Tote Sport

[condeesteso]

Interesting that to my knowledge over all these years, LV have kept that tote shape. Yet I don't hear of anyone liking it. From an engineering p.o.v., look at the line of force above. The standard wants to push forward, Mike's wants to push fore and down, right along the line to where the cutter is. LV seem quite fastidious in all they do, so is there a reason for their tote that I don't know?

 

[Alf]

They did change it slightly a while back, arguably slightly for the worse - the ever-thorough and much-missed on the fora, Lyn Mangiameli went into it at length at the time. I think the power drill grip is the most telling comment therein - the Veritas R&D elves are geniuses in many respects, but in this case I think they have a terrible blind spot. Derek has, iirc, recent technical explanation on why it's actually a piece of design marvel and the rest of us are poor fools who just haven't evolved enough (I may have made that latter bit up... ), which he'll hopefully pop up with.

 

[Paul Chapman]

I think the ideal shape of the tote depends a lot on the height of your workbench. With the increase in the use of power tools in recent years, I think people tend to use higher benches. With a high bench, I think the Veritas-style tote isn't so bad. It's when you do a lot of planing on a lower bench that the Record/Stanley-style tote is much to be preferred. My bench is quite low.

Having said all that, I use Record, Clifton and Veritas bench planes and the totes on all three are different. Over the years have got used to them all, to the extent that none of them bothers me much.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Mike Wingate]

To solve the problem of different plane totes. i make my own and install them on my planes, so one feels just like another.

 

[Harbo]

Cricky that's a production line?

They look good.

Rod

 

[Mike Wingate]

Thanks, they look even better on the planes. Here's a No.3 with a QS blade and chipbreaker.

 

[condeesteso]

something crops up here for me - the article about tote shape (Lynn was it?) and using modeling clay to discover the approximation to an ideal shape. I could apply that to a chisel, a saw ... the perfect fried egg sarnie. Needs investigating more.