For the past decade Lee Valley’s bench chisels had all the charm you’d expect from tools in an auto repair bay. Maybe it was the yellow and black butyrate handles …
The new Veritas chisels feature kiln-baked maple handles that are luxuriously silky to the touch, with a subtle flat giving a tactile clue to blade position. Custom-turned ferrules seat against the blade and tighten the blade-handle connection through use.
The O1 tool steel blades were designed by someone who actually uses chisels. Their faces are lapped flat to ±0.0005”, saving you hours of grunt work, and their straight parallel sides with true bevelled edges permit working into tight recesses.
The ½”, ¾” and 1″ are ground with a 25° primary bevel, while the ¼” and 1/8″ are ground at 30° – a smart feature that helps prevent the edges of the smaller chisels from crumpling during hard use. A 2° micro-bevel on the blades means they’re ready to go after only a minute or so of honing.
The mass of the chisels and straight-sided blades make them ideal for mortising, yet their excellent balance means they don’t feel cumbersome during fine work. Their edges held up well during some heavy chopping yet were a breeze to hone. My completely subjective evaluation: 9.7 out of 10. A great set of chisels. leevalley.com
