Cheap vs. expensive rifflers and rasps

Quoted text begins.RE: Is there a significant difference in the preformance of a $2
chinese riffler vs a $15 italian riffler<
End of quote.

John;

Yes, you do get what you pay for in this case.

The chinese rifflers will work OK on soft stone, but try them on marble
and they just don't respond even like a dull italian riffler . . .

Even my first-time students can tell - I have all my least favored
rifflers (old italian, new chinese) in a nice compartmentalized box (so
they don't bang against each other) that I take for the carving class.
In 9 times out of 10, when I am checking how the students are doing with
their work during the class, the rifflers any particular student has
pulled out and is using turns out to be one of the old italian tools --
almost never the chinese ones.

After the italian ones get so dull they won't cut anything anymore, I
re-grind them into modelling tools for clay or wax. For some reason
I've yet to regrind any of the cheap rifflers for this purpose (maybe
they just don't fit the hand like a modelling tool should?)/

I've never later regretted buying the best tool I could afford at the
time.

Good Carving to You,
Don

http://www.dondougan.homestead.com/indexdd.html