"Bill Leonhardt" wrote in message
...

Are there ways that I can evaluate these sets to determine if they have
good steel and are worth keeping and using? Any insight you can provide
is much appreciated.
Thanks,
Bill Leonhardt

From their age, Bill, they are almost certain to be high-carbon steel. The
way to tell is to put the heel of one of them to a grinder. If it throws off
a shower of sparks it's high-carbon steel; if it just throws off occasional
single sparks it's high-speed steel.

High-carbon steel tools dull more quickly than HSS steel, and require more
care in sharpening since you can easily overheat them on the grinder and
cause them to lose their temper. But on the other hand if you're careful
with them you can actually get a sharper edge on them than you can with HSS.
Turning tools, however, are usually not sharpened to the type of edge you'd
insist on for a bench chisel, so that may not be so important. Lots of
people just grind but don't bother to hone.

The ones labeled Craftsman are likely the oldest; sets of these tools were
sold with the old Craftsman lathes that were being sold way back in the
early 20th century. I have a set myself that came with an ancient tube-style
Craftsman lathe that probably dates to the 40's if not before.

In my opinion Marples tools today don't have the reputation they used to
have - those blue-handled bench chisels you see in all the tool catalogs
don't hold up very well - but back in the day they were top-quality tools.
That could be a pretty good set; the Disstons I don't know anything about.
If these sets are bright steel, then at least you know they've been well
cared for.

My old Craftsman tools sharpen up real nice, but I mostly keep them for
backup and for grinding to special profiles that I may use only
occasionally. That's a cheap and easy way to experiment with different
grinds. Sharpen a few of them up and put them to some hard wood and see how
their edges hold up. It won't take long to figure out which of them are
keepers.

Much depends on how you're going to be using them. If you're going to be
doing just occasional turning they'd probably do you just fine. But if
you're going to be standing at the lathe all day long, invest in some HSS
tools.

Tom