Description
Dear Customer,
With some tools, you don’t always get all you’ve paid for.
The Veritas Mortise Chisels on the back cover are a good example of this. Both the A2 and PM-V11 versions are machined from solid steel, so a lot of material ends up in the recycle bin. In fact, for a 1/2" chisel, we remove just shy of 70% of the total steel from a cylinder 10-1/4" long and 7/8" in diameter.
In the case of PM-V11, that’s a lot of expensive steel that ends up as chips and shavings. In order to minimize material waste, we order mill runs of steel in custom sizes (bars, rods, plate). Even with an optimized shape, the blank of raw PM-V11 steel for a 1/2" mortise chisel costs us more than a completely finished and handled 1/2" mortise chisel made from A2!
Perversely, while powdered metals like PM-V11 are very costly to produce, the scrap steel yields the same recycle value as regular steel.
Of course, while you’re not getting all the material that went into the production of the blade, we can assure you that you are getting full value for the work that has gone into producing a usable tool that should last a lifetime.
So before you flip to the back page and experience the sticker shock of the PM-V11 pricing, remember that just to start making each PM-V11 chisel, we throw away the equivalent of three quarters of the value of a darned fine A2 chisel.
Cheers,
Robin C. Lee
President