I have an old Stanley #4 that needs restored. It’s pre-WWII and not a Bedrock. If I restore this plane and upgrade to a Hock iron/chipbreaker combo, will I be in the neighborhood of a Lie-Nielsen, performance-wise?
I’m wondering if I shouldn’t just break down and buy the L-N, and save myself the effort and frustration.
I don’t do woodworking for a living, but I am fairly serious. I just want to make sure I’m getting my money’s worth.
Replies
probably can get similar performance, and in the end it's your skill that will really make the difference. As for me, I buy myself a LN every year and save the hassle of tuning up an older plane... would rather spend my time using the tool. LN really puts out a good tool, ready to go out of the box after a quick honing of the blade.
I think that every serious woodworker ought to tune up at least one old plane. The time it takes isn't all that much and you'll better understand the tool afterwards. The new Hock blade won't cost an arm and leg and will make the plane perform very well. I use an older stanley with Hock blade and chip breaker as my worker #4.
Then buy LN's or other planes as you need them.
Have you ever noticed in the photos of the guys that write the articles for FWW..... their tool cabinets ofter have several LN planes. These guys have been working for many more years that LN has been in business, so they must have traded up for some good reason.
I have tuned a lot of old ones, but none of those come up to my L-N's. The 4 1/2 with the high angle frog is a dream on figured timber. Plus, they are ready to go out of the box.
I love LN planes. Well made and beautiful. I own several of their products and hope to buy more. That said, I don' think they are able to part the fibers and lead woodworkers to some promised land. A well tuned older Stanley, especially with an upgraded blade (LN makes very nice Stanely replacement blades BTW) will do most planing tasks as well as you could hope. Perhaps LN bench planes are a smidge better in disfficult woods, but for the lions share of tasks in normal hardwoods, the old Stanley stuff is excellent.
PS: I also think Bedrocks are largely overhyped.
Why not try tuning it up with the existing blade? If it seems to work well at that point, upgrade the iron. Then you can put other money toward a LN of a size that you don't have. If not, buy the LN. I have several LN planes, but for a 4-1/2, I have a Stanley T-17, & several irons going from normal, to a 12 degree back bevel. With the right iron, I can smooth just about any board. Just food for thought.....don
I have 2 pre ww2 stanleys and a L-N # 4. The stanleys have hock irons and work quite well. However if I'm about to plane some nice curly maple you better believe I reach for the L-N. It just makes sense, the L-N will save me time later when doing the final prep for the finishing room. I work in my shop everyday in an attempt to make a living, therefore the time savings justifies the extra expense of the L-N.
Ron
Edited 2/27/2006 10:34 pm ET by Ronaway
I have to agree with Sapwood: it's a very worthwhile project to restore/tune an old plane. Very educational. And, as Mike said, the end result will depend mainly on your skill in tuning the plane. The good part is that restoring/tuning an old plane is not at all difficult or all that time-consuming.
One thing that you might want to do differently is the iron and chip breaker: nothing wrong with the Hock, but you might consider the the LN Stanley replacement iron and chip breaker, for a couple of reasons: 1) there is a small ledge machined into the leading edge of the chip breaker that mates with the iron tighter than the Hock seems to; and 2) in my experience, the LN seems to handle cranky grain a bit better. Having said that, though, I have both LN and Hock on several of my old Stanleys and get very good results with both. You really can't go wrong with either, and the price is pretty close to the same.
Assuming that you do a good job tuning up your old #4, and put a LN or Hock replacement iron and chip breaker on it, you should be able to get performance pretty close to what you could expect from a LN. If the original (Stanley) iron is still in decent shape and still has some meat left, you should also be able to get pretty good performance out of it without having to replace it. The old pre-WWII Stanleys are generally really nice planes that -- with a little TLC -- perform quite well.
On the other hand, if you don't want to fool with tuning your old Stanley, once you purchase one, you'll very likely find that the LN is worth every penny spent. Ready to go right out of the box, except, perhaps, a touch up on the stone for the iron -- all depends on your definition of "sharp". Just a very well manufactured tool that does exactly what it was designed to do -- no fuss, no drama. There are several LNs in my plane arsenal, and have yet to be disappointed in any of them. I recommend them without reservation.
Ohiocarpenter,
I would not disagree with what has been said..but it really misses the key point. The LN can change your performance. Comparing the LN with the Stanley is like comparing a cabinet saw with a contractor saw...can do the same tasks..different feeling. Just put your hands on a LN 4 1/2 and see how it feels...not even close.
I like the comparison to the difference between a contractor and cabinet saw. That strikes me as about right. The cabinet saw is usually more ruggedly finished, has better trunions, more power, etc. which makes it feel a little more solid to use and allows it to do some tasks - ripping 2+" hardwood etc. more easily.
And I take it you'd agree that If I showed you a 5/4 maple board ripped with my 64A equipped with a WWII and a similar board cut on your 66 with a similar quality blade, you couldn't tell the difference?
Thanks for the insightful analogy.
Personally I'd fix up the Stanley, and buy the LN with the high angle frog for figured stuff.
I have an old Sargent VBM smoother that I restored and I have the LN 4 with the common bed angle. I do appreciate the added weight of the LN, but they both work well. I keep the LN with a very small mouth.
For figured stuff, I bought a Clark & Williams smoother (high bed angle) it is outstanding on cranky grain. Little bit more of a learning curve with woodies, but once you get it they're amazing.
Cheers,
David C.
I hate to say it, but go with the LN- you will get it anyway.
I did the same thing, restored a bunch of old stanley's, bought the new blades, etc.
They worked better than they originally did, but I bought the LN #4 bronze and I now have my old stanleys sitting on the sidelines. Now I have a LN 5 1/2, 164 and will get the 7 soon.
Bite the bullet!
As others have correctly pointed out, with effort you can certainly fettle the plane to perform well; you may or may not wish or need to upgrade components. And you will certainly learn a lot in the process.
The way you asked the question, though, leads me to think you really aren't looking forward to doing the work on the plane. If you don't want to do it, you can certainly expect good results from a good modern smoother, and you will still, over time, learn all about setup and maintenance of your fine new plane.
Thanks, guys! I think I'll spring for the L-N after all. I've tuned this old Stanley before (hours and hours, fair results, still a lot of chatter and tearout) and it has since fell victim to a minor plumbing leak, so now it is a bit scaly, and I'm not sure the effort is worth the result. I thought maybe if I whipped it back into shape, upgraded the iron, I'd have a great plane to use. But I found the bronze L-N on sale for $260 and it's a sure thing, performance-wise.
Thanks again!
fettle the old plane. Buy a new Hock blade, should reduce chatter. If you buy an extra blade you can always back bevel to steepen your cutting angle.
Everyone should tune an old plane. It helps understand it a bit more. That said i still own a LN or two. Some old bedrocks and a pre war stanely regular that i still need to fettle.
if your plane is warped, youll need to replace it. Or spend countless hours flattening the sucker.
I know it's not warped since I've tuned it before; not 100% satisfied with the results. Now it's in need of a good cleaning/rusty scale removal. I'm probably making a bigger deal of it than it really is, but I really had a nice gleaming sole on that plane! Aaargh!Ha ha!
From what I read here you'll have to fettle that Hock iron, too.
high quality chisels like irons need to be properly sharpened when bought. I have yet to buy a new chisel or iron that has to have the back flattened and bevel squared, crowned to honed.
I have both. I don't think you can get a non-bedrock Stanley to match a L-N. The tuned Stanley with Hock blade would be very serviceable, but no match for L-N's solidness and precision.
Low-cost old Stanleys are really great for filling out your plane selection without going broke though. :-)
Pete
One advantage I do enjoy about having a well tuned Stanley as well as the Lie-Nielsen plane is the opportunity to use the Stanley on less critical work and save the edge on my Lie-Nielsen iron for the surfaces that are more eye critical. Also if I need to clean an edge on a piece of pine, I use the Stanley and save pitching up the iron on the Lie-Nielsen.
Ron
Edited 3/3/2006 10:41 pm ET by Ronaway
Ronaway
I agree with you, and I've adopted the same approach. I have 2 plane shelves. One has all my bedrocks, tuned and ready. The other has my LN's. The only Bedrock I have with no LN compliment is the #6. In the last couple of years, I've really begun doing a LOT more hand planing vs. machining, and decided to get the bedrocks out of the display case and back to work where they belong.
Having at least 2 of everything is great in that the sharpening can be done all at once at the beginning or end of a day, (depending on how tired I am or how close to chow it is!!) and I can get in a groove and keep working without having to stop. I have 3 bedrock smoothers, 603, 604 and 604 1/2, and I have the LN 4 & 4 1/2 yorkie. With those 5 planes, I can smooth an entire tabletop, etc... without ever having to stop for dull blades.
Glad to hear that redundancy in tools is alive and well, and actually has a good purpose!
Jeff
3 Bedrocks and 2 Lie-Nielsens I'm drooling!!! How many block planes you got man?!!Ron
Edited 3/4/2006 9:42 pm ET by Ronaway
Ronaway,"3 Bedrocks and 2 Lie-Nielsens I'm drooling!!! How many block planes you got man?!!"I'm not sure about Jeff, but most of us have at least one less then we absolutely need...:)
Just 4. What's the problem!
Jeff
No problem Jeff I'm just jealous. I only have three block planes.Ron
Ron
I hope you know that I was kidding, as well. Sometimes my good moods and dry humor (or lack thereof) are taken the wrong way. I will confess that I rarely, if ever, use the 2 Stanley block planes I have anymore, since I've gotten 3 from LN. I should probably sell them, so someone else can put em to work.
The last time I was joking around here in a thread with a tongue-in-cheek tone over buying cabinet doors instead of making them, I got lectured by some dude that I haven't seen hide nor hair from since. Just thought I'd make sure you knew I was laying it on a little thick.
Jeff
Oh yeah I thought the whole thing was a real hoot!! My wife kept asking me what I was laughing about everytime I went to the computer.Ron
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