I can't remember. The couple of times he's been here, it's like finding a long lost older brother who is a lot deeper than you are (you being me), but I think he may have been a little surprised to see the amount of activity and wares here from it, too. You never know if people are just making things up on the internet.
I learned that warren really is what he says even though I fairly rudely picked at him trying to get him to prove it before and share some work. It's his business as to why he doesn't want to share it, but a large part of it is well over my head and well over the head of anything I've ever seen on here (think fine work combined with carving that only a professional carver could do).
We did look over some planes and some chisels - but I just don't remember if I got into the minutiae of the cap iron in a try plane vs. a smoother. I roll the tip of my smoother a little less steep than warren does probably, but there's also unlikely to be that much difference otherwise. He mentioned that at one point, he was doing client work with something intolerant and added a tiny bit of steepness (hopefully that doesn't lack precision - warren's description of things is *precise*, there's not much willy nilly anything) and that allowed the plane to get through it and that was the end of that. But the profile he's talking about has relief up from the initial point quickly so that wasted work isn't done.
He feels like my planes are heavy a pound or two, which I already knew, but I don't think he had any objection to anything here other than he doesn't waste money on tools and have six of anything. I will have a current user, but travel into the basement and dig out five more of the same thing that are on hand for a reason other than current use - like comparing cap irons of all of them, which would sound like a waste of time, but it yet again, illuminates why the mature versions of the better companies were made the way they are.
I know it wears people out when I talk about being very deep in plane design and generally looking deeper than most people, and being pretty impatient when someone attempts to "learn me up" about something basic, but I kind of take the tool thing as being important like someone who makes mostly furniture would have their preferences and it wouldn't just be superficial things.
I also expect that most people won't care about almost all of the things that i find - I got past the point of thinking I should only look at things others would find useful in terms of wider consensus.
The intersection with what warren has learned and done is rewarding, though. I just don't process information as well as other people do and I really need to be in the soup. Warren is a combination of encyclopedic, detail oriented and mentally organized that I won't have.
He's nicer than me, too, but I did apologize about being hard on him and pushing him for information when explaining why. maybe the same thing would happen if Derek ever visited, too. I'd certainly have him in the shop without reservation. There'd be no great reason to come to Pittsburgh unless Rob Lee was here for an Ottawa Senators game, though.
