new planes

[lurcher]

well i was pondering if the new lv and other plane makes are so good and the chisels why do so many people still want to buy and use the old 1s
i have just got a woden no7 record 5.1/2 marples no5 3 woodies 2 no 4s and an anant rebate plane for £44.00 all very good tools i have started to collect and use marples planes as i think they offer very good value for money also a little thicker casting over stanley and record also a thicker cap iron theese planes do perform as well as my new stanley b/u jackplane
and they seem so muuch more tactile

 

[Graham Orm]

Did you say all that in one breath lurcher? I think the answer to the question hidden in there somewhere is that older planes well fettled work just as well as new very expensive planes. This is why people still buy them.
Sounds like you got a bargain!!

 

[lurcher]

i do look hard to find my tools last wk 25 tools £25.00 from ebay 10 moulding planes 7 spokshaves 8 chiels .
i just find that the marketing of the new tools is that you must have it to do the work i no its only hard sell but please a little more honesty .
i find that my old tools work just as good good as some £300.00 plane god thats alot to knock of the bench it hurts to think about it.
or maybe its the frugal yorkshireman that i am taking over .
new woodworkers have so much choice today

 

[marcros]

i drove to work in my 23 year old landie today. A new range rover would have done the same journey equally as well. The range rover would tie up a lot of my money sat there depreciating whilst i was at work. but people still choose to buy them. you pay your money and take your choice.

 

[dunbarhamlin]

Yup. With changed circumstances and the necessary skills in place there are very few* tools I'd feel I had to replace with high value new ones if the need arose.

* Sliding bevel a Vesper, panel plane a Clifton #6 and a couple of Liogier/Auriou rasps would do the trick. Everything else could be vintage, budget or shop made.

 

[jimi43]

I like old tools. They are cheap, good quality, fun to restore and generally better than most things on the market now.

Punctuation was better too in those days. :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :wink:

Don't worry...I have a lurcher cross and he whizzes about all over the place, sleeps upside down and is generally bonkers. (only joshing with you!).

Jim

 

[Vann]

Punctuation was better too in those days. :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :wink:

Agreed, Toby's punctuation is his weakness.

His strength though, seems to be finding e-bay bargains (in spite of his "Gutted" thread). (hammer) Cheers Toby :mrgreen:

Vann .

 

[RossJarvis]

well i was pondering if the new lv and other plane makes are so good and the chisels why do so many people still want to buy and use the old 1s

The simple answer to that question is that the old ones tend to be a lot cheaper for the same or similar quality. I bought a Record 5 1/2 in 1988 and it was £56, today that would be about £130. I could probably get an identical one for less than I paid originally, off ebay, but it would have to be of the same age or older to be as good. It's probably just as good as the modern expensive ones. It would also take a while to find one in the same condition, I wouldn't be able to go into a shop and buy it off the shelf.

I don't think that the LN, Clifton or Veritas are necessarily better or much better than standard planes were, back when the mass market ones were made properly, but they are better than most, if not all of the mass market ones available today. The reason these "boutique" planes came into existence is because the market changed, the demand for hand planes fell massively, labour in the UK and America increased in cost, meaning that decent new planes, requiring no fettling disappeared. When it comes to chisels, some people tend to prefer the older tool steels which aren't available any more. I think the reason is that they sharpen better and hold a sharp edge longer, however they don't take as much abuse as modern alloy steels will.

If you think of the cost of a LN or similar plane today, it is actually similar to the price of a Stanley or Record in the first half of the last century, if not cheaper. I've heard it said that then, a woodworker would probably pay at least a weeks wages on a plane.

Maybe that answers the question, unless it was rhetorical!