Absolutely! I'll see your L&IJ White and raise you a Douglass . . .

But my favorite is Charles Buck.

Gary Katsanis
Albion New York, USA
sort of on the west end of NY tool manufacturing

	-----------------------------------------From: "John Ruth" 
To: "Michael Blair"
Cc: scottg@s..., oldtools@g...
Sent: Tuesday August 23 2022 8:52:51AM
Subject: Re: [oldtools] Chisel Pricing confusion

 Mike wrote:

 > You want bizarre? "Stanley Sweetheart chisels, set of 8,
available at
 > Home Depot. All bearing the 750 marking:
 >
 >
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Stanley-Sweetheart-750-Series-Socket-Wood-Chisel-
Set-8-Piece-16-793/203710894
 />
 Oh, I'd like to know how close these are to true equivalency to the
oldies!

 1) How HARD are they? Most modern chisels are tempered to a hardness
such that they will bend before they snap. This is to prevent lawsuits
by "Freddy Allthumbs" who lost an eye after using a chisel to pry open
a paint can. _Notice that No Rc number is given_!!!

 ( Many US-made chisels sold under various private brands such as
Craftsman and Buck Brothers all came from a New England factory owned
by Great Neck. [Source: One of the Taunton books. Your mission is to
jog my memory by identifying which book. ]. The steel was said to be
chemically correct, but not tempered to the correct hardness.
Difficult to reharden/retemper due to non-removable plastic handles. )

 2) Where are they made? Any nation can make good stuff, but some are
more in the habit of quality than others.

 Scott wrote a sentence with an excellent bit of Galoot humor which
I've not seen mentioned in recent years:

 >> ...Swan, Whitherby, Doc Barton and the other "best there ever was"
chisels

 I do hope the newer members of the Porch "got" Scott's reference to
Doc Barton. This was something that gave us a chuckle years ago when
the 'Bay had a bunch of sellers who misread "D. R. Barton" as "Dr.
Barton," thus creating a mythical chisel maker.

 I still chuckle over that one when I find a D. R. Barton at the
fleas.

 As a sort of BTW, I'd include L & IJ White among the old time makers
of good chisels. What say?

 John Ruth
 Still somewhat saddened when finding a quality socket chisel with the
socket mushroomed into unusablity or entirely absent.

 



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