Bargain Basement Tool Test. #3 and #6 Planes.

[MMUK]

Believe it or not, Royal Mail delivered my bargain basement #3 today. On a Sunday! :shock:

So, just to recap, the Faithfull #3 cost me a grand total of £12.49 and the Silverline #6 £17.26 including delivery from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B003 ... UTF8&psc=1
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000 ... UTF8&psc=1

So, first the #3.

Out of the box it appears to be pretty good. The sole seems quite flat and smooth. The handles are real wood and apart from the rear handle being slightly loose all looks good so far. A full 3mm thick iron too.

#6.

Again, out of the box it's pretty good apart from a tiny nick on one edge of the sole. The handles are real hardwood and extremely comfortable. The sole appears to be flat and is quite smooth. It has a 3mm thick iron. It even comes with a lifetime guarantee!

The nick.

When I have the space and time I shall get these fine tuned and report back. Initial impressions are acceptable.

 

[Graham Orm]

Hi Steve. I bought a #4 Silverline to make into a scrub from ebay for £5 plus postage....thought I was getting a bargain! I haven't done much with it yet, but when I first looked at it, the sole was visibly twisted. This won't matter much for a scrub plane, I have tried it briefly and it cuts so any DIY'er would be happy with it I imagine. I'll be interested to hear the outcome of your research!

 

[AndyT]

Don't forget your dust mask and ear defenders for the Silver line!

(I'm not used to seeing safety warnings on a plane. ;-) )

 

[Dodge]

Used to take Faithful No5, No4 and Block to shows when I was demonstrating - good name make planes tend to grow legs and walk at the shows but the faithfuls stay loyal and don't dissapear!

Personally I was very pleased with them, even better is you put a decent iron in them like I did! the casting quality and accuracy was pretty good on them

 

[rspsteve]

I am a newbie and was bought a No4 and a block plane made by Faithfull ....not used it yet will be watching this with great interest .

Steve,

Ps After seeing this i just bought the No 3 Bargain? ...lol I think it will be ok..

 

[DannyEssex]

I'm looking forward to the results of this too, as I'm on the verge of buying my first plane

 

[MMUK]

So I've finally managed to take some time out to look at the #3. Don't tell SWMBO but I'm using the coffee table covered in card because it's brass monkeys in the workshop :mrgreen: Although it needs stripping and re-finishing anyway but it's not a bad coffee table for nowt

First I stripped the plane as far as I needed to

Next, using a recently calibrated rule I checked the sole for flatness along the length, width and diagonals. To the eye it was near perfect with maybe a few thou concavity around the mouth.

Not completely convinced I placed a piece of 1200 grit wet & dry paper on the, ahem, workbench and ran the sole along it for a few minutes.

This will take forever! Out with the 400 grit and another ten minutes.

Now it's within a couple of thou so good enough for my purpose.

On to the blade. Not brilliantly ground and it could ideally have done with re-grinding but SWMBO would kill me if she found a bench grinder in the house. So, whetstone and oil it is. First the med/coarse side then the fine side.

Not good enough so a few minutes on the 400 grit and then a final polish on the 1200 grit and I think it's pretty close. It slices paper anyway with little pressure.

So, the #3 is now back together and I shall try and find some offcuts to try it out on later.


#6 to follow.....

 

[MMUK]

Tested the #3 on an offcut of 1 1/2" x 3/4". Not too bad a result I think. It cuts evenly and cleanly so I'm happy.