Clifton, Veritas or Lie Neilsen ?

[big soft moose]

Unfortunately these arent for me but for work - with us shortly moving to a new 'shop i have decided that the time has come to upgrade our crappy chinese planes and as the budget will stand it at the momnt i am looking at buying a quality marque.

the basic purchase will be a no.6 or 7 as we are largely working big things like signs, gates, benches etc plus i might get a 4 for shooting the ends of tenons etc

question is which make ?

I know the reasons for picking these three collectively over stanley/quasheng/axminster etc but how do i choose between them ?

my instinct is to go with clifton on the basis of their being british made but i want to be sure their isnt a good reason i should choose veritas or LN instead

all input welcome

 

[wizer]

In all honesty, in your situation, QuangSheng.

If you insist on spending money for no reason then there's not much in the top three. I'd keep it British if I had to make a decision.

 

[big soft moose]

In all honesty, in your situation, QuangSheng.

Under normal circumstances you'd be right and we may yet go that way - but year end is coming up and if the money's in the budget I may as well spend it on some quality tooling that's going to last

the other problem with going quansheng is that our host council operates a preffered vendor system - so we can buy from axminster (who are on the system) no problem , but cant easily buy from matthew (who isnt) without a lot of faffing arround.

so we then only have a choice of the axminster own brand, stanley, or the quality three, and given the poor comments here on the new stanleys...

 

[Max Power]

Why would you choose anything other than the cliffie. The blades are a pleasure to sharpen and take an edge better than a surgeons scalpel, they are by far the nicest looking with that lovely british racing green and did someone mention they are made in Britain. \/

 

[Paul Chapman]

Clifton every time 8)

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Max Power]

Wizer , why would bsm buy quangsh*** when hes getting it paid for ?

 

[WellsWood]

In all honesty, in your situation, QuangSheng.

Under normal circumstances you'd be right and we may yet go that way - but year end is coming up and if the money's in the budget I may as well spend it on some quality tooling that's going to last

the other problem with going quansheng is that our host council operates a preffered vendor system - so we can buy from axminster (who are on the system) no problem , but cant easily buy from matthew (who isnt) without a lot of faffing arround.

so we then only have a choice of the axminster own brand, stanley, or the quality three, and given the poor comments here on the new stanleys...

Clifton then, unless you have a particular need for the low angle stuff that Veritas excel at (but at a price). They're every bit as good as the murrican stuff IMO, are a damn site easier to sharpen, have astonishingly good after sales service, are cheaper, and British. It's a no brainer.

 

[big soft moose]

Wizer , why would bsm buy quangs**** when hes getting it paid for ?

I think tom was probably saying that as the tools in question are going to get use , and possibly abused, by a variety of different people (workshop volunteers etc) and that they would be used on gates, benches, signs etc not on fine furniture - then spending two hundred notes plus would be unnecessary

and like i said he's possibly right at that - but ive got no easy way of buying from mathew with work money.

btw - these tools will be staying in the workshop , we will keep the cheap tat we are currently using for use on out site , tho will eventually replace it with old stanleys or similar.

 

[Max Power]

rule brittania ,britannia rules the planes

 

[wizer]

Wizer , why would bsm buy quangsh*** when hes getting it paid for ?

Because QS planes are very good, but cheap too. They're going to be used for rough-ish work by many workers. It doesn't matter that the company are paying (a charity I believe), I'd still wince every time someone who didn't appreciate their value picked it up or looked like they might drop it. With a QS plane you know the price is much lower and easier replaced.

But if they can't be procured easily, then Clifton, 100%

 

[big soft moose]

Wizer , why would bsm buy quangsh*** when hes getting it paid for ?

Because QS planes are very good, but cheap too. They're going to be used for rough-ish work by many workers. It doesn't matter that the company are paying (a charity I believe), I'd still wince every time someone who didn't appreciate their value picked it up or looked like they might drop it. With a QS plane you know the price is much lower and easier replaced.

But if they can't be procured easily, then Clifton, 100%

I think i can probably educate my guys to be careful, which might be easier with expensive kit - after all we have thousands of pounds worth of mower and chainsaw kit in use every week and it doesn't often get damaged negligently.

I'm not knocking the QS kit - if matthew was a "preffered vendor" i'd probably go with them - but as he isn't it looks like we'll be buying clifton.

But i'll be buying a QS no.6 for my own use as i don't run to the cliff prices out of my own pocket.

edit : btw we aren't a charity , we are a not for profit project principally funded by natural england and highway authorities , so we probably fall in the Quango classification.

 

[woodbloke]

Wizer , why would bsm buy quangsh*** when hes getting it paid for ?

Because QS planes are very good, but cheap too. They're going to be used for rough-ish work by many workers. It doesn't matter that the company are paying (a charity I believe), I'd still wince every time someone who didn't appreciate their value picked it up or looked like they might drop it. With a QS plane you know the price is much lower and easier replaced.

But if they can't be procured easily, then Clifton, 100%

I'd go with Tom here. If the planes are going to be used as general workshop planes by a lot of bodies, the QS planes could be abused at a much more affordable price...plus for one Cliffie you might be able to get two of the equivalent sized planes from Matthew.
Again, if arms can't be twisted to buy from WH, then the Cliffie route is the only one to go down
You might find also bsm, that the Cliffie's disappear into the back of someone else's waggon for weekend 'homers' :wink: - Rob

 

[neilc]

My own weakness is Veritas, love the bevel ups.
Neil

 

[OPJ]

I'm sure there's a video somewhere where someone drops a Clifton plane from the top of a stepladder directly on to a concrete floor... It doesn't crack, snap, break or anything like that! I can't imagine the Quangsheng planes would stand up to as-much abuse...

(Okay, I don't remember seeing the video but I did read about in one of the magazines a couple of years ago - probably Good Woodorking on one of their visits to Clico... Andy?)

Buy British! :wink:

 

[Paul Chapman]

I'm sure there's a video somewhere where someone drops a Clifton plane from the top of a stepladder directly on to a concrete floor... It doesn't crack, snap, break or anything like that! I can't imagine the Quangsheng planes would stand up to as-much abuse...

(Okay, I don't remember seeing the video but I did read about in one of the magazines a couple of years ago - probably Good Woodorking on one of their visits to Clico... Andy?)

Buy British! :wink:

Hi Olly,

I've a copy of that DVD. Mike Hudson from Clifton gave me a copy. Yes, they dropped a #7 body from 20 feet onto a concrete floor and it didn't break. Quite impressive.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[big soft moose]

You might find also bsm, that the Cliffie's disappear into the back of someone else's waggon for weekend 'homers' :wink: - Rob

thaty thought has occured to me - but given that i'm in charge of the tasks nothing will be leaving the 'shop without my say so

course there's a strong possibility of it "accidentally" falling into my car and coming home with me

 

[Modernist]

Why do I always seem to swim against the tide?

I would hate to see quality kit like Cliftons being subject to general, all comers, workshop use unless the users were trained to appreciate them. If not the inevitable consequence is that they are abused and suffer accordingly. Waste of a fine plane.

Similarly the other big 2 are out so that leaves QS which would suit the application perfectly and save some of the gov's (our) cash to boot whilst having no detrimental effect on the production of gates.

I speak as an enthusiatic plane user with LN, Veritas and QS highlighting a collection of Records and Stanleys. Regretfully no Cliffie yet but my new QS No 6 arrives tomorrow a typical case where I could not justify the treble price for a top end plane as this will be used for general joinery rather than precision finishing work.

 

[big soft moose]

Similarly the other big 2 are out so that leaves QS which would suit the application perfectly and save some of the gov's (our) cash to boot whilst having no detrimental effect on the production of gates.

.

you are right to an extent - but as i explained above procurement policy means that we cant easily buy from workshop heaven.

pretty much this means that whatever we purchase has to come from the axminster catalogue (or screwfix but seriously...) which in turn means that if the big 3 are out we have a choice of either the axminster own brand or the new stanley

and given that both of these get awful reviews i don't see it as a good use of taxpayer/council tax payers cash to spend it on something that wont do the job propperly, or last a decent length of time.

Therefore the rationale is that its better to spend a couple of hundred notes on a clifton 6 than it is to spend 85 on the stanley or 45 on the axi only to wind up replacing them in a couple of years time or less.

Also just to explain about the workshop volunteers, we aren't talking about any tom, dick, or susan coming off the street to use these tools - our workshop volunteers are a smallish bunch of on the whole quite skilled peeps who are largely hobby woodworkers or ex proffesionals - all of whom are trained in how to use the kit we have and supervised by either myself or my sidekick andy (who is an ex boat builder)

also given that these folks are giving up their leisure time to help us and save us money i cant help feeling that it would be disrespectful to give them second rate kit to use.

 

[Modernist]

I don't think anyone is going to suggest a Stanley, not a new one anyway.

If the users appreciate them then fine, win win etc.

Your purchasing policy is a classic example of bureaucratic meddling resulting in a negative result and the reason I have to work in the private sector (for myself) I wring someones neck if I were in your position.

 

[wizer]

Surely there must be something in the Dakota line you can procure...

:-#