Hi, I was in Aldi today and I
bought some chisels, I bought these
Aldi chisels which I've used for 4 or 5
years now
maybe, maybe not that long but I've used
them for a while we use them in the
school
they're very inexpensive the amazing
thing about them is that they cost just
under eight pounds including your taxes
and everything so you walk out of the
store with a set of four chisels
typically these are eight millimeter 12
millimeter 18 millimeter and 24 mm
which puts them close to the
approximation of just under about 5/16
so it's not quite a quarter inch and
then you have a half inch three-quarter
inch and 1 inch chisel and what I
liked about these chisels was while I
did like the prize is pretty inexpensive
but the other was the fact that they had
ash wooden handles, a hardwood handle and that
they were a good long chisel, they have a
nice bolster on here they hit against
the wood
I don't care for the metal
ferrules, they don't really do anything
especially at this and you don't really
need it but that's fine and I don't care
for guards because I think I've cut
myself more putting guards on than
I ever have
leaving the chisels without guards, one
of the nice thing is generally they
don't roll on the floor but I like the
the flat point in here so there's a lot of
things that I like about these chisels
but the reason I like them in particular
is that if you don't have a whole lot of
money and you just starting out in
woodworking these chisels will actually
last you a lifetime and
they are fine enough here on the thickness
not to be over
thick, not too heavy, the sizing is
good these are practical sizes
- that's a fraction under three quarters
of an inch
it's that was 5 16 7 inch that was just
under half and this one is just under 1
so they're close enough to the size that
we need
alright, so what we're going to do first
of all we've got to find out a couple of
things about the chisel the general
overall appearance and feel of the
chisel is fine, I would probably 
knock off the the signage on it and take
the plastic coating off the handle and
maybe sand them down and put some shellac
or some boiled linseed oil on it and I
probably would work on these, the back
faces in the bevels a little bit with
some Emery paper but what  we are really going
to look at now is the flatness of this
face and we're going to sharpen it
so this has a single bevel on here which
is perfect for what we want
we're going to slightly alter this to
put a camber on it but what we want to
do is check this face for flatness and I
don't know but this is exactly what I
would want this has a slight camber, I mean concave on this face which makes it
very easy to flatten, this one has a
slight hollow, this one has quite a big
hollow but we'll see when we get them on
the sharpening plates and that one has a
hollow which is perfect for what I want
in a chisel
so that really helps me to get the chisel
where I need it to be so this is the
procedure, what we need first of all is
we want this back face
to be fairly flat if it is belied it
takes a lot to get that flat and that's
going to take you 20 minutes if it's
bellied and that's probably not too long
if it's not bellied, if it's hollow like
this one is then I don't have a whole
lot of work to do on it I'll show you
why because it doesn't have to be dead
flat just needs to be close to, to get
that flat we need something that's flat
and I've got some plate glass here that I got out of the
skip, out of a dumpster in America, skip
here in the UK
and it's half inch plate didn't cost me
anything and I've got some abrasive
paper on this this could be any kind of
abrasive paper I just use wet and dry
and this works fine
so I've got 250 400 and 800 and you
don't have to go with these you can go
with anything close to and on this side
I got 1,200 1,500 2,000 2,500
these are smaller than the other side
because these are not so much for
flattening but polishing out so I
don't spend a lot of time after I've got
them flat this is what's going to take
the bulk of the work these three are
going to take most of the work I also
have a granite block here that is
guaranteed flat and you can buy one of
these you need one
ultimately I like to have one around the
shop this certifies that this is flat
with it with plus or minus half a
thousandth of an inch so this is you
know this is one that I bought for that
purpose
if you can't get the plate glass if you
stuck for the plate glass glass then
going to B&Q and take a straightedge, go to their tool dept, take a square
and get the straightedge and offer it
to the the tile and go through the tiles
until you find one that's flat and that
would be the next stage for for me and
one more piece of equipment we need is a
block of wood like this one and I'll
show you what we need that for in a
minute
we don't need it right now so let's get
rid of what we don't need, we don't need
the granite block because we're going to
be using the plate glass and I've stuck
these to the glass you can spray
adhesive these to the glass you can use
use a film of water
people keep telling me that the paper
doesn't slip when you just use a film of
water
I have not found that to be true, I use it sometimes because I'm lazy or I
don't want to use a spray adhesive
because of the smell or whatever but
most often they do slip, I found that
they generally do slip
so what I do is I just put a single dab
of double-sided tape like this along one
end of each piece of the paper the
abrasive paper like this on the underside,
peel it off and stick it down so it's
not actually stuck down in the middle
because it doesn't need to be and
that is very easy to remove with a razor
blade if it contaminates your glass
after but this will get you started so
I'm using glass cleaner
this is the most inexpensive lapping 
fluid that I've come across
I like it it has a pleasant smell and is
not an oil-based product so I kind of like
it,
it's perfect for this, so squirt on some
fluid here, we'll call it lapping fluid
but it's not lapping fluid is just
glass cleaner, and you know water will
do exactly the same
I haven't found much difference between
any of these fluids and I certainly have
not found lapping fluid works that
effectively or more effectively, so here
I've got some shelf liner this is that
silicon non-slip stuff
plop it on there and that gives it
fairly rigid hold, I'm going to take the
back face of the chisel here offer it to
this
emery paper here, this abrasive paper and
I'm just going to make a couple of
passes like this just to see how flat
we already are and I think that we're
very close
because already we have a hollow in here
the abrasive is hitting here and the
abrasive is hitting here so it's
exposing the hollow here so I'm going to
go with a little more fluid and then
let's just concentrate on this, so I'm using most
of the back of the chisel here, so
elongate so you get in the full length
of your paper
this does not have to be a complicated
procedure now then this is actually
enough hollow in here where we are
already at the cutting edge we've got
this whole area here and we're back here
as well
this doesn't affect the chisel we're
getting exactly where we want you could
go a little bit more if you want to and
we will but you can see already this is
flat enough for us to move on to a more
aggressive less aggressive grit and to
remove the marks left by this first
level of abrading and I'm telling you this
is all you need
so this chisel now we've got about a
quarter of an inch
six millimeters from the end let's go on
the next level
now it's gripping a little bit more here
my fingers are not gripping quite, polish
out that face
just keep going until the pain is
shooting up your arm and then you know
you're ready, okay
you see what's happening here we're
getting back here you can already see I
can already see the light up above even
though we're only 400 grit 400 grit will
give you a good sharp chisel it will be
sharp enough for just about everything
you're doing but we're going to go
further so I can see my pencil now is
reflecting in the face of this chisel
already at 400
let's go on here all, I'm trying to do is demystify this process because
you'll see where we are in a minute
now we're on the 600 grit and with every
level we've moved a little bit further
from this edge so now we're around here
this hollow here doesn't matter in fact
it's going to help our woodworking so
it's just fine so go ahead and take off
the damp and those are not finished with
those abrasive papers I can continue
using those now we're going to go to the
1200 grit here and polish this facing
it's looking good can you see that now
reflecting the wall
1500
yeah
ok
keep polishing the more of the striation
marks you get out from the abrasive the
better
and then two thousand so this is very
polished at this is way more than any
woodworker needs and people are going
to tell you things like you have to go
to 20,000 30,000 that's cards wall up
and I'm just polishing polishing
polishing now this is an upper body
workout I've got all the pressure from
my upper body going down into this face
now if you like this hollow to be out
there is nothing wrong with getting it
out but it's not necessary
you'll see in a minute this chisel is
going to do everything we wanted to do
so my last grip for this level and this
type of the abrading is going to be 2400
here, see this paper this is where
this method is only to get you going and
get you started because these papers do
rip and if people tell you they don't
they do the films rip
that's what makes it expensive
it's an expensive method compared to
diamond plates but when you're
starting out is perfect for starting out
is perfect for this you get fresh grit
every time
so there I have a mirror finish that is
perfect
can you see that yeah we've got that
mirror finish
now this is already fairly sharp but the
bevel comes from manufacturer they say
it's sharp in the all the blurbs it's
going to tell you that they are sharp
they're not sharp and this is where I
would go to my diamond plates but you
can do this you can sharpen the bevels
on these plates here
I probably should do a little bit to
show you how, these are ground probably
to around the two and two and a half
250 here so if you pull this bevel on
here like this
just keep it dead flat, flat as you can
what that's going to do is take out the
abrasion from the manufacturer
so when you've gone through that one go
to this one here trail the edge you
can't really push it into it
so this works fine but you can see the
downside of using the abrasive paper but
if you glue the whole back down it's
less likely to do that, this works the
same on this one but I would normally do
this on diamond plates so I don't have
to just trail this edge but this works
just fine
so we're getting this macro camber now,
can you see this camber on here on the
cutting edge
so this is carpentry sharp now
most carpenters use a belt sander,
not the best way
1200 or many carpenters do
so this is just a natural action, I'm not
trying to do this is just a natural
action that puts this camber and
polishes the edge now we're closed in
this is coming close to sharp, same on
this one now
don't feel a burr on that and I think it's
because it gets so small
last one
now we're not done yet
we're going to go to a much higher level
but you take a look at that and I'll
show you what we're going to do next
you see that
so how sharp is sharp? that still doesn't
feel sharp to me so I'm going to show
you what I do
it's got the bevel polished typically I
use diamond plates so I'm going to show you
the system I use there's my 250 there's
my 600 and there's my 1200 when I'm
sharpening normally I start on 30 and I
push here until I feel a burr on this
back edge and I'm doing the whole of the
bevel not just the edge and I go to the
1200 so 600 then 1,200 now then here's
the thing
once you've established this flat face
on this back of the chisel you never
polish this you never grind this face
again
you flip over on this 12 and you just
pull like that
so you put that push the burr from this
face onto this top edge now then here is
the next stage
we're going to go to what we're going to
do is we're going to continue on the
flat face just a little bit more this is
just a block of wood actually this is
all pallet would
and I've charged this with chromium oxide
or alumina oxide aluminium oxide
whichever oxide they are and I just
charged the surface here like this on
the surface of the wood and wood seems
to work best for me and then I polish
this face can you see it turning black
there
that's the steel coming off and
polishing it out
like that and that has given me a super
mirror finish
so then I go on this side now I could go
on this just a block of wood but I like
a strop
I use a flat strop and the reason I do is
because I like the way the leather
mushrooms up around my macro camber,
my convex bevel
I love the way that looks and feels so
this is just a piece of leather you can
get a piece of leather anywhere any
craft store and you need something
that's not hard too hard not too soft
and then you pull this trail edge you
can't go in both directions so you trail
the edge here like this and this is
super polishing the already polished
bevel so all your upper body weight goes
right down onto the back of the bevel
so you get in the hole of the bevel and
just keep going about 30 to 40 times
then flip over here
keep it flat you will not regret buying
a set of these chisels and you can do
this it's not just all it is all you can
do this to any chisel you've got and
look what we've got now we've got a Paul
Sellers that's out of breath
no, we've got polished face here and
we've got super super polished bevel
now this is sharp this is super sharp
and this will give me anything and
everything I want
here, the chisel should go in off the
off the edge like this, see this and that
is a sharp edge
this is a chisel that will do anything you
demand of it now
like for instance you've got this macro
camber
let's see what we do this so watch this
here now
cheapest chisels in Britain
I think, but look
and these chisels have good edge
retention they will do everything you
want it to do
ok this is so pristine this
this surface is so so smooth if  you'd ever  use sandpaper on it, you'd have to use 15,000 I
didn't tell you when I was using this
chromium oxide, this abrasive on this the
wax one that's about 15,000 grit and
that's plenty
I don't imagine even in my fine
furniture
imagine this and I know some of you are
cynical people out there saying
yeah that's pine and not oak well you
give me the oak can you pay for my oak
I'll show you what it will do in oak too, but look at this what this camber does
when you want to do a scallop
That's it, we are done really I
just love what we can achieve with an
inexpensive set of chisels, beautiful.
