Synopsis: A visit to Eugene Landon’s shop is a trip back in time: walls lined with antique tools, wide pine boards covering the floor, and period furniture around the room in various stages of construction or repair. But there are also modern power tools such as the tablesaw, chopsaw, and thickness planer. This avid collector of antique tools and maker of period furniture freely admits he prefers today’s modern metal bench planes to yesterday’s wooden ones, and offers other tips on working smart while holding fast to tradition.

When someone enters my shop, invariably they feel as if they’ve stepped back in time. The walls are lined with antique hand tools, the floor is made from wide pine boards, and period furniture pieces are all around in various stages of construction or repair. Visitors who are woodworkers are the first to notice the modern chopsaw, the tablesaw, and, upon closer investigation, a nearly buried heavy-duty thickness planer. Their reaction is sometimes relief: “He’s one of us after all-he does use power tools.”

I’d be the first to admit that I have a serious tool-collecting habit. Like all collectors, I love the anticipation of attending an auction or tag sale and finding an heirloom tool. My favorite old tools are a rosewood marking gauge and a 1/2-in. Marples chisel with a boxwood handle. When I discovered a few years ago that this model was being discontinued, I quickly bought several more so that I’d have a lifetime supply. My most valuable tool is probably one of my 19th-century plow planes.

Unlike pure collectors, I still use my old tools; that’s how I justify my huge collection. All molding is done with a combination of molding planes and carving tools, so, not surprisingly, I have large collections of both. Most woodworkers are taught to make the carving or molding fit the tool, but when you are making exact reproductions, it has to be the other way around.

There is one kind of hand tool that I believe is better new than old: Modern metal bench planes are infinitely superior to antique wooden ones. Both planes give an identical finish, but unlike wooden planes, metal planes aren’t affected by changes in humidity. I don’t have to waste time setting up a metal plane each time I use it.

From Fine Woodworking #174

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