Please forgive my silly question. I am wondering what difference should I expect from using a good quality smoothing plane (veritas, LN etc) compared to a wooden plane that I would make by myself following directions from the book of David Finck in the style of Krenov?
Thanks Enrico
Replies
The safe answer is "it
The safe answer is "it depends." No doubt there are people who are confident their made plane is every bit as good as the LN and LV, and MUCH more satisfying to use. There may be some who have been unsuccessful making a plane. The popularity of hand made wooden planes suggests there are people who believe a wooden smoother can perform as well as needed. Through a local woodworking club or woodworking store you might be able to find someone nearby who has made the wooden smoother like you are considering and will let you try it.
I have both metal and home made Krenov planes. I prefer using the metal ones because that is what I used when I was younger. The stance, way it is held, and way it is pushed is different. The planes I made are saticifying to use. The cut is phenominal. I am still not comfortable adjusting the blade with a rap of my hammer. It is easier for me to turn a dial or push lever. When I have planing to do I reach for the Lie-Nielsen. When woodworkers come to my shop I show them my Krenov style planes.
Please forgive my silly
> wondering what difference should I expect from using a good quality smoothing plane (veritas, LN etc) compared to a wooden plane that I would make by myself following directions from the book of David Finck in the style of Krenov? <
That is a VERY good question actually. Not naive or silly. So here it is in a nut shell. IF you have great woodworking skill or are willing to devote a great deal of time making reject planes to gain your great woodworking skills, which isn't a bad way to go, then you will come out with a plane that will be as good or better than one of the metal planes you mentioned. Assuming we are talking about bevel down planes.
Bevel down planes will do about anything you are likely to want to do with a hand plane. I made one of these planes using the book, and other articles from these authors. It came out right the first time. That does not mean I have great wood working skill. I cheated. I have a good understanding of precision metal working and so was able to muddle through.
As you can see from my photos I am not a photographer. Please forgive; I just cranked them out. Why buy a metal plane you ask? My answer is it is the only way to get a bevel up plane and have strong enough material under the blade to support the edge. I LIKE bevel up planes. You could spend a vacation reading all that has been written here on Knots alone on the pros and cons and every thing in between about bevel up verses bevel down.
I would add that if you want to get on with making wooden planes by the methods we are discussing here you should have a band saw. Otherwise making several planes could get extra daunting. I made this plane using only hand tools and did not own a bandsaw then.
Get a good bandsaw. Better yet get a GREAT bandsaw. Finally I would add: To make a hand plane you need to know how a plane should cut when it is right and what to do about it when it isn't right. To make this plane without a bandsaw you will need a good plane of some kind. Best to hang out with people who have made these planes or have other well fettled planes so you can at least experience all this. To never have had a good plane and to just pick up the book and make a plane could in deed be expecting too much.
Pause to Post pics . . .
Annnnd we're back. Why else to get a metal plane? What are the benefits ? Hmm . . . lets see . . .:
If you like shiny metal stuff. I do ALOTTA
Some like the the extra weight. Yah . . . until you got to use iron planes all day then you get to appreciate the lightness of a wooden plane.
Metal planes don't change with the weather.
Metal planes easier to tweak the blade depth in a fraction of a thousandth for a deeper or more even cut. Debatable but for the most part true.
Metal planes rust. Oh that's not a benefit is it? Strike that.
After all this tirade I use metal planes almost exclusively and bevel up almost exclusively. I work with hard cantankerous wood. Seems to fit my personality.
: )
PS: The bottom of this plane has purple heart embedded in it from planing purple heart. It planed it OK as long as I used a back bevel. The wood this plane is made from is hard rock maple. Not as rock as the purple heart evidently.
No question is silly if you don't know the answer but a lot of answers are silly if they don't know the answers. I don't know the answer since I have never made a wooden plane. But I have made a metal plane with woodworking tools and it is my favorite. The plans were in ShopNotes by August Home Publishing. ShopNotes is a monthly magazine with no advertising. The plane was made of brass, in the infill style, and I used a bandsaw with a regular wood cutting blade to cut the sides and a tablesaw with a negitive pitch blade to cut the finger joints. The brass cut like butter. Nothing new to learn there. The tote was just regular woodwork. The new skills involved soldering the sides to the sole of the plane. When a plumber solders copper pipe together he "sweats" the joint. This means heating the joint with a torch and touching the solder to it. The lead just sucks right into the joint and that's all there is to it. When you interlock the finger joints and sweat each finger, the same thing happens. It happens so well and so fast that you have to be careful not to use too much solder as it ends up inside the body of the plane too, where you have to file the beads of lead off to make the tote fit. There is a bit more to all this, but nothing very complicated. I was amazed at how easy the whole thing was. And it is a heavy plane which I like. My comment about silly answers, by the way, had nothing to do with the answers you got here.
Seemed silly to me at the time. You be the judge.
I was once asked to show a person how to shift the gears on their bicycle. I hung the bike at a comfortable viewing hight using rope by the seat and handlebars. I demonstrated how the pedals turn the gears and chain, that the pedals needed to be turning when shifting and how the gear change made the pedals turn faster/easier for hills or slower for when they were too easy.
The person seemed distracted and kept staring at the front wheel instead of the pedals, gears and shifters. I asked if they had a question. They said yes they did. The question was :
Why, when the back wheel turns, wasn't the front wheel turning ?
: )
Why, when the back wheel turns, wasn't the front wheel turning
Back in my ice climbing days we used to bike thru the snow to the trail head, fending off attacking mooses (mice?) by swinging our rack of ice screws and kicking them with our front points. Like all manly men we had all wheel drive bikes. That questioner was probably wondering why you only had rear wheel drive... sorta like driving a Corvette in a snowstorm.
Posting pix is new to me on this forum but here goes anyway. I have pix that I shot of the plane while I was making it but didn't shoot them on digital cam so they are in a drawer full of old pix somewhere.
Oh I don't know, looks QUITE NICE to me.
Well that gives Enrico another option to consider.
NOW you tell me. I always drive the vet in the snow. Kidding.
Moose/mice; interesting hybrid. We are having a deer infestation here. Any one know of a spray to keep them at bay? also Kidding
Nondigital pics to post. Works pretty good to take digital pics of the nondigital ones. Halffast but a chat room dude has got to do what a chat room dude has got to do. Am I write or am I right ? I think I am rite in that.
http://gallery.me.com/tone531#100089/Hoist
No kidding.
We are having a deer infestation here in Virginia. I'm only 35 miles from Washington, DC but the place is crawling with 'em. I've sprayed with Hinder, Liquid Fence, Coyote Urine, Shotgun, spread human hair and used Irish Spring Soap. It works for a while and then they adapt. Even if the spray makes them spit it out after one bite, when you have thousands of deer, that's thousands of single bites. One afternoon I put in $78.00 worth of hostas in a flower bed and the next day it was gone. Hostas are like salad to Whitetail deer. Just looked at your pictures of "visitors", so I guess you were't kidding completely. The bigger problem is car damage, I've hit three deer in the last 30 years, and deer ticks, they spread Lyme disease. Some towns here in Loudoun County have hired professional hunters to thin the herd using bows and arrows. It's a little too built up here to use guns. There is a mile of woods between my house and the Potomac River and you would think the deer would be content with that , but noooooooo, they like our yards better. The plants are more tender here.
As for the other pix, if I could find them I would scan them, but we have whole dressers full of old pictures in the guest rooms and once you start going through them you start looking at the pix instead of looking for the pix and days could pass and then you would forget what you were looking for in the first place. Don't ask me how I know this.
As for the hoist, a few days ago there was a post here from a guy trying to move a huge bandsaw and I told him maybe he could rent a hoist. If he hasn't solved his problem maybe you know more about this sort of thing than I do.
And I do drive the Vet in the snow, but usually not very far, even with traction control and the other stable thingies.
Hog the thread relentlessly. It's just my method you see.
While I am sitting here on the couch waiting for other posts I might as well make myself useful. Here is another book that helped me to understand hand planes in general and wooden hand planes in particular :
http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Woodworking-Tools-Tradition-woodworking/dp/0918804191/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0
A truly great book ! ! !
Might as well add more pics. Maybe a Japanese plane is your cup of tea. Totally sweet plane ! I don't regret buying it.
Wow
Things are a bit more hectic, deer wise, in your area. Sounds like a great part of the US of A though. Duck those arrows.
Thanks to evrybody for your precious advice. Also congrat for your work. I don't feel ready now for japanese planes, maybe some day I will try making a wooden plane. For the moment I will just stick to metal planes. This is my conclusion drawn from your replies. thanks Enrico
Ciao Enrico,
Excellent question. The answer you got from Roc was also excellent. You can always believe Roc. He is a good guy and quite capable.
I would have answered you differently, just because I have a different way of thinking. My approach would be to ask you what you want out of woodworking. There are as many approaches to woodwork, especially from the hobbyist point of view, as there are hobbyists. Some hobbyists, like me, like to focus on making furniture. I have no interest in making my own bench or my own tools. I buy only the tools I need for the work I am doing. I am not a collector of tools, and I am not interested in buying or making an "overly fancy" set of tools . But is is just as valid to focus on buying, collecting and making very fancy tools. Nothing wrong with that either.
Some people like to focus on sticking with hand tools, some like to use some power tools and some hand tools. And so on and so on and so on.
In order to answer your question in a way that is useful to you, I would have to know what your interests are. Certainly there is no reason, IMHO, to get any "better" or more expensive tools than you can get from Lie Nielsen or Lee Valley or from Larry Williams if you want wood planes, IF you are interested in using tools to make great furniture. However, I know a number of woodworkers who are also collectors. One has over a thousand saws and planes and chisels, etc. He is a collector as well as a woodworker.
Some people like to make both fine furniture and "fine" (read "fancy" hand tools). Nothing wrong with that. If you want the best answer I have ever seen on what expensive handplanes buy you over a simple hand made wood smoother, then get Chris Schwartz' book "Handplane Essentials", and read the WONDERFUL chapter titled "Test-driving Exotic Infill Handplanes", which starts on page 245 and ends on page 253. In this chapter, he tests some planes from some of the best known and best respected infill handplane makers. He reviews his results for each plane.
He then compares all of these planes which cost many thousands of dollars apiece to a one of Krenov's simple wood handmade smoothing plane, which he says is crudely made. He says it looks like it was roughed out with a band saw and a knife. The chipbreaker on the iron was roughly ground with many facets. The bed had a few pieces of tape affixed to help close up the throat. So what were the results. Chris says.
"But the (Krenov) plane held its own with every other plane on my bench in terms of performance. As dod ,u wprl a dau tpp;s frp, Verotas and Lie Nielsen. ...... Even my vintage Stanleys had nothing to be ashamed of."
Chris said that he discussed this with Robin Lee (Lee Valley Tools) who said he wasn't surprised, and that "The wood doesn't care." Thomas Lie Nielsen put it this way "A plane is just a jig for holding a chisel".
I REALLY HOPE YOU READ Schwartz's chapter, because it provides the best answer to your question that I can think of.
However, you must realize that Chris was only testing the planes for their performance, not for their looks or their beauty or their weight or their worth to collectors.
Please let me know what you think of this chapter. I am anxious to find out. There are a number of people here in Knots who are very much "fans" of the expensive infill planes. These are smart guys who have a lot of experience. Their ideas are valuable and they should be listened to. THE answer for each person really is mostly based on their VALUE SYSTEM -- what do you really want out of woodworking.
For what it is worth, that is my opinion. Hope you find it useful in finding your own answers.
Mel
Hi Mel,
thanks for your nice comment. It's encouraging how you think my questions was not silly. I thought over and over before asking. I will order the book you are suggesting and I will let you know about that chapter. Again thanks for letting me know.
Enrico
I don't know, I could go either way on your comment :
As dod ,u wprl a dau tpp;s frp, Verotas and Lie Nielsen
Could you maybe elaborate further on that one? It seems I may be missing some key bit that would make it all jell for me.
As did'nt work a day too... It is a coded message. In order to find out you just have to move your left hand one letter to the right. So the letter "o" is really an "i". I don't know comma because my keyboard is italian and symbols are different. That's funny isn't it?
Ah-
So
I was looking amazed at the wonderful Holtey planes when my wife stepped in. I showed her the planes and she said "so what"? Then I told her the price and she almost fainted. Then she asked "why so much?" and "who buys this kind of tool?" I tried to answer the first question. I did my best. But I really could not answer the second one. Maybe collectors? I doubt regular woodworkers. Do you know?
Just show her this
http://www.truthaboutdiamonds.com/tag/9000-budget/
and say " it is like that". Well not exactly like that. The Holty's have moving machine parts and are capable of being used to make useful and beautiful furniture all the while making the operator smile like a person who just won the lottery. Verses oh let's see a clear bean sized stone that has . . . well . . . no moving parts and not much to justify itself in this world. Well . . . it sparkles . . . it sparkles quite well! Guess that's about it really. All worth it a sparkle like that. Nine thousand dollar sparkle.
Hmmmm . . . I know which one I would pick. Call me crazy.
Roc,
Suppost Karl Holtey decided to stop making planes and start making Band Saws, and his first model, a very limited edition, came out, with an initial per-unit cost of $150,000. Suppose, in terms of quality, it is to bandsaws what a current Holtey plane is to handplanes.
Would the folks who now covet his hand planes covet his bandsaws?
Interesting question, isn't it? Swenson is quite a philosopher. I hope he chimes in.
Have fun,
Mel
I got nuttin.
I got nuttin'. Turned to Galt's speach, nothing there. All I can say is this, If you collect nice planes you can show them off in a nice case to your nice woodworking friends. Once you start collecting Holtey band saws you got a big space problem. Just building the display case to hold them all in a row, nicely tilted, well lit, is going to take up a lot of your three thousand sq. foot shop. And then when you get that big tax cut for the rich we keep hearing about you're going to want more. Oh the horror... I have solved the band saw collection problem by just collecting band saw blades. I hang them on shaker pegs. Every once in a while, in the middle of the night I hear a horrible sprong that wakes me up with a start. Another piece of tape, holding a coiled blade, has cut loose and the blade shoots across the shop, slamming into the AC ductwork and sending me that much closer to divorce.
But you do have a point to ponder. Why does one buy the best there is? Who decides what is the best? When you are young, sometimes buying the best means it will last a lot longer, maybe your lifetime. When you are older you might say "I always wanted one of these, I deserve it" Sometimes buying the best is to make up for the fact that you aren't the best. I think some golfers do this with new and better clubs. Some golfers do it with new and better wives. Some think of tools as a work of beauty, even art. Some just love the feel of a perfect tool that does it's job well. Some love the fact that a homemade tool is just as good as a very expensive one, if it is. But wot do I know? I'm still trying to combine quantum mechanics with Albert Es general theory and I gotta tell you, string theory is just making things worse. At least I finally figured out the dark matter problem. Neutrinos have mass!
Swenson,
I really enjoy reading your posts. It is probably that your Culture (your way of looking at the practice of woodworking" is much like mine. You have an insightful and colorful way of describing it. I like the way you think. If you read my response to Roc, you will see some of the particulars on which we agree.
Hope to see you at the next WWG meeting.
Mel
Hail Yes
And I will tell you why. It isn't that he made it, it is the quality and the beauty and the performance. Not just planing or sawing performance but how it all comes together. The feel of the parts, the attention to line and proportion like a Maloof chair.
True there are those that buy one because Bob bought one and he bought it because Joe got one but there are people who actually CAN appreciate the subtleties.
$150,000 sounds like a lot of money and it is but to someone who buys these
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://static.cargurus.com/images/site/2008/08/22/18/37/1964_ferrari_250_gto-pic-40431.jpeg&imgrefurl=http://www.cargurus.com/Cars/Pictures-c19293-1964-250-GTO.html&usg=__f-peNME15tYgwo9d-e64X84xDTo=&h=654&w=1082&sz=148&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=JEC4hV_xludU0M:&tbnh=112&tbnw=186&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dferrari%2B250%2Bgto%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DX%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1176%26bih%3D706%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=117&vpy=119&dur=463&hovh=174&hovw=289&tx=133&ty=82&ei=2c-FTM3XG42msQP7-Lz2Bw&oei=2c-FTM3XG42msQP7-Lz2Bw&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0
for fun well lets just say the bandsaw would not be out of reach. Not sure what the Ferrari 250 GTO sells for these days but when I first become aware of it one million would do the trick. Last I checked it was three million.
Yubby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBHZFYpQ6nc
PS: not a stupid thing to buy by the way especially if one bought it new back in the day. Brand new that car sold for $10,000 in the nineteen fifties.
"The Ferrari analogy has a problem. The difference in performance between a Ferrari and a Chevy is ENORMOUS."
That depends on the Chevy. My brother in law had three Ferraris (he is now down to just two) and I have a C6 2005 Corvette (a Chevy) If you judge performance by time in quarter, and zero to sixty, things like that, there is almost no difference. Handling too. I even have "heads up display" projected on my windshield with tach, G forces and speed shown without taking my eyes off the road. The Ferraris are beautiful. I think he races one of them (he went to Italy to take the Ferrari racing class) but aside from racing one of them, it is my impression that they sit in his garage, under a cloth cover. I drive mine everywhere, even commuted with it before retirement. I even drive it in the rain. I even hand it over to valet parking attendants. I think I am having just as much fun with mine as he is with his, of course as an ex fighter pilot he had lots of fun in his time (known for flying, inverted, under the Golden Gate Bridge on his way to join his carrier at sea.)
Otherwise you make a lot more sense than the collection of wierd thoughts you goaded me into making last night at 2 am after too much wine. Thanks a lot.
It DOES depend on the Chevy
S,
You are a very interesting young man. Absolutely right. It depends on the Chevy. As always, you took a philosophical point even deeper. I have a friend who has a Ford GT. I'd like to see you and him have a little fun together at the track (just fun of course, nothing serious)
Now to the important things. FLYING UNDER THE GOLDEN GATE. The following is a true story. When I was in Air Force ROTC, I went to ROTC Summer Camp at a Base north of San Francisco. One day, each of us got to go for a ride in a T-33. The Captain who I was assigned to asked if I had ever flown anything. I answered that I hadn't. When we got up there, he invited me to take the controls, saying "Anything you can get us into, I can get us out of." After a minute, he asked what I was doing. I answered "Flying straight and level". He responded "Try something a little more fun. So I turned to the left and lost some altitude, He said that my taste was rather mundane. HAVE SOME FUN. After a split second of thinking, I went into a dive. He quickly asked my intentions. I responded "Golden Gate. We are going under." He shot back rather quickly. "You were kidding, weren't you." I answered in the affirmative. He said, "Why don't you let me take the controls and I'll show you some nice aerobatics.' It was fun. But I never got to fly under the Golden Gate, as did your brother.
When you come for a vsit, I'll take you for a ride in my 1997 Toyota Avalon (stock engine). Wear a neck brace!!!!! :-)
Mel
G G Bridge
It was not his original intention to go under the bridge but some wise ass civilian air traffic controller made a remark to him that Navy aviators don't have any hair on their b - - - s and he radioed back, "I'll show you hair" He got in a bit of trouble over this stunt, his call sign was HotDog by the way, but he said the rep he got was worth it. The next time the carrier stopped in Hawaii he didn't get to go ashore. My brother in law by the way.
EDIT: See, we didn't get off topic. The question was about planes and here we are talking about planes.
Also on the Holty v LN v shop made question, just ask Hot Dog what he would rather drive if he could afford it... a hundred million dollar (just a guess) rebuilt antique swing wing Tomcat that goes really fast with afterburners, or a slow poke 200 mile an hour, one hundred thousand dollar F car. I really don't know. I guess you don't get to wave at chicks much at mach1, but then again at our age they don't wave back anyway.
Great story about the T33 by the way
and another thing
this time on the subject of finishing. Did you know that the Golden Gate Bridge was not supposed to be that color? After they primed the bridge, everybody loved the color of the primer and they decided to go with that color. I forget what color the next coats were going to be.
S,
I really don't know what color the Golden Gate Bridge is. When I flew by it, I was going too fas to get a good look. :-)
Mel
Ray,
Your thoughts on the human need for acquiring sufficiently rare articles with mystique are enlightening. I believe you have hit the nail on the head.
Your example of your Indian, together with Swenson's example of his special Chevy show that even the most enlightened of us, still suffer from the urge to HAVE SOME GOOD STUFF.
I find two thoughts which which continue to tickle my inquisitive nature:
1) two woodworkers (Ray and Swenson) have given examples of their "prized possessions" that are NOT woodworking tools!!!!!!!!! I find this to indicate a healthy diversity of interests.
2) two woodwokers have given examples of a need for exotic items, but their "need" is fully under control. They have what they desire, and they enjoy their exotic vehicles often and a lot..
What I find problematic is not the acquisition and use of a single exotic possession, but the preoccupation/ obsession with continually acquiring more and more exotic tools.
Have fun.
Mel
PS I was up in Conn. recently. That little shop in Warehouse Point that used to sell Indians when I was a kid, still stands, but it has been a long time since it had an Indian in its window.
.
Tool debate.
I have been thru this with other interests involving tools. One example would be guns. When I first started with hand guns there were two camps that interested me. The expensive "thing of beauty" camp, in love with beautiful custom model 1911 semi autos and the Glock camp in love with the simplicity, indestructability and absolute reliability under all conditions of the Glocks. I went with the Glock camp because for the money you just couldn't get any better and, out of the box, with no customization, you could shoot IDPA competition with the best of them based on your skill. By the way, the fire plug in my avitar is one of the props I built for IDPA competition. When I started two gun competition, I built my own AR15 using one of the best basic rifles, the Bushmaster, and adding the things I felt worked for me... Eotech red dot, quad rails, a vertical forend grip that I cut down and turned on my lathe to suit my grip, fire control like the Magpul B.A.D (battary assist device), Redi Mag, single point sling, Rock River trigger... etc, etc etc.
I won't bore you with the details, but when I started climbing the era of pitons had just ended and clean protection was in full swing, All kinds of new tools were coming on the market, chocks, stoppers, Friends, hexes. Then the new, and very expensive, carbon shafted ice axes, titanium screws, double boots, Foot Fangs... I spent a lot of money.
I was always facing the same question, bigger and better? Cheaper and still good? During the late 50s they came out with a wet suit with zippers. Just a new fad? Not after you got stuck inside of a zipperless one, with your arms trapped over your head while trying to change in a gas station restroom after a dive.
Is bigger better? I'm gonna need a hoist for this one !
Indian story.
I got sent to LA for a year, three weeks on, three weeks off I think it was, to cover the OJ trial. I lived on Sunset at the Argyle St. James, right across the street from Thunder Road, a biker bar owned by Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda. In the center of the main part of the bar was a pedestal and on the pedestal was a perfecrly restored 1939 Indian bike. I used to sit at the bar and look at that beauty and think, "we were both born in 1939. How come that bike is in so much better shape than I am?"
I have to say that that was a while back and my memory being what it is, I am only 95% sure it was an Indian.
Indians and Tools
S,
I have also been through the "bigger and better and more expensive" thing on: bicycles, banjos, cameras and a few other things, Luckily I found that I can watch the train without riding on it. That first hit me when I heard two guys playing five string banjo, and I HAD TO HAVE ONE OF THEM THINGS. Well, I started off doing some research and asking others. Of course, if you ask five people, you get ten answers. I realized that if you look hard, and carefully, you can sometimes find a person who really knows their stuff and isn't selling anything. I found such a guy playing banjo at Disney World. I worked near there at the time. He gave me some hints, and I came to the conclusion that I MUST stay away from trying to pick out an old "pre-war" banjo, and that the best modern banjp in the world (if one ignored fancy inlay work which didn't make it play any better) that the Gibson RB 250 is THE BANJO. That was 1974. I bought one. I should have bought a truckload of them.
When I tried my hand at photography and bicycling (which I still do), I found that I could figure out something that would work really well, without paying for frilly stuff or stuff that costs a lot but only gives you a small increment in performance.
I have been in woodworking longer than I have been doing any of those other things. I started off by buying a circular saw, a jig saw, an electric drill, a router, a Stanley doweling jig, a belt Sander, a hammer, a set of screwdrivers and some sandpaper and some C clamps and some pipe clamps. ALL AT SEARS. I had no books. My brother built and installed kitchens. He was my inspiration. I made a workbench out of scraps of plywood and two by fours from a dumpster in the construction site that was building the apartment house that I was living in. I had no books, and didn't know there were any rules to woodworking or that wood expands and contracts. For a few decades, I made a lot of nice furniture, while working on the porch of the apartments that I lived in. Most of my furniture looked "Ethan Allen", or like antiques my wife liked.
Later I bought a table saw, drill press and a six inch jointer -- ALL AT SEARS. It wasn't until I joined Knots that I heard of tool makers other than Craftsman, and that wasn't all that long ago. I learned how to pronounce "Lie Nielsen". I thought LN was TERRIBLY EXPENSIVE. Then I got a part time job at Woodcraft, when I retired, Then I tried a lot of tools that I had read about but never used. I was introduced to hand tools by my friends at Knots, but I fought it. Then when I saw what an LN could do, and how I could cut my own dovetails without a jig, and I could make my own mortise and tenon joints without my table saw, router and jigs, I slowly moved into the a "mostly hand tool" camp.
When I tried lots of different saws and planes and chisels and things, and I read all of the stuff on Knots, and elsewhere, I came to the conclusion that Lie Nielsen makes tools like Gibson made the RB 250. You could make more expensive tools, but probably not much better. I never looked at Lee Valley much because Woodcraft didn't sell their planes and saws, etc. BUt I was able to get some nice LN stuff at a good price by working at Woodcraft for a few afternoons a week. Now I use those tools daily. I just took a break from the two chairs that I am making.
I just got the tools as I needed them in projects. I haven't felt the need to get tools that I don't use, or to continually look for bigger, better, more expensive tools. Mine work fine.
I guess I just didn't get bitten by the collecting bug. I am not a hermit or an ascetic, but I don't feel the need for a BMW, a Harley or a Holtey. What I want out of life is to continually have more things that I want to do than I have time to do them.
I guess my Dad raised me Blue Collar. I have never bought a car on credit. I always pay cash. Like my father, the only think I ever bought on credit was a house, and I paid it off early.
If everybody lived like me, there wouldn't be any wars, and the US economy would tank far worse than it has. :-)
The fact that we all look at life and hobbies and jobs differently makes for great conversations. If we were all alike, EEEGGAAADDDD, what a horrible thought.
Have fun.
Mel
LN planes.
A while back my sister in law was redoing her kitchen and got a bunch of kitchen drawers that were wrong. Just the dove tailed maple boxes, no fronts. When they delivered the correct ones they told her not to ship the old ones back so she gave them to me. I layed them out a couple of different ways and finally screwed them together to make a cleat hung plane shelf/box thing. That night, after looking at all the planes in their new home, I went up to bed and as I dosed off it suddenly hit me. A bunch of my planes had the number -317 on them. Not just on them but cast into them. Wot the hell... there is no such plane number I said. I must be losing my mind. I rushed back down to the shop. Some of my best planes were sideways and upsidedown. It reminded me of when I was a little kid and we weren't allowed to swear. The only swear words known to us were hell and damn anyway. We took great pleasure in talking about the devil's phone number, 7734, 'cause when you turned the hand written number over it spelled HELL.
I got some too
S,
I was afraid I was missing something, so I went and looked at my planes. Luckily, I have some of those 317 planes as well. I don't know why they did that. Different planes, but the same number.
Mel
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