Please teach me about planes

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Does George know that everybody is talking about him?
Or Paul Sellers ditto?
I think Paul does a good job though he's a bit crapat morticing by hand.
 
Where might we see George's harpsichords?

They are played at williamsburg by professional players. I would imagine some of the spinets have worn out as they are not made of metal and plastic.

I asked him at one point what they do with all of the instruments that were made at the instrument shop, naively thinking that they were made in a period manner but may not be that good. that is how I know where they ended up (in symphonies, and probably a few of the well heeled donors bought them). They would be sold as williamsburg violins and would have his name on the insides. I don't think you'll find "george wilson violins" for sale.

Maybe some people feel slighted by the idea that a fine maker's wares end up being sold to professionals and collectors and never really show up on ebay or on a site push marketed.
 
Nobody feels slighted in the least.

The litmus test for a maker of musical instruments surely must be who plays them. There must be one or two names that could be offered up.

I just went to the Colonial Williamsburg site and searched the word "orchestra" and got zero results.

Earlier in this thread I posted some names and web addresses of makers of harpsichords. Can you provide a photo of one harpsichord made by George Wilson that's the equal or better of any of them? We'll have to go by looks, because we obviously can't hear how they sound.

If they made them every year in the instrument shop, how many in a year I have no idea, surely there's somebody that can vouch for one who's actually seen one, if not played one, and possibly still owns one.

Frankly surprised by your own apparent lack of curiosity.
 
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Well, offer up an English fine maker. We don't know who they are here in the states.
That's not why I made the comment, David. There are many well respected makers from the UK, either historically or still living. I'm not going to start putting any names up for comparison with anyone from North America. This thread started as someone wanting to learn about planes. There was interesting stuff said, even if there was the usual bickering between, mostly, yourself and Jacob. To be honest I usually find the toing and froing between you and Jacob both entertaining and contains useful stuff for those that want to learn.

Then it all got tiresome, and so I said so.

I have a self-imposed policy of generally keeping away from sharpening and 'how to use a plane' threads. I just can't be *rsed to get up the energy to deal with the circularity of the arguments, all the nitpicking and the acrimony that usually develops if I were to add my own comments and suggestions. Slainte.
 
Love how threads like this go on tangents if the op skips between the lines there is some good info just takes a lot of skipping
 
That's not why I made the comment, David. There are many well respected makers from the UK, either historically or still living. I'm not going to start putting any names up for comparison with anyone from North America. This thread started as someone wanting to learn about planes. There was interesting stuff said, even if there was the usual bickering between, mostly, yourself and Jacob. To be honest I usually find the toing and froing between you and Jacob both entertaining and contains useful stuff for those that want to learn.

Then it all got tiresome, and so I said so.

I have a self-imposed policy of generally keeping away from sharpening and 'how to use a plane' threads. I just can't be *rsed to get up the energy to deal with the circularity of the arguments, all the nitpicking and the acrimony that usually develops if I were to add my own comments and suggestions. Slainte.

I'd love to give answers like "take the double iron jack and try plane from nicholson and then add the jointer and smoother from stanley or record without the SS on record and you have the planes you'd need for a lifetime".

Nobody seems to like those answers. Are they too easy? Jacob's not in this conversation unless something bumped him. part of the question about really world class makers is curiosity, but just as with the mention of George, it doesn't really go anywhere, and didn't even when he was present. "you're not that good!" People are generally looking to win, and not to learn or discern. You are in a no-win situation if you do mention some actual makers, though, because you've got a stake in having made things for the actual market there. I understand that.
 
This fellow should have been on my list. Apologies for the oversight:

Robert Deegan Harpsichords, Lancaster. Link not posting correctly though a search will bring the site right up.
 
Nobody feels slighted in the least.

The litmus test for a maker of musical instruments surely must be who plays them. There must be one or two names that could be offered up.

I just went to the Colonial Williamsburg site and searched the word "orchestra" and got zero results.

Earlier in this thread I posted some names and web addresses of makers of harpsichords. Can you provide a photo of one harpsichord made by George Wilson that's the equal or better of any of them? We'll have to go by looks, because we obviously can't hear how they sound.

If they made them every year in the instrument shop, how many in a year I have no idea, surely there's somebody that can vouch for one who's actually seen one, if not played one, and possibly still owns one.

Frankly surprised by your own apparent lack of curiosity.

OK, so you're not famliar with williamsburg. But I see a pattern, and I'll bet you are. I suspect the mods might find that your connection doesn't originate from cardiff.
 
you're better off getting a nearly flawless older wooden plane. I'd be happy to help you select one as I've had *a lot* of them, fixed a lot of them and made a bunch.

There are so many excellent older planes there that sometimes don't even need wedge fiddling - we are jealous here. The cost of materials for me to build a good plane is $100, and the cost of a superb plane there is sometimes half as much and a "good" one, less.

I noted that you mentioned that you're a carver and have done other sizing. If I thought you were a beginner with a 1/20 chance of following your curiosity, I wouldn't have replied - hate to say it, but the conversion rate for people who are just starting out is *very low*. But you know enough to pick this right up, easily.
 
Cosman has been doing this for a few years, a partially prepared setup but most of the stuff (what's not a comercial) is still on the fly,
I'd personally prefer it applied to a project, as I see some slight neglect compared to earlier videos in order to make the video.
Might as well show your best if doing a video IMO
whether that be regarding a precision aspect, or indeed to demonstrate effort.
His vids are too long. After "welcome to my shaaarp" and 5 minutes of not getting to the point I lose interest, so I've never really found out what he's on about, except he's obviously another extreme fusspot!
 
No it's easy. Just skip past every post that has a green square with a D in it. :D
You can do it automatically if you press the ignore button. Suddenly all is peace and light! And the thread reduced by two thirds!

Richard Maguire does good vids of cap iron adjusting
https://www.theenglishwoodworker.com/cap-irons-tear-out-video/A bit too long so I haven't watched them through.
You'd have to be pretty dedicated if you were going to hand plane a whole table top of difficult wood. One false move and you'd have to plane the whole top again.
Maybe I'll have another go one day!
 
His vids are too long. After "welcome to my shaaarp" and 5 minutes of not getting to the point I lose interest, so I've never really found out what he's on about, except he's obviously another extreme fusspot!
Cosman is a bit hard to pigeonhole,

On one hand it's straight off the saw for his DT's, no pairing walls kinda thing,
Good marketing if you're selling saws, and honest precise work
So were on a good level there regarding skill

Then there's the planing, with a cap iron which is only half working
as there's money to be made selling uber expensive stones which likely give a better edge than most folks methods, which is what one might expect with the price of them.
So not going to get an equally skilled show on that front.

I tried to find you someone to demonstrate trad style which I could say looked even half speedy or even traditional
in a rough to ready, I thought Klausz's old Taunton productions video was on youtube but is elsewhere.

You may have seen it 20 years ago on VHS or whatever.
Evidently Frank was unaware of the use of the cap iron, and had no qualms at the time
saying something along the lines of my imagined phrase in Hungarian accent ...
that's the best you're going to get with this vood, now we scrape...

Good that we have some honesty here, I can find the above clip and screenshot

Fact is, someone who uses the cap iron will plane differently,
and can plane in rows once flat, regardless of grain.
So both David's opinions aren't far off the mark in my view.

I like the surety of using the bench as reference, which might sound a bit strange to some, although there might not be videos of that per se, (although Charlesworth and Cosman hinted at the use of it as such)
the natural progression of that is to take from this what one can get, as the bench says so, compared to using skill.

Horses for courses for me, as I intend to be doing more difficult planing tasks
down the road like thicknessing instrument timbers
so I don't think I'll ever change my ways, as there's no way to plane thin stuff like that
honestly without having flat surfaces, should I decide buy timber which wasn't surfaced on the underside beforehand.

That's not even mentioning removing the super tough finish off timbers, like on a recent thread
I would think that might make an extremely noticeable difference compared to
doing things "traditionally"
as I have the same cynical view about those old books, as the older folks have about youtubers today.
The difference is we can put our money where our mouth is today.

Not saying the old methods wern't valid, but perhaps it's all bias
in favour of the work, take Follansbee's knocking off the inside corners to denote
face side or whatever reason he does this,
That coulda been the done thing, and then the same principals carried over into the new era of spindle moulders, never mind the far face/edge kinda thing.

Horses for courses IMO, and yer all wrong except Charlesworth
as he's the only one I've ever seen who doesn't have bad habits.
:)

Still though kudos to D_W for taking Warren Mickley's advice when everyone thought he was just a troll having a laugh.
That David wasn't afraid to try, and thankfully was thick skinned enough to
relay this information on the forums without tiring,
whilst putting his money where his mouth is at the same time.

Tom
 
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You can do it automatically if you press the ignore button. Suddenly all is peace and light! And the thread reduced by two thirds!

Richard Maguire does good vids of cap iron adjusting
https://www.theenglishwoodworker.com/cap-irons-tear-out-video/A bit too long so I haven't watched them through.
You'd have to be pretty dedicated if you were going to hand plane a whole table top of difficult wood. One false move and you'd have to plane the whole top again.
Maybe I'll have another go one day!

When you set the cap, there is no false move.

There's no false move planing the table to flat, either.

Telling people that this isn't possible or even likely with fairly little adjustment is just giving bad information.

My bench is alternating ash boards, none picked for grain direction, and advertised as FAS, but doesn't really meet that standard. I don't remember a thing about planing it other than I couldn't quite get the top smoothed with one sharpening of a round-topped stanley iron (the soft ones).

The fact that few seem to know this just suggests people generally don't know how to plane and will go to sanders too quickly. It must not matter because the last robust discussion of it that I found, like accurate, is holtzapffel in 1875. I found that recently, though. The whole thing was pretty easy to figure out if you just don't pick up a sander or scraper and you make yourself learn it for a week.
 
Your humility in itself is a lesson to all of us ...

My dad had a statement for false humility. When someone would talk and try to sound humble, he would say "me so humble...me so humble!" as meekly as he could. I try to be honest instead.

And I hope someone will prove me wrong so that I can learn more.
 
.....

I like the surety of using the bench as reference,
I prefer the eyeball.
which might sound a bit strange to some,
It does!
although there might not be videos of that per se, (although Charlesworth and Cosman hinted at the use of it as such)
They do!
....
as I have the same cynical view about those old books,
You shouldn't have. They were written in the age of wood when it was a major industry at every level throughout the world, with all traditions alive and well. Most of the modern stuff looks foolish in comparison.
....
in favour of the work, take Follansbee's knocking off the inside corners to denote
face side or whatever reason he does this,
I've no idea what that is about. Is there a vid?
Found it tills he knocks away the corners so the till lid can lift. No mystery at all.
 

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