I went to the annual woodworking show at Washington Dulles Expo all day yesterday. Spent much of the day in a demonstration booth with the Washington Woodworkers Guild. I noticed everything that folks are saying about the woodworking shows – fewer sellers, nothing in the way of big tools (table saws, band saws, etc), more sellers of stuff you’d expect to see in Harbor Freight. still a large number of folks selling “gimmicks” that will make you a great woodworker, some GREAT wood sellers, and fewer of the sellers of GREAT Hand tools (eg, no Lie Nielsen, but that is not new news).
But I had a very good time. The show was very well attended. The crowd was excited, pushy and very noisy. Folks were buying stuff, and there was the air of excitement. I spent some time demonstrating hand tools at the booth of the Washington Woodworkers Guild, and a large number of folks came by, and expressed amazement that a dovetail could be cut by hand.
THE THRILL OF MY DAY AT THE WOODWORKING SHOW was getting there early and meeting the folks at the Lee Valley display, which I was eagerly looking forward to. I had been acquiring some Lee Nielsen tools because I could get them at a good discount through my parttime job at Woodcraft (but no longer, since LN stopped selling through the Woodcraft store that I work at. I have been reading everything that Derek has written about Lee Valley tools for years. Recently, I read Chris Schwartz’s “Handplane Essentials”. SO I now had the experience with the LNs, and I had read much about the Lee Valley tools, and I was PRIMED TO TEST THEM OUT.
One of the gentlemen at the Lee Valley booth took me under his wing, and showed me how to use the adjuster on the bevel up smoother, and let me get some practice. It didn’t take long before I was in love with the thing. Then I moved onto the new EXPENSIVE modern looking block plane. I was ready to hate the thing. Gotta tell ya – it sits easy in the hand, and cuts like the wind. I was a kid in a candy shop. I tried the small plough plane, the skewed rabbet plane, the beading tool, the …. the…… I actually tried every plane they had there including the tiny little new shoulder planes. I dropped it and couldn’t find it. But it was right there in the cuff of my pants. (It was an old pair of pants. 🙂
I didn’t do any head to head to comparisons, but I knew what I was looking to learn on about seven specific planes, based on my reading of Schwartz and Derek, and my experience with my LNs. First, I was amazed that all of the planes had been sharpened and they cut beautifully. It takes time to sharpen all of these things, but somebody had been on the ball.
My conclusion was entirely unexpected. I was primed to dislike some of the planes, but it didn’t happen. I was very positively impressed with every plane that I used. I suppose that like Schwartz, I could find a quibble about everything including a Holtey, but that is not my way of life. I found the “style” and feel of the planes to be different than the LNs that I have, and those that I have used a number of times, but don’t own. I didn’t conclude that I should sell any of my LNs and buy the corresponding LVs. However, I found each of the LVs to be very easy and fun to use, and very capable. I didn’t buy any yesterday because I couldn’t make up my mind, but it won’t be long.
I think it was Schwartz who said that the difference between LV and LN is that LV is more like Jazz and LN is more like Classical music. Nice comparison. I didn’t think I would like the “Jazz” but I was wrong. My preconceived notions were incorrect.
The question of LN vs LV comes up often around here, and now I can answer the question based on having used both. Anyone should be pround to own and use either. Some of each ain’t a bad route. I don’t believe you could get a better plane than you can get at LV or LN by paying more. (Schwartz pretty much proves this in Handplane Essentials. I wish I could have been there during that shootout.
I believe I now have an insight into why Derek has fallen in love with the LV style of tweaking and risk taking in unconventional design. It is captivating. But if anybody tells Derek that I said this, I will get angry. 🙂
Oh well, any chances I had of getting a job in Maine are now shot. Maybe I should move to Canada.
Enjoy,
Mel
PS please don’t write asking for a good price on my LNs. They are now an integral part of my life. I have decided that I can be both a Catholic and a Protestant. I don’t care what the Pope says.
Replies
LN coming to town
I have the opposite story. As you know, I work part-time at LV and I own a number of Veritas planes as well as Stanleys but no LNs. I've read lots about the LNs and looked at them, but never held one. At the end of this month, LN will be in town for their hand tool event and I will be able to try them out.
Chris,
J am sure you will enjoy the show. You have the experience with handplanes to know what you are looking at. I suggest you try em all. Be sure to try the #8, a wonderful beast. Also, I suggest you try the #9, IMHO unbeatable as a shooting board plane. Try a smoother with a 55 deg frog. Try the skew rabbet. For a real thrill, try the 16" tenon saw (cut rip). Try the two panel saws. You'll have a blast. You'll be drooling. Be sure to wear a bib. There will be some drooling!
Have fun.
Mel
Try 'em all
You KNOW I'll try them all. Maybe I'll bring some of my Pacific dogwood and make a project while I am there! I expect to spend at least an hour there, probably longer given that it's held at a Felder/Hammer/Festool dealer.
CHris,
:"at least an hour
CHris,
:"at least an hour there". I wallowed in pure pleasure for close to two hours at the LV display. Part of that was learning to adjust the mechanism on the BU smoother. I got it to work, but found it was easier for me to adjust side to side by tapping the iron with a small hammer, just like on the LV. The only tool that I couldn't make work well was that large scorp-type tool for scooping out chair seats. The fault is my lack of skill with such tools. My one attempt at a Windsor chair seat was done with an angle grinder with a King Arthur's Tools' Galahad on it - the same thing I use in making bowls.
I really would like your thoughts about the big #8 and the beautiful #9.
Have fun.
Mel
Come to Cincy
Mel, you need to come to Cincinnati in October to the Woodworking in America Conference and check out all marketplace. I've been to it in Berea, KY a couple of years ago and it is unlike any woodworking show around. You get to meet face to face with the owners of the companies and try out their tools as well as learn woodworking techniques from master woodworkers. Plus you'll get to meet Schwarz in person.
If you come, I will treat to Skyline Chili and Graeter's Ice Cream. Both are Cincinnati favorites.
Mike,
Going to the big show in Cincinatti would be fantastic. But something is taking place at the same time that takes precidence. My High School 50th Reunion! I am on the Reunion Committee, and have been preparing for the big celebration for two years.
Of course, now that you bring up the possibility of chili and Icec cream, you are causing me to re-think. :-)
Let me know if you are coming close to Washington, DC and I will take you to Famous Dave's BBQ, Dunlap Wood, and Friendly's Ice Cream. Then I could set you up to give a talk to the Washington Woodworker's Guild.
After my 50th High School Reunion, I will post a photo or two here. It will make everyone here in Knots feel younger.
Thank you for the invite. I would like to take a rain check. I have always wanted to go to Cincinatti. It sounds a lot move exciting than Burke, Virginia.
Mel
Mel.. Please post the 50's pictures.... I never went to any of my school reunions.. I was always afraid the local school bully would show up to hit me in the nose again!
HS Reunions
I recently attended my 100th class reunion. We all got together at the cemetery and danced in the light of the moon. ;-)
Ralph,
You are older than I thought.
You never told me you graduated from High School. I thought you were a REAL woodworker. :-)
Mel
Age
I went to high school late in life, Mel. When I was young, there were no schools. One apprenticed oneself. But, I was a wiz at what would later be called geometry. So good, in fact, that at just 20, I got a job as the leader of a work gang on what is now called the Great Pyramid! ;-)
Ralph
I was born at a very early age.
I went to high school with Bam Bam and Pebbles.
You worked on the great Pyramid. Fantastic. I did the Acropolis, the Colliseum, and the Hoover Dam.
Mel
Mel,
I learned to use the crosscut saw in the Sahara Forest.
Ray
Ray,
I was one of the crew that planted the trees that became the Sahara Forrest.
Mel
PS - Ray, Have you noticed how ideas come and go in this world. There was a time when I had a dream - to get a thread up to 100 posts. Then I had a bigger dream, 300 posts. Then we got one up to over 6000 posts. My new goal is to try to get one up to 35. It must have something to do with the economy. I have lowered my goals. My guess is that woodworkers have returned from posting and are now back to woodwork. MY GAWD! What is the world coming to. What ever happened to Maddy? She was the one who convinced me to get a #8. If she ever comes to my house for a visit, I am going to let her try my wooden try plane. Now there is a BEAST. I wanted Derek to do a review of it, but I checked out the price of postage to his village. EGAD! He must live somewhere in the boonies. I will have to live without his review. But I am sending photos of it to Rob Lee and Tom Lie Nielsen to see if I can get them to mass produce different versions of it. If the both do it, I am guessing that the LN version will be truer to the design of the original but will use a better grade of wood, and the LV version will have set screws to help you keep the iron centered and a Norris type adjuster. I urge both the cryogenically treat the wood to harden it to Rockwell 62. I have also contacted the head man at the Petrified Forrest to see if we can use some of his really hard wood for a limited "Patriotic" version of the plane, in which the goal is to re-use old wood for new purposes . RECYCLING - it is the latest thing.
Mel,
Hmm a wooden try plane in bronze... hope it comes with a crane to lift it out of the box.
Now a petrified-wood-en plane might be something that the co that makes the saws with granite tops would be interested in.
Ray
Mel.. Nice post...
No LNs here but a few LVs. I even have two block planes (GROZ) that I bought at my local Woodcraft. My GROZs are far from pretty but they work quite well. OK, after a bit of tuning. If fact the groz low angle with adjustable mouth works VERY well. The blades even hold a edge for more than a few strokes... But then again, maybe I am just easily pleased. I figgure if it works for what I use a tool for it is at least a 'good' tool. My groz are no beauties. Then again, when I was a kid, the cheerleaders never wanted anything to do with me either.
However if I ever get rich... I may change my mind about by tablesaw, bandsaw, routers, drum sanders and all sorts of tools I have forgotton that I have....
Heck, I even love my old Stanley Bailey #4.. Someday,,, I may even get a better blade and chip breaker for it...
Now there is my LV scraper plane. I 'sort of' love it BUT... the blade seems to 'tip' while using it on tough woods. There goes a big old stripe down the wood from the edge that tipped a bit low. I guess that I need to put a radius on the corners of the blade. And then again maybe a setscrew at each side of the blade to keep it from tipping? My LV tools are pretty and also work. Now if somebody gives me a few LNs for free to compare too.
Sure wish I still had my old metal working tools! Especially my old Brown and Sharpe horizontal mill and surface grinder and a hord of tool steel and 'hard' brass and some bronze. And maybe a huge hunk of Monel to make hand planes for the folks that sweat alot....Maybe even a carbide tipped Monel plane blade?
Just me thinking again...
And my post about the Dobsonian reflectors.. I guess my telescope choices sort of fit into my tool choices.. As in what money I have to spend? Freddy and Lisa NEED a telescope to look into.. Make sure thay only use it during nighttime! The Sun can be a bummer to look at! Not the SUN but what you can see for a few moments and nothing after....
Does you 'First Mate' send you off on these trips just so she may relax for a few days?
Will George,
In his book "Handplane Essentials", Chris Schwartz says that one doesn't need expensive planes to get great results. I use my Stanley #4 and #7 and block planes, and like them. I must like them, because I spend an eternity fettling the #7, and even the #4 took a while. But once fettled, I find they do their job nicely, even with the original irons.
I enjoy using my woodies too, although my skill level is not up to par yet. I'd like to spend a day with Ray Pine and get a real lesson, but I can't afford his rates. He wants $10,000 a day for teaching, and his contract for a day's class requires the student to provide three meals delivered hot from McDonalds. I asked him why he charges so much. He said that if he can make ten grand a day, he only has to work 10 days a year. My recommendation is that he charge 100 grand a day. That way he would only have to work one day.
I remember an Italian joke from back in the days before Political Correctness. Guido had a landscape business, but he was losing a dollar on each wheelbarrow of topsoil that he deilvered. So he bought another wheelbarrow.
I'm Italian, so I can tell the joke. You are an honorary Italian, so you can tell them too.
Enjoy,
Mel
Have fun.
Mel
As a teen my best friend family was from Sicilia... If I called him Italian he would punch me in the nose.. Not really hard.. I traveled to Italy a few times in Italy but never in Sicilia. As I remember, the Sicilia folks had to go to the back of the Bus as here in the USA at one time, by the so called lower class folks...... I went to the back of the bus with them.... I think that was in about the early 70's.. Somewhere around that time... The bus driver asked me in English why I did that? I told him he was a JERK.. I was left at the side of some road in a land I did not know about.. I was well cared for by the locals!
He wants $10,000 a day for teaching, and his contract for a day's class requires the student to provide three meals delivered hot from McDonalds. ?????
I would hate, $10,000 a day for teaching, and McDonalds! OK, so their pancakes are OK and the new Angus with Bacon are not that bad.
My Stanley Bailey must be a VERY lagre Block plane! LOL.....
Pizza
Ever had a pizza from McDonalds? In elementary school, we had hot lunch days where for a small fee, we'd get a hot lunch delivered (hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, etc). I remember the pizzas were ALWAYS black. I guess in order to keep them all hot, they just kept cooking them...?
Nope, never saw a pizza there; learn something new every day.
Ray
Chris,
I never saw a pizza at McDonalds, but I remember the "McRib" sandwich. I never knew what animal the meat came from, it was pressed into a shape that kind of hinted at ribs, and it had a great BBQ sauce on it. I was young back then. I liked the sandwich.
This is making me nostalgic for the old days - back when Craftsman made some good tools. The "fast food" that I really remember was a drink at a high school hangout called Friendly's. They had a drink called the "Awful-Awful". Under the name "Auful Auful" on the glass, it explained "AWFUL big, AWFUL Good." It was a type of a milkshake. IT WAS VERY VERY GOOD. But the darn Madison Avenue types said that the name "Awful Awful" was awful. So they left the drink the same, but they changed the name to the "Fribble". FRIBBLE! ?????? What a wimpy name!!!!! I haven't had one since they changed the name.
Going to McDonald's for a pizza would be like going to New Mexico for seafood.
Mel
Awful awful
Mel,
In the local paper, The Vancouver Sun, there was an article a month or so ago about some of the more interesting burgers. One of them was called "Awful Awful", meaning awful big and awful good. It's served at the Nugget casino in Reno. The other burger joint I remember is called the Heart Attack Grill, home of the Single, Double, Triple, and Quadrouble Bypass Burgers and Flatliner Fries. Check out their website: www.heartattackgrill.com - they have a theme song! And if you weigh over 350lbs, you eat for free. And if that's not enough for you, the waitresses are dressed up like nurses!
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