-
Thanks.
Last time I looked on eBay it didn't really seem worth it vs a set of Magnusson ones from Screwfix. Probably gonna grab these as they have a free honing guide that sounds like it could be hit or miss, but I reckon should still be able to be made to work.
They're the sort of thing that I'd normally try and get at car boot sales. But the seasons over now. There was a lovely full set at the last one I went to, but they weren't super cheap I didn't have the cash at the time.
hugo7-
Unfortunately at some point ‘old tools’ became a thing on ebay and the prices went up. I bought a set of 8 old style Marples chisels for a tenner years ago, you won’t find them at that price any more. I’ve examined the Irwin set you linked to in the shop and they are excellent. A cabinet maker would want to put some hours in polishing the backs to take off the machining marks but their out of the box sharp alternative costs £80 (for a single one inch chisel from Lie Nielsen, for example).
Sharkstar
I can see from the piece of chiselled off softwood in the photo that your unsharp chisel is just splitting the wood where it wants to split rather than cutting it where you want it cut. You don’t want to go down a cabinet maker’s sharpening rabbit hole
but showing it an oil stone from time to time will help.
I went through a phase of buying old chisel sets on ebay and getting them scary sharp, backs all flattened and edges perfectly square. It’s the work of a weekend for a full set of averagely treated chisels. Fifteen minutes with a double sided oilstone and a honing guide, if you want to drop an extra tenner, will suit your purposes.