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I picked up a 6 piece Chinese Chisel set for $8.00 at Harbor Freight expecting to find I actually had a 6 piece gasket scraper set (1/4" thru 1 1/2"), but once I cleaned them up with some wet/dry sandpaper and glass (Scarysharp trick) and gave them a little hollow grind with a cool grinder I was delighted to find they work just fine and keep an adequate edge for what I was doing (softwood shaping). I wouldn't expect them to hold up under heavy pounding and abuse, but I was trimming some round tenons on fir and they were great. If I win the Lottery I'll have a big box of Marples chisels for every task at hand, but until then these will do fine, and I won't worry too much if I drop them off my boat.
The original grind marks are VERY coarse, so I had to start with 320 to get those out. Going thru the grits, it became obvious that these were salvaged steel as there is a preceptible change in both color and hardness across the face of the bigger blades. I didn't try the full treatment, just used 320, 600, 1000 and 1500 to give them a workable edge. The grips are round softwood with a brass ring at the back to keep them from splitting should you need to beat on them a bit. The finish is inelegantly sprayed shellac, but they're workbox tools, not showpieces. Ferrules are cheap stampings but the edges on mine were deburred adequately. These tools were obviously much softer steel than my good chisels, but for something I can take outside or down to the dock I'm delighted! If you get some, do invest the time in cleaning them up and giving them a proper edge and I think you'll be as pleased and surprised as I was.
The original grind marks are VERY coarse, so I had to start with 320 to get those out. Going thru the grits, it became obvious that these were salvaged steel as there is a preceptible change in both color and hardness across the face of the bigger blades. I didn't try the full treatment, just used 320, 600, 1000 and 1500 to give them a workable edge. The grips are round softwood with a brass ring at the back to keep them from splitting should you need to beat on them a bit. The finish is inelegantly sprayed shellac, but they're workbox tools, not showpieces. Ferrules are cheap stampings but the edges on mine were deburred adequately. These tools were obviously much softer steel than my good chisels, but for something I can take outside or down to the dock I'm delighted! If you get some, do invest the time in cleaning them up and giving them a proper edge and I think you'll be as pleased and surprised as I was.