Narex (Made in Czech Republic) Premium 8 pc set 6 (1/4"), 8 (5/16"), 10 (3/8") 12 (1/2"), 16 (5/8") 20 (11/16") , 26 (1" 1/16"), 32 (1 1/4") mm Chisels w/ Hornbeam Handles

These are great chisels and I would highly recommend to anyone looking to get into fine woodworking with hand tools.During the pandemic I began moving away from using power tools to build furniture and wooden boxes to using all hand tools. Buying these chisels were a part of this transition for me.The chisels are very high quality. The wooden handles are very hard and can take a beating with a wooden mallet without a dent or scratch on them. The steel is hard enough to stay sharp without the need to constantly sharpen but it is also soft enough to quickly sharpen a micro bevel when sharpening is needed. I was able to make a razor sharp bevel using the Scary Sharp Sharpening Method (see Jonathon Katz-Moses on YouTube for more details on that process).Love these chisels and have recommended to fellow woodworkers. Great price for a high quality tool.

After spending $60/LN chisel, I was disappointed to see they fractured almost immediately while chopping dovetails in white oak. I did a side by side comparison with the Narex. I wasn’t a fan of Narex—my first set were garbage (not same set as this). After sharpening both brands to the same bevel angle on diamond stones, I made three successive chops perpendicular into oak using a wooden mallet. Examining with a magnifying glass, the Narex were still nearly flawless, minor fracturing. The LN were so bad they had to be resharpened.It is no small wonder that LN no longer offers O1 chisels, only A2. O1 are fine for paring, and sharpen to a razor edge, but don’t hold up to chopping. The A2s hold up well, but not quite the same edge.I found the handles a bit bulbous, so turned them a bit smaller, finishing with clear lacquer. Small price to pay for chisels one-fifth the cost. I have a drawer full of brand name and off-brand chisels, so I’m reluctant to spend more bucks on the top of the line. Just starting out or experienced woodworker, I’d still put my money here.

The media could not be loaded. Great chisels for a great value! My only issue is the thick sticky and sometimes hardened coating. Soap and water will not remove it, so I stepped up the cutting power with citrus, and then with a little abrasive, and still couldn't get everything off. So, I decided to use 'Goof Off' and that still wouldn't take off the heavy spots. I finally had to carve the coating off the tips with a razor blade.As a warning, be careful which cleaner you use because the printing is not very durable. In fact, all of the printing on the blades came off with a swipe of the finger after using a stronger cleaner. (See attached video)To identify the chisels and I had to stamp the size into the wooden handles. It works, but it's not preferable. For the money, it's a good give-and-take though.

I needed a better set of chisels than my HFT $20 set, and was this an upgrade! The steel quality is excellent - they sharpen easily with my diamond stones and hold an edge. Handles may be a bit large for some people, but they fit perfectly for me and have chopped, cut, or pared everything I have tried with clean smooth results. If you take the time to hone and sharpen when you get them you'll be perfectly happy with these chisels.

As others have said the sizes come off when you wipe off the cosmaline. I have access to a fiber laser so I put them back on. I wasn’t a fan of the way the handles felt so I sanded them into submission and cut them down.The dishing on the flats was pretty bad, I would have thought I was buying Japanese chisels. These are a secondary set for me so I could stop bringing my good chisels into work. They sharpen well and hold an edge ok. For the price it is a good set. If you are used to a very nice set be ready to put in allot of extra work to get them the way you like it.

These are great chisels! They do need a bit of TLC when you get them, but in my 40+ years of woodworking this has always been the case. First they come with nice handles. Smaller on the smaller chisels and larger on the larger chisels. Here is where I began. A few coats of Tung oil put them in good shape and can be added to later as needed. Next they come with a heavy coating of some kind of clear coat on the metal. Warning if you remove all of this the size indicators will come off as well. I just cleaned off (using paint thinner) what I needed to so I could flatten the back and hone the bevel. They were pretty flat so it wasn't a lot of work. So far I have used them in oak, mahogany, pine, and walnut and they have done great. A great value for sure. By the way they are metric sizes.Update: on cleaning the chisels to ready for honing. I found a good sharpe razor knife would remove most of the protective coating where needed and a scotch brite pad would clean the residual remaining.

I have large hands and like the large wooden handles on these chisels. Someone with small hands may find the handles too large. Great value for the money, but you may spend more time during the initial preparation of these chisels.The backs of these chisels do not come ground, or at least not ground very finely. I had to drop all the way down to a 180 grit diamond stone to get past the tooling marks. It took me about an hour per chisel flattening the backs up to 1000 grit with some diamond stones, then up to 16000 on some glass stones. A bit of stropping with some very fine compound brought the backs up to a mirror finish.I noticed that the size and model printing on the tops of the chisels wipes off easily, so I painted over this information with some clear nail polish.Also these get sprayed or dipped in some sort of lacquer at the factory which left a little amber blob along the cutting edge. I had to scrape this off with a razor blade before honing the bevel to avoid gumming up my stones.Overall, i'm very happy with these chisels. The backs only need to be prepared once, and took no longer to prep than it took for some hardware store chisels I was flattening at the same time.