Utility Chisel Set - 4 Piece Reviews

3.9 Rating 8 Reviews

About Woodcraft:

Woodcraft Supply, LLC is one of the nation's oldest and largest suppliers of quality woodworking tools and supplies. You'll find Woodcraft stores in more than 70 major metropolitan areas across the U.S.; and Woodcraft annually distributes 1.5 million catalogs featuring more than 10,000 items to all 50 states and 117 foreign countries. The Woodcraft catalog is a standard among woodworkers as the most complete offering of first rate products for woodworking available anywhere. Woodcraft also publishes six issues of Woodcraft Magazine annually.

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Phone:

800-535-4486

Location:

1177 Rosemar Rd,
Parkersburg
West Virginia
26105

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“These Chisels have held up for about 7 years without signs of failing. The handles have withstood heavy mallet blows on occasion for hardwood stock removal. But these chisels have also done refined slicing work. With respect to sharpening, they take a keen edge and hold it comparably with high-end chisels. Close enough to not be a problem for hard work. If my memory serves me right, they all have the negative belly on the face surface, which allows the polishing of the leading edge where the face meets the edge. Before buying a chisel, make sure that the face is not convex. If that is the case, you cannot easily polish the face at the sharp end. Dead straight is good in theory, concave is good for normal (not super high-end) chisels. Worth noting is that these chisels don't have side bevels that come close to being an edge. Instead they have a bevel and then a sidewall. This is fine and it does make for a stronger chisel with less risk of snapping a corner off. Of course, if you are using a chisel skillfully, this should not happen. That said, with those sidewalls, these chisels can't reach as cleanly into the acute corners of a dovetail during waste removal. Generally one is going to need a more refined and maybe more expensive (it depends) chisel for this. The sale price for this set makes it particularly attractive and worth buying a second set as backup in a production environment. When I look at the slender build of the handle, I'm tempted to doubt that it is strong enough. But it is. And since the handle is a very good proportional size, not ridiculous and bulky, its really perfect. For sharpening over the years, this set has been sharpened most often with a Tormek followed by waterstones for secondary and tertiary bevels. I know that sounds overdone but really I just work this way to save time and not waste effort and materials. The Tormek removes bulk mainly back at the rear of the bevel, then rough stones set a true flat bevel part-way up the bevel, and then fine stones set a small final bevel. This leaves a bevel that doesn't have a great big concave dip in it nearly all the way to the edge. I find that this leaves a chisel weaker than it should be and also obstructs some work when using a chisel with the bevel side down towards your work, such as when slicing material for a bevel on an inside radius. The backs are polished to a mirror finish on waterstones as well and this is done initially, then lightly with each sharpening. Looking back, this set plus the nicer WoodRiver set with wood handles would handle a great amount of woodworking applications. Of course there are more specialty chisels such as mortising chisels and others. Being an American Craftsman and valuing good products made in the USA and other free countries, I do place value in where products are made and I do pay attention to that. I'd love to see WoodCraft manufacture more of their great tools in the USA and I would be willing to pay more for it. I would like to see WoodCraft start by selling two sets, one made overseas and one made in the USA. Let the customer decide. There is a sense in which it seems like WoodCraft and WoodRiver are letting themselves down by going the cheapest route; perhaps their customers would be happy to see options and tools made in the USA. I'm not saying stop making anything overseas. I'm just saying, do both and put both on the store shelf. Not just imported. But realistically, if US regulations and labor were to triple the cost of this set, then someone else would come along and sell the imported set for 1/3 the price, and WoodCraft would lose those sales. In my case, I do own this imported set, but I've also certainly been willing to invest in high-performance chisels made in the USA, Canada, England, Germany, Japan and the Czek. If Woodcraft 10 years ago had a finer line of USA-made chisels, I probably would have bought them at the local stores out of convenience and loyalty to my own country instead of some other fine USA chisel that was less convenient to buy. Anyways. Its all good. Sort of. But we need more domestic manufacturing, of that there is no doubt. But it needs to be feasible. Mostly, it isn't. That needs to change to where its more possible for American-made manufacturing to compete. And American companies like WoodCraft need to show more courage. If they do, I will repay their courage with more loyalty. To date, these other chisel-makers have gotten about 95% of my spending on chisels, and WoodRiver, just about 5%. Not sure why WoodCraft couldn't have gotten all of my business. They are the only local woodworking store with actually two+ stores in the area. To conclude, I'm appreciative of these chisels and WoodCraft's brick-and-mortar stores, and I wish to encourage WoodCraft to manufacture and market more domestic goods under their own name. Its not a political thing. Its just a long-term business horizon plan.”

1 Helpful Report

Posted 3 weeks ago

“Love hate relationship with them, I'm waiting for them to go on sale again to buy another couple sets. But they require a good bit of work to get them flat and sharpened.”

2 Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

BS From Los Angeles

Verified Reviewer

“Just got these and really like them. The handles are slippery which is my only complaint but they are 21 on sale and can be sharpened quite easily. I think the reviews complaining about the sharpness don't know how to sharpen, because I was able to shave with them after only 5-10 minutes of sharpening on just 2 stones. Fantastic if you don't want to spend a lot on chisels and will get the job done”

2 Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

“bought these at half price to let students use for boat building. factory grind is next to useless. youd have to spend some time to get these properly sharpened. moral: dont skimp on tools. buy the best, care for them and keep em for life. These shall be returned.”

3 Helpful Report

Posted 3 years ago

BM From Matthews

Verified Reviewer

“I purchased these on sale so a really great price. However they are a ton of work to get sharpened correctly and I wish I could post pictures here to explain better but I will do my best. One of the most important steps in sharpening chisels is to have a dead flat back of your chisel for about an inch or so from the chisel's cutting edge. I first started flattening with my water stones. Started with a 1000 grit and right a away realized I had a convex (or belly) on the back, the worse case scenario for flattening because of all the metal to remove. So I switched to my 240 stone and after several passes the cutting edge and especially the corners were not being touched. I kept having to flatten my stone and I have been wanting to upgrade my sharpening tools so I thought this was the time to upgrade to the Trend Diamond Stone 300/1000 grit. It took me 3 days of working about an hour each time to flatten the back of the 1 inch chisel, that was as much time as I could do before my hands were too sore to go on. Lesson learned, don't by inexpensive tools you will only suffer. They can be made to be decent chisels if you are willing to put in the work. Dull chisels are dangerous and will not yield good results on fine woodworking, my advice is spend more money on good chisels that you can get to work with much quicker, but if budget is a serious issue and you are willing to do the work then by all means go for it.”

2 Helpful Report

Posted 4 years ago

BM From Matthews

Verified Reviewer

“It is a decent chisel set but not machined well from the start. When flattening the back before sharpening the corners took forever to start taking off material even with a 220 grit wet stone and even then I could not get a perfectly flat and polished back with the biggest chisel, the smaller ones did much better. The bevels were a little better. For the price you can't beat them, but you understand why better chisels cost so much more.”

2 Helpful Report

Posted 4 years ago

MJ From OMAHA

Verified Reviewer

“These chisels can be honed to an amazingly sharp edge that seems to be holding up quite well. Slices through hardwood like butter. Way better than my old garbage chisel set anyway. I sharpened both sets exactly the same and tested them side-by-side. My old set is now in the trash :-) Results weren't even close. I'm sure there are better sets out there, but if you can't get professional results with this set, you need to find a new hobby.”

2 Helpful Report

Posted 5 years ago

GW From FAIRBANKS

Verified Reviewer

“I was trying to drive it through a 3/8 hole to make a poor mans router plane, snapped it right off. Guess I won't do that again.”

1 Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago