Replies

1. 
   sailalex | Aug 19, 2003 02:58pm | #1

   Perhaps you and others can help me understand the value of a wooden plane over a steel bed plane. The wood can't last longer than steel and given the wood movement due to changes in moisture, don't these make a wooden plane less desirable?

1. 
   bill_1010 | Aug 19, 2003 04:45pm | #2

   http://www.planemaker.com/articles/

   This site and its makers can tell you more then you probably want to know about wooden planes and their advantages...

1. 
   sailalex | Aug 20, 2003 02:45pm | #3

   Thanks for the suggestion. I found the site more attuned to folks who already were convinced wooden planes were better than iron and then deciding which type of wood from which to make them. My question is why wooden planes would be better than iron planes.

1. 
   jvs | Aug 20, 2003 09:51pm | #4

   There are a bunch of discussions on this; a recent one is here http://forums.taunton.com/tp-knots/messages?msg=12569.1 

   I have a couple more months and a bunch more square feet of mostly figured cherry and hard maple, as well as a high-end bedrock fore plane.  I turn to wooden planes for finer work or trickier grain after initial work with the metal ones.  They just do a better job on these than standard-angle metal planes, as well as being much lighter and easier to push (lower friction and weight). 

   Something that helps a lot here is that the irons are easy to pop out and touch up when the edge starts to tire.  It is a single step process rather than popping the cap iron, pulling the blade, and removing the chipbreaker (and then reversing the process) every time, so I am less tempted to just push on through once the iron is past its prime.  Probably says more about "lazy" than the tool, since it takes less than 30 seconds on the bedrock, but that's how it works for me....

   I can't find the other recent discussion that talked about where you could try one if you are interested; I think it boiled down to http://www.toolsforwoodworking.com/ in New York or Highland in Atlanta (assuming that you are in North America to begin with....).  There may be others; if you say where you are, someone nearby could chime in.

   Regards,

   /jvs