doesnt have real information available. Have you used them? Are they as good as they advertise? I can't find what the actual alloy is, or what hardness they run it at. They just have some very subjective advertising data available, and I doubt anyone is making a super special custom secret alloy just for them. My best guess is that it is something like what Darrin Sanders recommended, cpm m4 at moderately high hardness, but if that's the case, i can make my own set for 1/4 what they charge, and have the satisfaction of doing it myself.

I figured if anyone has asked them self this question, and seriously answered it, it would be someone here. Thanks for the replies so far. I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys think.
 
Fwiw, I made a slick for a guy of S7. I left it pretty hard, Dunno what it turned out for hardness, he is real happy with it.
At most he will "help it along" with a mallet.
I suppose it makes a difference as far as steel type or finished hardness if the woodchisels are intended to be handtools or struck.

Nice sharpener btw, I was given one with a water damage, someday I might try to fix it.
 
For bench or mortise chisels, definitely going to be "helped" with a mallet at some point. I already know i'm going to try to get some k390 for paring chisels. I love the stuff, but I wouldnt want to be holding a sharp piece of it when it gets hit with a mallet

My first thought was cpm 3v for impact toughness, but it doesnt get really hard, and it seems good chisels are run on the harder side
 
if making your own, O1, 80CrV2, or Cru-Forge V would all be good choices and would be easy to heat treat. make one or two, then if you are happy with your work, do one in M2 or M4 and send it out for heat treat.
scott
 
mendel314 said:
All commercially available chisels prioritize ease of sharpening. If this is taken out of the equation, how much better can I do? I saw the veritas chisels, but I am skeptical of anything that doesnt have real information available. Have you used them? Are they as good as they advertise? I can't find what the actual alloy is, or what hardness they run it at. They just have some very subjective advertising data available, and I doubt anyone is making a super special custom secret alloy just for them. My best guess is that it is something like what Darrin Sanders recommended, cpm m4 at moderately high hardness, but if that's the case, i can make my own set for 1/4 what they charge, and have the satisfaction of doing it myself.
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The Veritas chisels absolutely perform extremely well as advertised, and I have used them. I do not own the PMV-11 chisels but I do own PMV-11 plane blades and their wear performance is spectacular compared to O1 or A2, but definitely a tougher sharpen, although you obviously have the tools to deal with them. The powdered metal is a formula that was designed for Veritas. I know they tried multiple formulas before settling on the final recipe. That is why they guard it so secretly. A lot of people are not aware of the history of Veritas, which is a Lee Valley owned company. The Lee family is very well known philanthropic Canadian family who uses the money from the Veritas side of the business to fund Leonard Lee's passion (who sadly recently passed) which is medical instrument development and the funding of life saving surgeries etc for those that cannot afford them themselves. There is much more to all this then I could ever put forth here, but needless to say they are HUGE developers of tool and tool steel technology and put there money on the line every day to do so.

Robin Lee, Leonard's son, is the man behind the wheel these days and is carrying on in his fathers footsteps exceptionally well. I am fortunate enough to be acquainted with Robin and have had many conversations about the tools etc he is always developing and even took a part time job working for his company for purely interest sake. They are very successful company with a fascinating back story and are 100% legitimate in the tooling game!
 
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Welcome to Shop Talk!

You might take a look at Derek Cohen's review comparing practical performance of different steels used in paring chisels. His actual test set included A2, O1, Koyamaichi White Steel, CPM M4, CPM 3V, and CPM 10V. He put in a solid effort and has the experience to be worth your time.

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReviews/ChiselParing.html

He also did similar work for edge stability related to impact resistance in chisel steels (chopping DT pins in Jarrah). Although A2 was missing in this comparison, Cohen agrees with my buddy Darrin above, stating that M4 was closest to his "ideal".

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReviews/ChiselBladeTesting-5Steels.html

For paring, I would personally rather have the super fine CS edges that have enough angle to stand up to the particular work, and are easy and fast to touch up as I go along, as opposed to the crazy hard PM steels that take DMT plates or the like to sharpen (too often giving frustratingly mediocre edges -- that last forever).

Try all that you can though as everybody has different goals. Good luck in your hunt.
 
I use W1 for my saya chisels...takes a sharp edge, holds it for a good amount of time, easy to sharpen.

-Jeff F


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Thanks for posting! I'll give the veritas chisels a closer look.

I've seen that comparison, and the results of that test were not very surprising, but heat treat is so important and so variable that it is hard to know what to do with one data point. Was the 3v heat treated hard? Was there a cryo cycle?

You may be right about the simpler steels for a paring chisel. I've been using a blue steel one i picked up on japanwoodworker, but i find it to be very chippy. I can only use it for a few minutes before it cuts noticeably worse, whereas I can whittle all day with a k390 knife and it still leaves polished cuts (and shaves, much to my surprise)
 
You like your knife made from K390, why not use it for chisels?

I really like everything about K390 except for its availability. I prefer it to M4 and A11.

Chuck
 
Andy Lewis said:
Welcome to Shop Talk!

You might take a look at Derek Cohen's review comparing practical performance of different steels used in paring chisels. His actual test set included A2, O1, Koyamaichi White Steel, CPM M4, CPM 3V, and CPM 10V. He put in a solid effort and has the experience to be worth your time.

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReviews/ChiselParing.html

He also did similar work for edge stability related to impact resistance in chisel steels (chopping DT pins in Jarrah). Although A2 was missing in this comparison, Cohen agrees with my buddy Darrin above, stating that M4 was closest to his "ideal".

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ToolReviews/ChiselBladeTesting-5Steels.html

For paring, I would personally rather have the super fine CS edges that have enough angle to stand up to the particular work, and are easy and fast to touch up as I go along, as opposed to the crazy hard PM steels that take DMT plates or the like to sharpen (too often giving frustratingly mediocre edges -- that last forever).

Try all that you can though as everybody has different goals. Good luck in your hunt.
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Interesting thread Andy. One main drawback is that no H/T info. was given. It would be fun to hook up with a professional woodworker and experiment with different steels, Austenitizing temps., & final hardnesses to see what works best. It could take years but it would be fun and worth the effort.
I believe that it would be best to start with max. Austemps. & hardness, test, & reduce until there were no edge failures. I could be way off though since I hardly ever use a chisel.
 
Alpha Knife Supply said:
You like your knife made from K390, why not use it for chisels?

I really like everything about K390 except for its availability. I prefer it to M4 and A11.

Chuck
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I've always wanted to try some K390 but have never been able to find any. Sounds like you've tried to locate some to no avail.
 
This topic comes up a lot. As you probably guessed my background is in wood working, with several years of work in a pro shop.

Im also a horrible and unrepentant nerd, and when you have a big budget you get to play around with a lot of different chisels, hand made, machine ground, japanese forged, You use O1, O2, W1, W2, A2, 1095, hitachi blue, hitachi white, Agomi super blue, CPM Rex 95 and so on and on. The truth is?

They all work. The only REAL differences I noticed shipping out dove tails and making tenons and everything else was that the High speed steel last longer on the really tough and abrasive woods like Wenge and palm.

As long as the chisel is well made, well ground, flat and sharp and the heat treat is good you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between most carbon steels of about 1 percent carbon. I like mine at 62, and personally prefer W2 and O1, though the Hitachi blues are nice, they are "in my opinion" not worth the price.

I would say to use O1 "I have a bunch of 1/4 plates I use" and learn to make them the way you like them. After that you can try experimenting, but again, I have never noticed a huge difference in them if the hardness is high and blade is well amde and cared for.
 
Like I said, I hardly ever use a chisel but I agree that high hardness should work best in a chisel. I believe that compression strength would be more important than toughness in a chisel and higher hardness equals higher compression strength. Again, this is just theory on my part and I could be totally wrong. LOL
 
Darrin Sanders said:
Like I said, I hardly ever use a chisel but I agree that high hardness should work best in a chisel. I believe that compression strength would be more important than toughness in a chisel and higher hardness equals higher compression strength. Again, this is just theory on my part and I could be totally wrong. LOL
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I agree. Only certain types of cuts are really expected with a chisel. Twisting, prying, scraping are all considered wrong IMO, even abuse. I treat my chisels the same way you would treat a high end kitchen knife. When I drop a chisel on the shop floor I can expect that when I pick it up the edge will be obliterated.
 
Yep.

One major source of damage is actually just taking to heavy of a cut. There is a wonderful book called the art of sharpening that covers this in detail, but the force on the chisel blade is proportional to the thickness of cut being made, and to heavy a cut can cause the edge to buckle and chip.
 
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