dchenard
Established Member
That's the problem... With experience one can make an old plane sing, but without it you're kind of doomed, unless you know someone that can put you through the paces. Unless you know what a tuned plane can do you run the risk of getting lousy results and abandon hand planes altogether. And that would be a crying shame...
This is where a plane like the LV Low Angle Jack really shines. Immensely versatile, and all it needs is a quick honing of the iron to work beautifully. Once you know how a good plane works, then you can try older and/or cheaper planes and find out what you can get from them, having already a baseline to compare against.
Case in point, I have a couple Award #4 (from India) in my tool chest. I bought them new for about 10 pounds (depending on the exchange rate at the time), and managed to fettle them well enough to plane bird's eye maple without tearout (actually they didn't require much work). They don't feel as good in use as my Low Angle Jack, but they're perfectly useable.
Someone once said that a plane is just a jig to hold a chisel in place. Expensive planes such as those from LV and LN are both very good jigs holding very good chisels. Cheaper or older planes don't necessarily have both features, and unless you can determine the one that needs work you might end up deciding that planes aren't worth the trouble and use sandpaper :shock: Try to avoid that :wink:
HTH,
DC
This is where a plane like the LV Low Angle Jack really shines. Immensely versatile, and all it needs is a quick honing of the iron to work beautifully. Once you know how a good plane works, then you can try older and/or cheaper planes and find out what you can get from them, having already a baseline to compare against.
Case in point, I have a couple Award #4 (from India) in my tool chest. I bought them new for about 10 pounds (depending on the exchange rate at the time), and managed to fettle them well enough to plane bird's eye maple without tearout (actually they didn't require much work). They don't feel as good in use as my Low Angle Jack, but they're perfectly useable.
Someone once said that a plane is just a jig to hold a chisel in place. Expensive planes such as those from LV and LN are both very good jigs holding very good chisels. Cheaper or older planes don't necessarily have both features, and unless you can determine the one that needs work you might end up deciding that planes aren't worth the trouble and use sandpaper :shock: Try to avoid that :wink:
HTH,
DC
