Cressing Temple Hand Plane Comparison

cambournepete

Lots of lovely planes at the show:

The new Sauer&Steiner medium coffin plane is beautiful and sits in my (and Tony's) hands perfectly.

Main point of this rare venture of mine into the hand tools forum is to report on the test Escudo (Tony), DaveS and I did on David Charlesworth's bench.
He had the new Holtey, a L-N 51/2 and a highly fettled Stanley* with Hock blade and L-N chip breaker.
We each tried all 3 on an already smooth piece of wood (dont know what it was).
We were all amazed how good the Stanley* was compared to the planes costing 3x and 30x as much - the difference was pretty subtle and really down to personal preference, they all worked really well.
Of the 3 I preferred the Lie-Nielsen as it had more weight than the Stanley and just felt more right to me. I could happily use the Stanley though*.
I didn't like the Holtey Shocked

As a piece of engineering art and craftmanship it's faultless, I just didn't like it in use.
What does this completley unscientific test prove?
Nothing really I guess, but it does show that fine tuning of even relatively cheap planes and putting good blades in them elevates their performance.
We'd like to thank David for allowing us to discover this insight for ourselves. Given the price difference between car-boot planes and L-N a fettling week with David looks very good value.

*I think it was a Stanley, but it might have been a Record.

Also Veritas were showing some new very small (3" long or so) shoulder planes - they looked very cute Smile

wizer · Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 8:03 am Post subject:

as usual, DC's Stanley made me feel like slipping it into MarkW's bag, it's such a joy to use.
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Harbo · Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 10:59 am Post subject:

From what I have read, DC's plane has had years of polishing and fettling to make it like that?

The tiny Veritas planes were on show at West Dean earlier this year - not for sale yet I think? They do look nice.

Rod

Vann · Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 11:24 am Post subject:

wizer · Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 12:14 pm Post subject:

DC's Stanley was polished to a mirror finish, as were the faces of one of his hammers Shocked

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Harbo · Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 3:12 pm Post subject:

Vann - these planes are very tiny and narrow - about 1/4" wide from memory?
They have a side wing action for releasing the blade?
Polished steel and brass. Very pretty.
Wish I had taken some photos of them? Sad

Rod

woodbloke · Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 3:29 pm Post subject:

I saw them too at West Dean...very pretty - Rob
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Escudo · Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 11:26 pm Post subject:

I agree with Pete's analysis. All three planes were excellent.

I now know the standard I should be aiming for with my planes, all I need now is a bit more skill and some application.

After all, any tool is only as good as it's master.

Tony.

karl5005

Ironballs · Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:45 pm Post subject:

Nice to see you on here again Karl, any chance of a pass around of that 982.... Laughing

karl5005 · Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 10:23 am Post subject:

I don't have any plans at the moment for another show, but I am going to do one show a year - which one I don't know yet.

Karl

SeanG · Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 8:38 pm Post subject:

I think there are quite a few forum members who have been on David's, tool prep course, so we could always conduct some tests on fettled Stanleys vs others at a bash.

I've got a fettled 5 1/2 I could offer other forumites a go on and LN4.
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Paul Chapman · Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 9:58 pm Post subject:

Dave S · Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 10:20 pm Post subject:

My thoughts aabout the three planes really echo those of Pete and Tony. It was the first time I have used either a 'premium' plane or a very well fettled Stanley, so it was quite an eye-opener for me.

I did wonder about the point that Paul raises, though - the timber was not exactly challenging. That said, it only becomes an issue if you actually use challenging timbers, of course.

My other thought - is a Stanley plane with a Hock blade and Lie Nielsen chipbreaker, really a Stanley at all? What would be interesting to compare is the Stanley with standard blade/chipbreaker; the Stanley with the Hock Blade and the Stanley with both blade and chipbreaker replaced.

Dave

Vann · Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 10:32 pm Post subject: