Cheap Chinese bevel down shoulder plane

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Interesting. You could call it a low angle rebate plane.
The Hong Kong plane is a bit of an oddity size wise - 1.5" wide but only 6" long, which sounds tiny to me. Also, from the pictures, you may need to grind the bevel back a bit shallower to make sure that it's only the cutting edge that touches the wood, not the heel of the bevel.

I wondered at first if it was one of those little black plastic planes, but the description does say it's ebony. (Not sure about ebony and CITES but I don't think the customs can open every jiffy bag in every container.)

I'll be interested to hear how it pans out. You won't be the first person to buy a cheap plane out of curiosity!
 
I've just invested my £14 too. I think 1.5 ins is the packing width, so the plane is probably 6 x 1 - quite a good size for cleaning up binding rebates on the tenortrope I'm currently building.

Tenortrope? I might post some build pics when I get closer to being done.
 
It looks like a genuine infill made from a casting in the penultimate pic you can see a bit of rust. Crazy price if it is, watch this space.
 
Mr_Pea":jm18n47b said:
It looks like a genuine infill made from a casting in the penultimate pic you can see a bit of rust. Crazy price if it is, watch this space.

I'd be amazed if it is. It looks like a bit of CNC shaped black wood to me - which could be a nice thing too.
 
:oops: Doh yes I think you are correct one black wooden plane.

I thought it was rebate it was rectangular and a shoulder if it was more elaborate shape ?

Edit,
Is the big advantage of bevel down in manufacturing / stength of plane body ? In a typical bevel up shoulder / bullnose the iron is inserted from the top, needing a big hole but on bevel down examples the iron can be inserted from below so a smaller hole for the wedge is required. So insert from below is better suited to wooden planes and stronger metal planes can be bevel up.
 
Yes on the plane body (why it's bevel down). I've had a couple of chinese ebony planes (the wood is a poreless wood that is some type of ebony, I don't know what - but it's not gabon - it's something stronger).

It still wouldn't tolerate being cut at 20 degrees. pressure from the wedge would just cause the bed to deflect.

Clearance may be difficult with that bed if the iron is high speed steel (sometimes it is, sometimes they're a really hard carbon steel iron).

Nonetheless, you couldn't find the quality of ebony that they use for the price they charge for the plane. The (big, like 50mm equivalent of a primus smoother) euro smoother copies used to sell in ebony for about $59, and the wood was super choice.

I thought they'd stopped making these planes out of ebony because it's in short supply there. Shungee rosewood (the porous pinkish red stuff) is common and more easily supplied, and is a good wood aside from the fact that it's not very pretty.

I suspect that the size and the shape of the body has something to do with how it's used in china (one handed, standing from behind rather than astride, and probably pulling), and using it as a rabbet plane may not be that great, or it may be pretty good. There will be some chatter due to the type of iron and the fit of the wedge, but it probably won't be destructive chatter. Don't be afraid to use it the way it was designed (standing in front of it and pulling it toward you).

Every iron or chisel that I've gotten from china, be it HSS or carbon steel, has been good - so no matter how this goes, you're not out. You'll have a good iron, a good plane body, or both.
 
I've been looking to buy a shoulder plane for a while but I would never buy chinese made one, for many reasons.
 
Don't understand that Osvaldd, plenty of bargains on ebay.

Bought 2 old rebates recently with great mouths and one turned out to be a Towell for £25 each and I pushed the boat out for a Slater shoulder at £50.

You can easily pick up a decent unbranded shoulder for £30 ish
 
It's funny that here in the states, I'll buy stuff that you guys think is a horrible price - off of your ebay - then get them in over here at half of what they'd cost in the US.

I've found the chinese planes to have excusable errors sometimes, but nothing significant (excusable is a wedge that needs a little more fitting, or some stuff at the corners of a bench plane mouth that gets splintered off when you first use them).
 
I have no issue with Chinese imports-I accumulate pocket knives and the quality of Chinese is equal to USA made knives at 5 times the cost.

I bought one of the Harbor Freight cheap smoothers years back $14.00 American. I had one of my employees surface grind the sole flat and sides square (didn't much time at all), made a 1/4" blade for it, smoothed up surfaces, and I figured total cost for all materials and time (mine included), I had about $80.00 total in the plane, including purchase price.

What did I end up with? A plane that easily took .001" shavings. I did give it away as a gift, along with a lesson in sharpening.
 
Well I have an issue, a moral issue. All these manufacturing plants that Europeans/Americans exported to the far east so that the big cats could have bigger profits? You OK with that? And buying directly from China their cheap, GOVERNMENT SUBSIDISED, tax free stuff is doing what exactly to our own manufacturing, big or small? How do you compete with that?
 
Problem solved Osvaldd, introducing Clifton planes, made in Sheffield

https://www.flinn-garlick-saws.co.uk/cg ... ml#SID=454

and a spare iron will cost you more than this Chinese plane at £15.12

Easy to avoid Chinese stuff if you are into woodwork but the rest of your life not so easy. Where was your computer, tv, or mobile made ?

Most of my woodworking kit is 2nd hand, buying them says a fortune but it does nothing for British manufacturing , except fill the pockets of tax avoiding ebay and for all I know the ebay seller is saving for a new iphone
 
It wasn’t meant as an insult to you, Mr_Pea or Tony Zaffuto or anyone else buying things from china. It is impossible to avoid it in this globalised world, the computer I’m typing this on was made there. But I wish it wasn’t. My point simply is that we used to manufacture things right here in our own backyards, by our own people who knew what they were doing and were competing to make better products rather than on price. Yes things cost more, but somehow people still were able to afford them.
Morning rant over. cheers.
 
Think everyone reading this agrees with you and wishes we could buy brand new Ward chisels of the quality of yesteryear.

Still think plane manufactures wherever they are will struggle

Rapier no 4 = almost worthless, my goto plane when dealing with reclaimed timber until i'm sure its nail free. Plus happy to lend to pesky neighbours.

Stan and Rec 4, I've a got few. easy to fettle and pick up for £20ish

Brand new alternatives, aye curamba no thanks to the lot of them

Quangsheng no. 4 = £134.50 (out of stock at W.heaven)
Clifton no.4 = £300
Axminster Rider no 4 = £90
LN no 4 = £297.95 - £346.96
 
OK, for disclosure purposes, I own a powder metal parts manufacturing plant, and export throughout the world. My son in law's family owns a multi-plant manufacturing company, also exporting throughout the world. About a decade ago, I got into a long discussion with my SIL's father about their manufacturing overseas (he was CEO at the time, now my SIL is). As he explained it, he had two choices: either sell overseas/develop manufacture overseas, or foreign nationals will purchase domestic goods and reverse engineer & set up their own manufacturing overseas. With selling/manufacturing, at leadt they could control part of the process. In any case, it was going to happen.

In my case, my largest customers are foreign owned, Canada, Mexico or Japan based. In my industry, in the world, the EU is suffering the most by their restrictive trade policies (mainly automotive components). Those parts are on a slow drip relocation the the Americas, both North and South.

Now, for my US friends: those that condemn companies such as Dewalt for their imports may be surprised to learn that many, if not most components are domestically sourced and assembled outside the US (I make some components their battery tools).

Anger should not be towards the people, products or location, but rather at the various government's trade policies. From China, I have some very fine tube stereo high fidelity components, that US makers would have a hard time matching at ten times the cost. Now, bear in mind the cost of these items was higher than commonly available components, but I'm talking of the high end market. We're seeing the same thing with handplanes, such as the Woodriver/Quansheng versus LN. I am stating away from patent infringement copies, such as out and out copies of some of the fine LV tools, that has happened.
 
Osvaldd":1mjwwzu0 said:
Well I have an issue, a moral issue. All these manufacturing plants that Europeans/Americans exported to the far east so that the big cats could have bigger profits? You OK with that? And buying directly from China their cheap, GOVERNMENT SUBSIDISED, tax free stuff is doing what exactly to our own manufacturing, big or small? How do you compete with that?

You go up market. Anywhere in the world other than a completely isolationist country, if you try to do the same thing you always did, someone else will eat your lunch. England got far early on importing technology from continental europe, and probably some from asia. The US did it importing (and improving in some cases) on stuff from England and continental europe.

If you want to stay around making the same thing at the same price while the same thing goes for less and less and less, then you have to have a relationship type business where you can convince customers to pay for something other than hard value.

That's a tough road.

That's separate and aside from someone who is just ripping off a trademarked or patented product, but the plane we're talking about here is a chinese design. We even have a high-quality australian maker who copies chinese planes, and it's gone so far (the notion that nobody is allowed to make something in the second or third world that we buy) that I've seen accusations that a chinese maker making traditional planes has somehow copied the australian maker who copied the chinese planes in the first place.

That said, I have no qualms at all if someone decides only to purchase locally made goods, or invests only according to their principles. As long as they don't feel that I should be obligated to do the same as them when there's no issue of legality involved.
 
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