WorkZONE - 4 Piece Chisel set (Rating: 4)
If you follow Paul Sellers blogs or videos at all, you've heard him mention that discount grocery store chain Aldi carries chisels from time to time - and in his opinion they are quite good. Unfortunately these have not been made available in North America. That is until a few months ago.
Based on the fact Paul raves about these chisels many times over, there is an Aldi store less than 3 miles from my home, and the 4 piece set costs me $7.49 with tax, I decided to grab them. I wanted to put them through their paces a bit before passing judgement. I have used these exclusively for the past 2 months or so. I only use hand tools in my work so they got quite a work out
Initial Impressions
Not good. The handles are an atrocity in my opinion.They are way over varnished, hooped for no reason, about an inch too long, and a really odd shape. As you can see by the last picture, I fixed that problem with a lathe and some copper pipe. Here is one side by side with my wood river chisels:
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They are metric. Not a big deal when it comes to chisels in my opinion.
Initial Sharpening
I was pleasantly surprised here. First a word of caution. Most chisels need to be honed before use, but these are perhaps the dullest chisels I have used right out of the package. If you don't have a way to sharpen, don't expect to use these. I had budgeted some serious time and wear and tear on my stones. After all these are 7 dollar a set chisels sold in a grocery store. Come to find out, the backs all had a slight hollow. This made flattening a breeze. From out of the package to surgical sharp was roughly 5 minutes a chisel.
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Use
I kept looking for a reason to hate on these chisels. I was skeptical from the moment I brought them home. How can a 7 dollar set of CR-V chisels be worth using for anything other than opening paint cans? Well they never let me down. No, these are not PM-V11, they will not hold an edge for 3 months. However edge retention was better than I expected. Because these are CR-V, they are really easy to bring back to the bleeding edge of sharpness. Once they feel the slightest bit dull, drag them over a strop twice and you are good to go.
In the few months of use, I have not returned these to a stone since the initial honing. Flexcut gold and some leather is all it has taken to keep these in business.
Action shots:
Chopping out some waste (oak). The bevels are a bit steep, but fit close enough (this is a 10 degree dovetail)
![Image]()
Nice clean pin board (oak)
![Image]()
Very clean end grain paring. Lots of control, no blowout
![Image]()
So after these convinced me they were more than glue scrapers, I decided to remove the horrible ash handles and replace them. If you are in an Aldi store and see these, grab them.
![Image]()
If you follow Paul Sellers blogs or videos at all, you've heard him mention that discount grocery store chain Aldi carries chisels from time to time - and in his opinion they are quite good. Unfortunately these have not been made available in North America. That is until a few months ago.
Based on the fact Paul raves about these chisels many times over, there is an Aldi store less than 3 miles from my home, and the 4 piece set costs me $7.49 with tax, I decided to grab them. I wanted to put them through their paces a bit before passing judgement. I have used these exclusively for the past 2 months or so. I only use hand tools in my work so they got quite a work out
Initial Impressions
Not good. The handles are an atrocity in my opinion.They are way over varnished, hooped for no reason, about an inch too long, and a really odd shape. As you can see by the last picture, I fixed that problem with a lathe and some copper pipe. Here is one side by side with my wood river chisels:
They are metric. Not a big deal when it comes to chisels in my opinion.
Initial Sharpening
I was pleasantly surprised here. First a word of caution. Most chisels need to be honed before use, but these are perhaps the dullest chisels I have used right out of the package. If you don't have a way to sharpen, don't expect to use these. I had budgeted some serious time and wear and tear on my stones. After all these are 7 dollar a set chisels sold in a grocery store. Come to find out, the backs all had a slight hollow. This made flattening a breeze. From out of the package to surgical sharp was roughly 5 minutes a chisel.
Use
I kept looking for a reason to hate on these chisels. I was skeptical from the moment I brought them home. How can a 7 dollar set of CR-V chisels be worth using for anything other than opening paint cans? Well they never let me down. No, these are not PM-V11, they will not hold an edge for 3 months. However edge retention was better than I expected. Because these are CR-V, they are really easy to bring back to the bleeding edge of sharpness. Once they feel the slightest bit dull, drag them over a strop twice and you are good to go.
In the few months of use, I have not returned these to a stone since the initial honing. Flexcut gold and some leather is all it has taken to keep these in business.
Action shots:
Chopping out some waste (oak). The bevels are a bit steep, but fit close enough (this is a 10 degree dovetail)
Nice clean pin board (oak)
Very clean end grain paring. Lots of control, no blowout
So after these convinced me they were more than glue scrapers, I decided to remove the horrible ash handles and replace them. If you are in an Aldi store and see these, grab them.
