Hi all.
I’m a ”serious hobbyist”, more and more interested in hand planes though I have very limited experience with them. I have a new block plane and a flea market jointer plane that is not so bad after all. I’m now looking into buying a smoother to try to decrease sanding as much as I can.
My questions:
1-Wich type should I choose if I had to buy only one (for now…)? I’ve seen No 4, 4¼, 4½, 5…..
2-Standard or low angle? Veritas makes a low angle that will accept a second blade with a higher angle, offering a ”two-in-one” plane. It is actually cheaper. Will it perform as well as a regular plane?
3-What company?… I like Veritas because Lee Valley has offered an outstanding service to me so far. Are Cliftons and Lie-Nielsens worth the price difference?
4-I have a flea market Stanley that looks like poor quality. Are a new blade and chipbreaker going to make it a decent tool or should it stay in my son’s toolbox (and sandbox!)
My next posting might be exactly the same, but with shoulder planes. Those things are addictive…
Fred
Replies
Fred..
this time last year I was asking those same questions.. I ended up with the L-N 4 1/2, adding the high angle frog a little later. To date, I've zero regrets; it generates an awesome finish on practically everything I've used it on.
Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
Hi !
If I should choose a plane I would go with a 5½ (standard angle) and it would be a Clifton or Lie Nielsen. I got a Clifton 420 shoulder plane and it is great quality a really nice plane. I like Lie Nielsen but they are pricey.... Clifton plane quality are close to Lie Nielsen I think. Lie Nielsen offer a high angle frog giving you 50 dgr. instead of 45 dgr. one thing not offered by Clifton as far as I know.
Check this link for some details on Clifton planes - http://www.fine-tools.com/G303774.htm
Another thing I watched David Charlesworth second DVD - Hand Tool Techniques Part 2: Hand Planing - the other day and its good. I like his ideas and technique, good instructions/inspiration improving your technique !!
Ole
.... I Love the smell of sawdust in the morning....
Please tell me where one can find these David Charlesworth DVDs. Thanks
Rod
You can get the books, video and DVDs at Lie Nielsen - http://www.lie-nielsen.com/library.html?cat=6
and at David Charlesworth own website - http://www.davidcharlesworth.co.uk/shop/shopdisplayproducts.asp
I read somewhere that a 3'rd DVD is coming late 2004 - "advanced handplanning" I very much look forward getting it.
BRGD's Ole.... I Love the smell of sawdust in the morning....
All of you seem to use Lie Nielsen planes. Man, am I envious!!! They are prohibitively expensive here in the United Kingdom so I can't even think about owning them. Maybe I'll just have to immigrate to the U.S.
Zac
Zac
For reference, what would a $200 tool imported to GB be, and what makes up the difference?_________________________________
Michael in San Jose
"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted." Bertrand Russell
The UK pound is very strong, then the government imposes tax on everything. After looking at the discussion about planes I check the UK prices of Lie Nielsen planes. A No1 bench plane costs about $300 US, while a 4 1/2 smoothing plane costs $550+ US here. I would be interested to know there price in the US. That should give you some indication.
To import an article into the UK, I believe that the government imposes an import duty of around 20%, then adds 17.5 % VAT (value added tax), so you can see that we are gouged by the government in any way they can (there used to be a tax for just living at one stage but it was repealed in the 1970s).
All the best
Zac
Zac... with all due respect... yer talkin nonsense... ;)
If you buy from Axminster, their prices are just about on a par with the list price on the L-N site. Down side is they don't have the full range. I bought a 40 1/2 scrub plane and a pair of improved chipbreakers recently, ordering direct from the L-N site; overseas shipping + import duty weren't all that expensive... with the buying power that the £ has right now, buying direct gave very competative pricing...Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
I just checked the Axminster site & compared the cost of a Lie Nielsen No 4 1/2 smoothing plane with the cost on the LN site. Axminster charge $418.52 (my exchange rates were off previously). The LN site quotes $300 - $325. The only way the costs could be considered similar is if you managed to avoid the UK government taxes and charges
Zac
you're forgetting the shipping costs, which, if I remember right made up around 60% of the price difference... the rest being split between VAT and import duty....Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
ZAC buying direct from the USA is very expensive living in Europe. I'm in Denmark and we are taxed even heavier than you. Our VAT is 25%
I once bought a tool direct from the USA and it was indeed an expensive experience! Product 230$ - shipping (Parcel post Air) 96$, adding to a total of 326$ When entering my country I was taxed with import duty and VAT (25 %) for another total of 275$ - giving a grand total of 601$
So a 230$ tool, direct import, turned out to be a 601$ tool THAT's EXPENSIVE !!!
A Lie Nielsen 5½ bench plane is 450$ bought from Axminster and 325$ bought direct from Lie Nielsen (using my exchange rates for £ and $) A considerable difference, but paying 450$ at Axminster is by far the cheapest solution. Shipping from the USA will be 50-100$ Parcel Post Air, now we are close to 425$ then knowing import and sales tax almost doubles that makes the solution easy.
We'll have to go to the US on our next vacation and shop some "cheap" LN planes or find some Yankee's that go to our country and have them bring some :-))
Ole.... I Love the smell of sawdust in the morning....
They are expensive but not as expensive as I had originally thought. I'm going home to Australia soon and I will try to buy a couple of LN planes before I go.
Tha Australian Dollar is very weak and that miserable little prime minister introduced a goods & services tax (similar to the VAT but they add it to services too, so I won't be able to afford to import any decent equipment after I return.
Zac
If you're looking at Axminster for L-N's, ask if they're supplied with the improved chip breaker... They were clearing their old stock when I last bought a bench plane from them... the do make a hellova difference... Some spare blades wouldn't be a bad idea either...Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
Thanks Mike.
I will probably buy a couple of LN planes when I go back to Australia. I'm planning on leaving within a couple of months and the family might get a little bit annoed if I get them now. It will be interesting to see the price when I get there.
Zac
irrespective of where you get them, I'll guarantee you won't be disappointed with their performance...Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
Zac
Just to check that the local LN sellers are being honest I regularly claculate the approximate cost difference between directly importing a range of LN planes and purchasing the same plane from a local retailer.
As of today the Aussie $ is worth about 77.2 US cents. So if I were to order a LN#85 (cabinet maker's scraper plane) from Maine (USD$195) it would cost me about AUD$345 at my door (including postage and import duties) this is a "saving" of about AUD$70 on the Aussie list price. If I'm real lucky I would scrape under the import duty collection threshold and save a further AUD$45. The comparative "saving" for a LN#4 (ductile iron) is about AUD$100, with no prospect of scraping under the duty collection threshold. To my mind these "savings" are a reasonable premium to pay to help the local retailer stay in business.
BTW I understand that the duty collection threshold is about AUD$250. The reason is that it costs more to collect the import duty than the duty is worth for packages valued at less than AUD$250. However, I have not seen this in writing.
good luck for your move back to the land of the long weekend
Ian
Mike your dead right...we should all take advantage of this global economy and the strength of our currency. At the moment, I just can't understand other than speed of delivery why anyone would use axminster or another UK source to satisfy their need for imported high value hand tools. Taxes and shipping paid, buying direct you're making a handsome saving.
I've even heard tell that if the seller marks the packaging as 'gift' that you miss out on import duty how true that is I wouldn't know.......?
all the best Iain
Iain...
I did my homework before buying direct; apparently Tilgear stock the entire L-N range, but trying to do business with them is a nightmare. No web commerce, no visa transactions and limited business hours make them nearly impossible to contact. While the Axminster range is quite large, it's not the entire range, hence my decision to buy direct. As for cost, I reckon Axminsters prices are really competitive compared to buying direct; they'd be benefiting from wholesale prices and reduced shipping costs through bulk ordering, passing on a tolerable amount of that to a customer. To be fair, I can only sing the praises of both companies, both being excellent to deal with. That said, I agree with your point in principle; the buying power of the £ right now is enormous. More fool us if we don't take advantage....Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
I sometimes buy equipment for my department from Tilgear because, in comparison to other major suppliers, they seem to aim at supplying schools so their prices for the type of equipment we buy is OK. Service has been OK so far because we just pay the invoice when it arrives. I've never used them personally so I couldn't comment other than that.
Zac
Mike points taken, I'm far from anti Axminster, feeling that their service is pretty good and stocked items vast...so no complaints really, Tilgear, now they're in a world of their own..I believe that Tilgear are owned by a friary maybe divine intervention is a theme they work to!
take care Iain
The best planes I have are the 5-10$ ones. They could be cleaned up and sharpen. I do not own a LN or those other ones that cost to much to use. I have about 100 planes and my best plane that works it an old beat-up jack plane that is a 100 yrs old and it was free. Thanks
I've always had a ton of respect for the galoots, but for me, I got too much rust sat in the car park to go out scrounging for more to fill my shop with. Right now I don't have the experience to tell a good old tool from a bad one, and having been stung too many times buying bad new tools, I'm in no great hurry to gain that experience; I'd rather invest my hard earned in a known quality tool that's going to do the job I need it to do straight out of the box. My shop time is all too short as it is..
Right now I've around 6 hand planes, 11 L-N's that to me are worth their weight in gold, 1 useable Stanley and 3 to many of door stops. That's not to say I'm averse to old tools.. I picked up an old Millers Falls cigar shave a little while ago.. now all I gotta do is figure how to sharpen it; I've a ton of nuiks and crannies just waiting for it...Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
My father has decided that I like to collect wooden planes - they look pretty in the lounge and are much better than other bits and pieces I could think of. Yet to use any as a door stop though.
<chuckling..
OK....I ummm... had some reservations about this when I first heart of tools being bought as collectors items, or, god forbid... dust collectors... so I started to research it... Now, quite frankly, the thought of putting some of the hand made planes out there to work would scare the sh1t outa me... Old tools long past their best... I see that as a different thing alltogether...
Doorstops though... they really anger me; mass manufactured, lousy quality control yet sold as fit for purpose... What gets to me is that even after spending hours tuning them (reworking manufacturing errors) they still don't work worth a #@&%... I keep them around to remind me... buy cheap and you'll pay dear....Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
I am a bit of a fan of Patrick Leach, not because I actually agree with al of his sentiments about various tols but because I like his level of engagement without heavy political overtones. Anyhow, If you read his comments about the Stanley 45's and 55's you wold think that they are doorstops. Yet they represent and enourmous amount of design thought and some pretty smart maufacturing.
Agree on the cheap tools though - there have been times when gifts have been worse than useless and it has been a significant effort to avoid offence when asked to demonstrate how the gift is to be used.
Yet they represent and enourmous amount of design thought and some pretty smart maufacturing.
I wholeheartedly agree with you; there was a time when the likes of Stanley and Record set the height of the bar when it came to quality. Alas, those days are long gone, however the reputation for quality remains, and it's that reputation that's responsible for my issues with both companies. As a rookie, having heard of and believing that both manufacturers have respectable reputations, you can imagine the shock and anger felt when discovering that new tools simply aren't fit for purpose. Without the experience to understand why the tool can't get the job done, what's a guy to do / think?? With time, and a ton of help from the regs here and on other lists, I eventually heard about tuning, managing to salvage 1 of 4 doorstops. A subsequent blade and chip breaker upgrade has salvaged another. The others..? Forget it.. Today I feel more disappointment than anger, and sympathy for anyone else caught in the same situation I fell into. As I said earlier, I've since learned my lesson; I'll only buy from a manufacturer I know I can trust to supply a tool that is fit for purpose. I've yet to have cause to regret my decision. I fully understand that my way isn't for everyone; that's their choice. I simply hope that they gain as much satisfaction from using their tools as I do from mine.Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
Current Australian catalogue price for a #4b is $640. I have not seen one except at shows, although my brother reports second hand that a 747 pilot on long service leave apparently took up wood working a couple of years ago and bought a couple.
http://svc010.bne011i.server-web.com/catalogue/carbatec2/cache/header-543public__0-0.html?cache=no
Fred,
Do you have any particular wood(s) that you generally use? If your into figured woods, I might lean towards the 4 1/2 Lie-Nielsen with a high angle frog (you can buy it as an extra or standard on the tool depending on budget).
If you generally work with straight grained woods(or anticipate some end grain use), then the Veritas low-angle smoother may we the way to go (perhaps with a second blade for a higher cutting angle as you mentioned). You can also skew the plane diagonally in use to increase its effective cutting angle.
Back before I became a semi-addict, I used to try to buy planes good at a whole host of things, versatility was the key. As my collection has grown, I have become more focused on finding the best tool for a particular task.
If you don't see end grain use in your immediate future, I think I'd probably stick to a standard, traditional, bevel down smoother (4 or 4 1/2). Either Veritas or Lie-Nielsen would do fine but in my experience, the Lie-Nielsen is ready to go right out of the box with a little honing.
Good luck.
Matt
Fred,
A #5 is a little long to make a good smoothing plane. You want your smoother to be a fairly short-soled plane so it can cruise up and down any small undulations your stock might have, smoothing things as it goes. The longer sole a plane has the more it will bridge low areas and work as a flattener rather than a smoother.
People look for different things in smoothers--as for all things I suppose. Some want greater heft; others want width; others want it to be light, or narrow, or made of wood, or... Suffice to say that anything in the #3 to #4 range will make a perfectly good smoother.
I have a #3 and a #4. I got a Brand X #3 at an estate sale for five dollars--and it was worth every penny; I spent some time on it, and got it a new iron and back iron. It was my only smoother for a couple years, and it worked pretty well--at least I wasn't actively looking to replace it. Then, for my birthday, I got a Lie-Nielsen #4. Funny, but I don't remember the last time I used that Brand X #3.
I think I would try to rehabilitate the old Stanley. Working to turn it into a usable tool will teach you quite a lot about the mechanics of planes, as well as how to get the best performance out of them.
My one and only jointer is a fairly recent vintage Record #7. I worked on it for a few hours (a labor of love) and I got it to work pretty well, not great, but adequately. Then I got it a Clifton iron and two piece back iron. The difference was amazing. I'm sure your Stanley can be made servicable as well; then add an aftermarket iron and a thicker back iron and you'll have no need to spend several hundred dollars. Besides, even if you do decide you need to get a better one, the knowledge and skill you developed fettling the Stanley will be useful when you're tuning up your planes.
I won't enter into the standard/low angle controversy. There are quite a few people who care deeply about low angle versus high angle. I'll let them try to persuade you one way or the other.
People also have their favorite plane makers. I'll let them explain why their favorite is better than any other.
Alan
Fred-
You have several options. First of all, there are many planes for many functions, and many makers for all. The flea market special you have most likely can be tuned with some work to work just fine. Depending on your budget, that may be the way to go. I highly recommend that before you spend a single cent, get Garrett Hack's "The Handplane Book." Invaluable reading. Inside, you'll find all you need to know about most planes ever made, as well as a step by step process on tuning that junker you have into a ribbon-shaving tool of beauty. I've personally restored an entire collection of old pre-war Stanley Bedrocks, and they all work great. If you want to buy one ready to go, I use Lie Nielsen's, and they are fantastic. A #4 or #41/2 are great. I have both. If you go with the #4, I highly recommend going bronze casting. The extra heft is well worth the $50.00, and it will never rust, ever!!!!! I personally own, ( and I went out to the shop and counted before replying to your post) 17 tools from Lie Nielsen, mostly planes, and the only thing I've had to do was polish the blade to a mirror finish to use one. And, they hold their value very well. I don't mean to sound harsh with my next comment, but the poster who recommended a 5 1/2 for a smoother is incorrect. A tight mouth is critical to a good smoother, something the 5 1/2 doesn't have. I know, I've got one. If you want to use a plane for both flattening and smoothing, I'd recommend the low angle jack plane. You can purchase an extra blade. The blade is bedded at 12 degrees, so you can grind a secondary bevel at 33 to 38 degrees, and smooth with it, or use the standard blade for leveling and for end grain. It also has an adjustable mouth, so you can make it extremely tight for smoothing, an option not available with a 5 or 5 1/2. I've rambled on here, but I think you get my meaning.
JC
You didn't mention if you have a block plane. If not, this would the first plane I would buy.
I have two Lie-Nielsen block planes. The first one I got is a small bronze #102. It is a low angle block and does fit in your pocket. Keep mine handy all of the time. The second one I bought is a #60 1/2 low angle rabbet block plane. If you do any M&T work, this is the one to keep on the bench all of the time.
For bench planes I like my L-N #5 1/2 Jack. It has good weight and the length is good for shorter pieces of stock.
For finishing I have a L-N #164 Smoother. It is a good plane for less figured woods. If you do a lot of work with figured woods, I would probably opt for a #4 1/2 and add the high angle frog to the purchase.
Good luck!
_________________________________
Michael in San Jose
"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted." Bertrand Russell
Have you looked at the L-N Skew Block plane? Would you pick the Rabbet Block Plane over the Skew Block plane for trimming tenons and cutting rabbets?
A skew plane is off in the future for me. They come in right and left hand versions and I think you would need both (at least sometimes). I find the versatility of the 60 1/2 to be just about right. You can use it as a block plane, a tenon plane or a rabbet plane - in both directions. You are limited in the direction with a skew plane.
My next plane is a #7 and the price of the L-N #7 will eat up my plane budget for the year._________________________________
Michael in San Jose
"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted." Bertrand Russell
I have an old Stanley rabbet plane. It tends to tear out when I plane across the grain. I've been wondering if a skew plane might do a better job.
I would try a low angle block plane on the edge of the stock to see if the anlge of attack is the problem. The Stanley might have too high an angled frog for the application._________________________________
Michael in San Jose
"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted." Bertrand Russell
Fred,
The two plane that get he most use in my shop are the LN low angle block, followed closely by Stanley #93 shoulder plane.
The only other planes that get regular use are Stanley #8 jointer, LN #4 1/2, and Stanley #605, in that approximate order.
Hope this helps.
Dan
Fred,
Are you confused yet?
Alan
Buy the 4 1/2 Lie Nielsen with the 50 degree pitch. I live in Maine and went to their factory intending to buy a scraping plane for some fiddleback maple I am working. It just so happened that Tom Lie Nielsen was walking through the show room as I was loitering. They have a bench and wood samples in there so you can test drive the whole product line. When I told him what I was doing he suggested the 4 1/2 with the York Pitch. It was un-believable how well it worked. I ended up buying both. I own several other good planes , but that is the one I reach for. I could not care less now that it seemed expensive at the time. I now avoid the showroom because it is a wonderful company, and I doubt I could ever go in there without buying something.
Hans
I bought an A5 Norris type plane from Ray ILES following a write-up about it in FINE WOODWORKING in late 2003. Expensive but superb.
Edited 11/18/2004 5:19 am ET by CHANDLER
Hmmm. That's funny. A couple night's ago, I was looking through my Lee Valley catalog (as usual) and was looking at their planes. From what I've heard, the Veritas planes seem to be top of the line: well balanced, good weight, innovative features, all come with A2 steel blades... I've felt them before, and they feel pretty good. Good weight and comfort. I don't know how big your budget is, but if you're like me, you'd rather save a couple hundred bucks (to upgrade your power tools) and still get a high end plane. By the way, the same goes for shoulder planes!
We're all in the same boat!
Chris
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