Search results

And a huge thank you from the many unknowns like me who post rarely, if ever, but who read assiduously and learn. We don't really have much of a public face on the forum because we don't have the knowledge to contribute more than occasionally and can only envy those of you who do. The measure...

Lee Valley have a great range of rare earth magnets and associated bits: they make a good little stocking-filler when you're having one of those exciting parcels put together. Alternatively, if you are having trouble with these things, you can order some magnets and then just have LV throw in a...

I ended up getting a 120 grit Shapton ceramic stone for that kind of less-than-a-grinder type of work and absolutely love it. A tad expensive but they last forever by all accounts. Curiously (because I have trouble seeing how it can be) it doesn't leave huge scratches like a carborundum stone...

Aaaah It's times like this that I am glad my ancestors variously nicked a few baubles or, in a few cases, left deepest Lancashire and Sussex for a new life away from the old world. Beej (who has said nothing about certain cricket gloating until now)

Alf! Absolutely brilliant! I've been away for the weekend in the mountains (largely failing to trouble the local trout at all) so hadn't had a chance to have another look. As soon as I got home from work tonight I risked (it has beautiful patina) giving the mark a gentle clean with white...

I have an unusual spar plane - well made - which is not much more than 6 inches long and in which the blade is pitched at a full 60 degrees. The single iron has an 'early' look about it and is by James Cam. The nose has a stamp with what could be 'SILENT' and underneath that is clearly...

Perhaps the moral is that their service has been so good in the past that this one rattled me, so I wrote to them expressing my disappointment. But I was wrong. Not a day later and I get another email saying that they have reconsidered (as I asked them to) and are able to do it ! That's more...

Well, yes, that's true: I could and will if need be grind a 38 out to something steeper, but I wish I didn't have to. My point though was more that since LV are making up blades in three different bevels, to fit a range of planes ( a brilliant notion, of which more anon) it seems...

Well, it ain't as simple as it sounds. Having taken ALF's advice and bought an LA Jack, complete with extra 38 degree blade for Australian timbers, I was in seventh heaven: it was almost epiphanic. I figured that I might just have to consider the BU Smoother because I already had two blades and...

Thanks again to all. Derek's comment that the smoother was really just a smoother but which could be used more roughly hit the nail on the head: it's the jack I need. I'm making various bits -some new and some replacement - for our wooden boat ranging from hatches to interior fittings out of...

Managed to forget my password about three times in a row, so my apolgies for not getting back to thank you for confirming what I really already knew....it's just that smoothers are so, well, you know. But it's allupside: I reaise that I don't use my domestic-stanley-copy #5 much,because it's not...

I suspect that I am one of many invisible weekend timewasters who log in to learn, but rarely contribute. What can we tell you? But what we can learn is much appreciated. Enough grovelling... I have a rather nasty wooden boat problem and thus a useful set of the usual suspects in my plane...

Thanks very much for those tips, everybody. Especially the link, Alf, which I took to be the famous bugbear's. More welcome. I see Ward blades here in Oz occasionally, but have never spotted a Ward and Payne. I guess it depends on what was imported into what was then a pretty small country and...

Like a lot of members, I have some ex-grandfather tools (but not enough!). He came from a line of builders in Stockport. Some of the chisels come up and stay like razors, but a couple are not so good. But I do love the old ones. What do people see as being the best brands or makers to look out...