Recent content by jonbikebod

Whatever the presentational issues of David’s books and DVDs behind them is a person who has spent decades finding the finest ways to do things and the best ways to teach them to others. The greatest and obvious way to benefit from all this effort is enrol in one of David’s courses, watch his...

Along with the advice previously given, I would also caution that practically any hand saw made in England in the latter half of the twentieth century will almost certainly, originally have had it’s teeth filed as a ‘cross cut’ saw. A dovetail saw works best with a fine toothed rip profile. I...

I read this tip in an old magazine article. Use a centre punch to slightly spread the metal at the point the two limbs join. towards the outside will make it fractionally more acute and the opposite when punched towards the inside. With each punch it moves only a tiny bit so you have full...

Thanks for that Matthew. I have never been sure if the curly maple was hard 'rock' maple of sugar maple. I have used ripple sycamore and would say it to be less dense than the handles of L_N screwdrivers for example. It also seems lighter in colour but that seems to be quite common across the...

Thanks for the explanation Phil, I couldn't agree more about the curly maple (a wood i don't think I have ever seen for sale over here). Cheers, Jon.

To come back to the original question of the alternative handles for L-N planes, the alternative handles I got directly from the factory were ‘a rosewood’ but sonokling not cocoblo. They did use cocoblo for the infill and wedge of the small ½” bronze shoulder plane. Compared to cocoblo...

It is worth bearing in mind that it wasn’t Stanley or Bailey who started using or invented the cap iron. All of the traditional English and Scottish wooden and infill bevel down planes use one. These also use heavy irons so I am inclined to think the cap iron does have merit and this seems to be...

If anyone else is looking for router plane cutters - Stanley or Record, the ones sold for the veritas router plane fit and have detachable 'feet'. The L-N will not. Jon.

I am very keen on spoke shaves and use them a lot. Stanleys and records can be made to work well but reqire effort and money to get the best out of them. I have all the Lie-Nielsen shaves and they are good but I much prefer the Veritas. Much easier to adjust the blade projection (but still a...

The thing is Rob 50º isn’t a very high effective pitch. DC warned Tom L-N this wasn’t enough for his high angle frog and now they also make a 55º (half pitch) frog. Two extra blades giving an EP of 55º and one of 60º will get you out of almost any difficult grain situation. The advantages over a...

Hi Gareth, I would say buy three Lie-Nielsen chisels which will be what you need for dovetails and show you how good a really good chisel is. If you have a need to clean joint faces quality chisels are the way to go. The also have no power tool equivalent, planes at least in some respects do. Jon.

Therein lies the paradox. A person with the ability to fettle an inexpensive plane to a high level of performance would also appreciate the value of a LV or Clifton. It is the person without that knowledge that will buy the budget plane and then expect it to work well straight out of the box (or...

Hi Toby, I have the Jack and smoother with a set of blades (plus some extras for cambered, some straight for shooting and some ‘custom’ angles). I use them a lot. If you get tear-out, keep changing blades for next higher EP until tear-out stops – then use this EP (or blade) in all three...

That raises the question of how much fettling you intend to do before testing? Just hone the iron or hone and flatten the back, chip breaker, sole flatten….? Jon.

Hi Dylan, I have an Acorn plane I bought new in the seventies (before I knew any better). The paint is quit a bright red and along with the beech handles the depth adjusting knob is aluminium, so to are the slotted handle retaining nuts. It was sold as being a ‘second line’ Stanley but it seems...