As AstroKeith mentioned, normal resin is too highly viscous to impregnate deep into oak, I use Cactus Juice which is closer to a mineral oil in viscosity, maybe even less.
My Stanley chisels (purchased about 30 years ago) were made in England. I don’t know if that makes any difference in quality, but mine take a really sharp edge and hold it for a decent amount of time. I use mine for mortising mostly.
Have you contacted the Blue Spruce company to see if they have a fix for this? It is a pretty pricey mallet, I would think they would stand behind it. In either case it will tell you more about the company than the mallet.
This would just be considered normal wear and tear wouldn't it? Especially being something that spends all its time thumping things?
Certainly the hammer face would be considered normal wear and tear. A loose handle? I think handles should not come lose. Maybe my expectations are not realistic.
I should correct the record so as not to unfairly characterize the company. When I had initially looked at Blue Spuce's return policies, I thought i had only a 30 day window to send something back (which is what I did with the defective paring chisel, which they swapped out for a new one). After dbl checking following my original post, I saw that they have a lifetime guarantee for tool materials and workmanship. So I called them up yesterday and they told me to send it in. It is apparently still up to their discretion whether to fix/replace the tool, so we'll see what they do. I only use it for chisel work, and never for any extracurricular pounding, something that's reflected in the current condition of the tool, so I can't imagine they would diagnose any user error or misuse. I will say that their now being under Woodpeckers umbrella gives me some additional confidence, insofar as Woodpeckers takes the lifetime guarantee deadly serious. They sent me a brand new 26" precision square a couple of years back after mine had gone slightly out of square.
I had a Coach messenger’s bag back in the early 1980s. At that time it was a fairly pricey bag. But it came with a “lifetime guarantee”.
Send it to the attention of George Snyder (Vice President) and I'm sure he'll take care of you.
So much for "lifetime."
I started weight lifting when I was 13. While I was still in high school, my dad bought me a lifetime membership to Jack LaLane’s health clubs.
While not disputing the evidence I'll just note that the nearly twice as wide Veritas chisel probably gets struck nearly twice as hard.
Fair enough! Here's your apples to apples on the 1" chisels.
When I think of high-end wood chisels, my mind always goes back to the classic Japanese versions. They don’t use conventional tangs to attach the handles, and they either have metal striking surfaces for the mallet, or have a reinforcing ring like these offered by Garrett Wade.
