Vent: That senior guy who told me to ditch my favorite chisel brand

I was at a job site in Portland last fall, working on a set of custom walnut shelves for a library. This old-timer, maybe 70 years old, walked up and watched me for a minute. Then he says "you spent good money on those chisels and they still chatter like a baby." He was right. I had been fighting with these high-end Japanese chisels for months. He pulled out a beat-up set of old two cherries he got from a garage sale for $30. He let me try them on a piece of white oak. The cut was smooth as glass, no cleanup needed. I asked him what I was doing wrong with mine. He said "nothing, you just bought hype instead of geometry." That stuck with me hard. Has anyone else had a veteran change your mind on a tool you swore by?

3 comments

3 Comments

lewis.brian3d ago

Did he have any advice on sharpening technique?

marybutler3d ago

Only advice I got was to stop practicing on brand new knives, which was a bit late for me.

baker.christopher3d ago

I get what you're saying about the geometry thing, but I actually think the old timer was half wrong. Those Japanese chisels have a different bevel angle and steel hardness that works great for softwoods and end grain, but on white oak they need a higher angle microbevel to stop the chatter. I had a set of Tatsusaburo chisels that chattered like crazy until I took them from 25 to 35 degrees on the final stone. Then they cut clean as anything, no tool marks needed. The guy's point about buying hype over geometry had some truth, but it wasn't the chisels' fault, it was the setup.