# Lie Nielsen tools



## SMALMALEKI (20 Mar 2022)

I have noticed there is a severe supply problem with Lie Nielsen tolls. Now Axminster website has marked them as unlikely to receive any more supply.
Is it the end of the Lie Nielsen market in the Uk?
Does anyone have any idea?

Cheers


----------



## Adam W. (20 Mar 2022)

Classic hand tools have some stuff. 

What is it you're after ?


----------



## SMALMALEKI (20 Mar 2022)

I was after a shoulder plane and would love to have one of their jointer planes in the workshop.


----------



## Adam W. (20 Mar 2022)

I have a LN shoulder plane which I was thinking of selling and I also have a LN No.5 which might need a new home.

I also have a No.8, but that has a scratched sole, so I might just hold on to it.


----------



## SMALMALEKI (20 Mar 2022)

Adam W. said:


> I have a LN shoulder plane which I was thinking of selling and I also have a LN No.5 which might need a new home.


Hi Adam 

I have a shooting Board right-handed version 51 and a 5.5 jack plane in my toolbox. Thank you for the offer though.


----------



## Yorkieguy (20 Mar 2022)

From Lie Nielsen's website on tool availability:

Tool Availability Lie-Nielsen Toolworks


----------



## SMALMALEKI (20 Mar 2022)

Yorkieguy said:


> From Lie Nielsen's website on tool availability:
> 
> Tool Availability Lie-Nielsen Toolworks


Thank you for the link. The fact that Axi is stating they are unlikely to receive any supply is worrying.


----------



## MikeK (20 Mar 2022)

With one exception, all of my planes are Lie Nielsen. The only plane that isn't is my Veritas medium shoulder plane. I compared the Veritas to the LN on one of my trips back to the States and preferred the feel of the Veritas. I really wanted to like the LN version, but I bought the Veritas with the PM-V11 blade.

The Veritas is in stock at Classic Hand tools:









Veritas Medium Shoulder Plane + PM-V11 Blade


The shoulder plane (a specialized rebate plane) is the ultimate tool for trimming a joint to a perfect fit. There is no better plane for trimming the shoulder of a tenon to perfection or for rebating work. The Veritas® medium shoulder plane is...




www.classichandtools.com


----------



## Devmeister (21 Mar 2022)

I am beginning to worry about this. I have been after two planes. The 5.5 jack and the 51 shooting plane. Scan the website almost daily.

They did complete a small number of 5.5 planes and I ordered one almost immediately even though my name had been on the waiting lists. I never got the email. I did receive the 5.5 however. It took several months of this to get that plane.

I am still in limbo regarding the 51 plane.

Last I checked, they had availability of the 60.5 block plane and a #5 jack plane, the smaller one.

According to their website, the showroom is closed. In talking to them, they stated that they are struggling to meet demand. They build tools in small batches and service the waiting list first which is longer than the batch run. As a result they are unable to build inventory.

I sincerely hope this is the case. I have also heard that they are having problems with the foundary supplying castings. Assuming this to be true, bear in mind that they may not get the bronze castings from the same foundary that they get the iron castings. I know I have not seen a bronze #4 available for quite some time. Also availability of the Sargent block plane is out of stock as well.

This situation has been going on for some time. COVID may be responsible for closing the showroom; however, where does that leave the front employees? I would imagine they are temporarily laid off.

Many planes have been discontinued such as the scraper planes and the number 1 plane and the 49 grooving plane. Most chisels are out of stock.

According to LN, they need to focus on building core planes to catch up with demand. Over the last three months, it has been virtually impossible to get even a bench plane. The shoulder planes are in the core definition.

The issue is that nothing much has been visable from the outside. I have my name on notification lists but have not been notified at all. My new 5.5 has a mid feb build date.

Either LN is building planes as fast as they can and the exit just as quickly or there is a greater more serious issue. I would imagine dealers like a axminster would have their name on the list and at least get a few of something.

If LN is not shipping planes, then it begs to ask the question how long this can continue as the holding costs are significant. I will say I am concerned.

Veritas represents a high end competitor and there are a number of low end competitors as well. Only time will answer this. In the interim some LN planes have sold used for stupid money.

Right now I would like to get a 51 as well as the fixed blade scraper and possibly a 49 TG plane. It’s crazy!


----------



## Blackswanwood (21 Mar 2022)

I hope it's not the case that LN are on their last legs. (Beautiful and quality tools undoubtedly but also a little over-hyped imho)

Clifton are a sometimes overlooked Sheffield based manufacturer for those wanting quality and/or to avoid feeding the Chinese economy.


----------



## Daniel2 (21 Mar 2022)

From what I've observed, Clifton also seem to be suffering from
a lack of "ready-to-ship" stock.


----------



## Blackswanwood (21 Mar 2022)

Daniel2 said:


> From what I've observed, Clifton also seem to be suffering from
> a lack of "ready-to-ship" stock.


They are indeed on some products however they are quoting likely timescales


----------



## Jameshow (21 Mar 2022)

Oh well will just have to use my faithful planes..


----------



## SMALMALEKI (21 Mar 2022)

Blackswanwood said:


> I hope it's not the case that LN are on their last legs. (Beautiful and quality tools undoubtedly but also a little over-hyped imho)
> 
> Clifton are a sometimes overlooked Sheffield based manufacturer for those wanting quality and/or to avoid feeding the Chinese economy.


The only problem with Clifton is their price. For Lie Nielsen, they are cheaper in the states but Clifton is asking for the premium price even before export duties and other costs. 
In mho, they should review their pricing strategy.


----------



## BucksDad (21 Mar 2022)

[Post removed]


----------



## SMALMALEKI (21 Mar 2022)

BucksDad said:


> In their accounts filed last year, Thomas Flinn & Co (the makers of Clifton) had net assets of $350,000 (£270,000). Their corporation tax liability was £60k so approximates to £300,000 profit. Now you can't tell everything from a limited company accounts about the health of a business, but it implies to me they are not a massive business and there is no reason to lower prices - they can't afford it and can't meet demand either


I've seen their workshop and manufacturing facilities. 
It's a small company with limited capacity. They produce Clifton planes and lots of different hand saws. 
Covid lockdown caused an increased demand for hand tools and a reduction in manufacturing capacity. 
I prefer old Clifton tools better.


----------



## AJB Temple (21 Mar 2022)

It sounds like LN is ripe for an entrepreneurial take over to sort out their failure to meet demand. Good tools. So are Clifton.


----------



## Devmeister (21 Mar 2022)

I own one Clifton plane… a small shoulder plane.. the 410. It’s every bit as good as LN but not as sexy with no manganese bronze. But it’s at least 30 years old. There was a recent buyout of Clifton and I am not sure what that means.

The bench planes I looked into were finished out in green paint. Not sure if Clifton is still doing that these days. What I saw initially impressed me. If any folks in England could elaborate on this?

I also believe that Clifton planes are not based on the bed rock design. But I was not able to locate a ready source of these planes. Most UK eBay sellers do not ship to the states.

LN did update their website with a new explanation but in general all mentioned is still valid. Lots of stuff discontinued. Core planes broken into core tools and core 2 tools with emphasis on core tools with runs of core 2 tools on a space available basis.

The bronze #4 smother is discontinued pending issue resolution with bronze castings from the foundary. Not sure if they have a bronze issue across the board.

LN has for the most part kept true to the original designs. Shoulder planes are based on old record designs which were copied from Preston designs.

Vetitas like many modern infill makers as well, have set out to modernize the designs and find odd faults with the old designs where none existed. Veritas quality is first rate but they are indeed over hyped.

Finding tools made by the quality makers has been extremely problematic over the last year. Not just LN or Clifton. Everybody is sold out.


----------



## D_W (21 Mar 2022)

Here's a more realistic take on LN - they don't make that much profit and aren't going to overextend themselves to their detriment or the detriment of their employees. 

We saw this once before when woodcraft wanted to make demands about their production volume, etc, and guaranteeing supply. LN eventually expanded, but TLN made the comment about expanding in a sensible way. 

Some of this may be temporary, and some may not be temporary, but LN is in Maine in the US and their virtues aren't the same as other folks who want to grow real fast, extract as much as they can from a business and then either let it fail or sell as long as they got theirs. Maine is almost like stepping back in time 100 years in some ways once you get north of portland. Some of the hotels there still only take reservations over phone. 

The real problem here is that the money supply shot up over the last two years and the demand has, too. Realistically, if they have 80 or 90 employees and are selling what they make, a 10% increase in business puts a strain on supply. However, they go short on production and I'll bet demand around the entire world has doubled, but it may be temporary. The only way they can afford some bloated fast expansion with a nasty loan overhead is to raise prices significantly or decrease the cost of what they're making (import it). It's not the way things go in Maine. If it lasts a little while longer, they'll probably get bigger but not in a way that exposes them.


----------



## Blackswanwood (21 Mar 2022)

Devmeister said:


> The bench planes I looked into were finished out in green paint. Not sure if Clifton is still doing that these days. What I saw initially impressed me. If any folks in England could elaborate on this?



I believe Clifton were part of a small specialist engineering company in Sheffield called Clico who also made parts for the aviation industry. They either went under or sold Clifton to Thomas Flinn & Co who are a small saw maker that seemed to have re-established itself over the last ten years.

Broadly, the pre TF & Co planes were British racing green and the post ones are now black.


----------



## Craig22 (21 Mar 2022)

I have three green Clifton planes (4 1/2, 5 1/2 and 7), bought when they were doing an offer at a woodworking show I went to donkey's years ago. I've retrofitted Ron Hock blades, and they are a joy to use. And they are bedrock, and I think the TF ones are too.

I have four LN planes, back in the day that you could just buy them from Axminster. That is the small and medium shoulder planes, the low angle block plane, and the skew plane.

Alas hand tools in general are in poor supply shape. I've ended up with a few Chinese LN knock-offs (Quangsheng) Search results for: 'shop by brand quangsheng' and I have to say are stunning. Every bit as good as LN, IMHO.

I am very unsympathetic to LN's whinge that they are a small company and playing catch up. Their initial and not unreasonable position two years ago was very low staff numbers as a result of Covid. But alas there is no evidence that they ever will catch up now. Their lack of ability to supply has plain and simple squandered customer loyalty, plain and simple. It certainly has done mine.


----------



## Devmeister (21 Mar 2022)

Very good replys guys. It is true what has been said about Maine. One reason I am considering moving there.
During the last few administrations we saw gun control become an issue. Ammunition sales went crazy and folks bought everything before it even hit the shelf.

Olin who makes ammunition said that the recent sales boom was artificial and they didn’t want expand production due to market demand drop out. This makes perfect sense. LN prior to COVID bought four new CNC machines. Also they deal with a small family run iron foundary. I personally agree with the arguments relating to fast expansion and bank loans.

On another note, the Clifton planes are based on a bed rock design.


----------



## Devmeister (21 Mar 2022)

What LN needs to do is release a video showing what is going on. Show the world the truth to sqash the speculation.

I will not buy from a company I cannot pronounce. China is communist and Chinese industry will short cut if you close one eye. I do not trust them.

Upon inspection of my new LN 5.5 I managed to get out of them in February, I must say it’s perfect.

First, the plane was shipped timely from the order and packaged extremely well.

Second, it was very clean but I did smell a slight smell of Valanite coolant Which is used in the CNC industry.

Third, I ran a clock across the plane mounted in my milling machine. Well within one thousandths flatness. The irons were perfect.

Fourth. The castings were perfect with no flaws. Not even a blemish or production nick! It was everything one expects from LN.

The only plane maker I have found to outdo LN is Carl Holtey and he is in a class of his own. CH is not a production shop.


----------



## D_W (21 Mar 2022)

Devmeister said:


> Very good replys guys. It is true what has been said about Maine. One reason I am considering moving there.
> During the last few administrations we saw gun control become an issue. Ammunition sales went crazy and folks bought everything before it even hit the shelf.
> 
> Olin who makes ammunition said that the recent sales boom was artificial and they didn’t want expand production due to market demand drop out. This makes perfect sense. LN prior to COVID bought four new CNC machines. Also they deal with a small family run iron foundary. I personally agree with the arguments relating to fast expansion and bank loans.
> ...



Foundry work is another good point. LN made planes and chisels out of O1 at one point, but they lost the heat treater who would do O1 or the one they have declined to continue to do it (probably due to thermal instability / warping). I think they (LN) would be opposed to widespread price increase to finance additional capacity both from a principles and risk standpoint. 

What is absolutely the case is that anyone who wants to make a bedrock pattern plane in the US could start doing it. The average LN plane here is $300-$475, and I think that folks would suddenly find that seemingly cheap if they tried to make them to the same standard for that, ship them, and then provide customer service. LN's revenue is listed as something like $10MM a year. I'd bet most small to mid size law firms make that with little capital outlay and a margin far beyond what LN can make. It's just not the market that hobbyists think it is or someone would show up to fill it pretty quickly. 

let's also be honest, and I'm saying this objectively, not as a swipe - the group of purchasers of the tools is generally incompetent. They'll send back a perfectly usable plane for almost any reason, including the smallest pin mark or whatever else they may dream up. 

I got a #62 two years ago that was a little hollow in its length. It was probably right at spec (by my feelers) and it wouldn't plane a flat board. I flattened it to dead flat and when I was done with an experiment that I was doing with it, I sold it on. It was cosmetically fine - but I can imagine some would've returned it is you couldn't match plane a 20" joint with it. I guess you can also temper that with the fact that a lot of people buy the planes and then do nothing with them, too - those are probably safe from dimensional scrutiny (but not meaningless aesthetic scrutiny).


----------



## Vann (21 Mar 2022)

Devmeister said:


> ...There was a recent buyout of Clifton and I am not sure what that means...



I don't know that 2014 is "recent".

Clico sold their plane making "Clifton" division to Thomas Flynn in late 2014, and then folded about a month later. Under TF Clifton planes lost their two-piece (stay set) cap irons, changed away from blacksmith forged cutting irons, and changed the paint colour from green to charcoal.

TF added two (long planned and prototyped) block planes to the range and deleted the No.45 multi-plane.

And as mentioned, Clifton bench plares ARE Bedrock.

Cheers, Vann.


----------



## Devmeister (21 Mar 2022)

I will say this as someone who has done quite a bit of tool and die work making jigs and tools. I enjoy working with A2 anneal. It machines easy on the lathe and the mill. But is it an edge tool steel? It’s quite good at resisting wear in dies. My own experience in using it has found the keenness of the edge could be better. 01 does hold a pretty darn good edge. I am curious if 1095 can also work in plane blades but am sure. The concept of heat treat is simple. Turn the internal carbon particles into carbide. Tempering just allows some of the carbide to drift back to carbon. If A2 was the cats meow, wouldn’t all the knife makers be using it? A2 is functional but it’s not my first choice. Exactly how cryogenic treatment improves the blade is unclear. I think it may have an effect on grain alignment to improve edge retention but don’t quote me. While I own some LN chisels, I still prefer my older Sorby chisels.

I was unsure of when Clifton got bought out. 2014 is not that recent. The one Clifton bench plane I looked at was green. According to their website, the modern versions are machined from grey iron.While grey iron is pretty cool material, it’s not my first choice in making planes.

A major problem with any cast iron is warpage due to internal stresses set up during cooling. Modern practice is to thermally stress relieve the castings.

In the old days, Rolls Royce would dump castings outside and let them get rusty over a couple of years. Northfield did the same and called it Minnesota Stress relief.

High end machines built during the golden years used meehanite alloys. These unique ductile iron alloys got them the most stable castings possible.

Even so, companies like Hoffmann would put a casting in the planer and do a rough machine to cut the foundary crust. Then they shelved it for six months before doing the final cut. This was done to mitigate warpage.

Iron hand planes have had issues of bed warpage. Grind it flat and over time the bed warps. Using ductile alloys and following careful stress relief procedures helps. Over time the casting will settle out. The longer the plane, the greater the chance of warpage. I think any plane built during the COVID time frame needs to be checked for warpage.

LN stated at one time not to long ago that they made 20,000 tools per year. At an average price of 350 dollars, that amounts to about 7 million. My worst shop made 12 million. The margins were nothing to write home about.

Thomas Flinn posted a video called last man standing. It wasn’t a confidence builder. You have to love what you do as getting rich fast isn’t likely to happen.

Many smaller tool makers are virtually one operations. Some are retired people who like what they do. That is where I headed. It’s like bowel turners. After a while, the wife gets fed up with all the decorative bowls on every shelf and coffee table. You have to get rid of some of this stuff to make room for new stuff which is why you have the crazy hobby.

My new furnace can melt about 120 pounds of iron. I don’t like to fill the crucible to the brim as it’s quite a reaction when you add the inoculents prior to the pour. While I can make a few plane bodies I will never make 20,000 per year!!!!

So the cost of a LN plane is actually reasonable when you account for the work being done. Eventually the holding costs, labor costs and market demographics may redefine the functional business case. If LN outsources to China, they are done.

How big is this market? If you look at popular YouTube channels like vintage machinery, epic woodworking, etc. you see high end subscriber numbers of 100K to 150k. There is a channel featuring two pet otters with over a million subscribers. So unless there is a recruitment of new woodworkers, this market may be getting saturated.

I guess we can only take a look at what time holds as we get thru this COVID period.


----------



## D_W (21 Mar 2022)

your figures for revenue sound about right. They sell other accessories and I guess teach classes or something to get to the $9MM or so. With inflation the way it has been, they're in maine, which is a buffer from economic reality to some extent, but they're going to have to raise prices. 

I have an answer for your 1095 question - yes, you can make a plane iron out of it. It has very high potential hardness, but relatively low toughness. O1 only has a little more toughness, but it also hardens in anything that's called oil (1095 is very lacking if not done in a high speed quench oil). AT 400F temper, my 1095 coupons sent to a metallurgist here were still 63.1 hardness average strike. That's very high. Both recent guitars that I made were made mostly with said iron - it's not like it can't be used, but it does chip a little more than O1 (actually, I'd say it chips about as much as V11 - it's lower toughness than V11 but finer grain by a mile, so the two things seem to just about even out - it's twice as easy to sharpen as V11 but lasts about twice as long, and so on). 

O1 at same hardness as A2 is functionally about the same in edge life. Theoretical (and in my testing) edge life for A2 is about 25% longer, but the working condition of the edge is nearly intolerable and one would be far better off to resharpen - and it wears a lot slower on stones than O1 - so I see no point for it in tools other than that it's dimensionally stable in hardening and O1 is viewed in a modern lens as having a lot of movement. 

There is hand finishing and fitting of things at LN to go along with an enormous amount of CNC work, but I can't imagine them liking O1 (nor their heat treater if the heat treater did the finish grinding, too), and 1095 would be out of the question. They did use W1 or something similar before A2, though. But they also had trouble with that and only hardened irons halfway up to the slot. 

I've tested a bunch of things for blade steels, but I think what we have at this point is what we will practically see (O1, A2, D2, V11 (likely CTS XHP), and some specialty irons out of M2 or similar steels since M2 has a good grain structure without being PM). Overseas, you may see more of the CV series of steels, but they aren't used on the ground much here, and I can't get them reasonably in bar stock form to play with them. O1 with care to getting full quench hardness ends up around 62 at 400F temper and is awfully nice to use and is available in high quality here. 

As far as knives? They went through their A2 thrill and then through D2, but the knife world needs something new all the time to convince the person who has 10 knives in a given pattern to get an 11th. The stainless patterns with vanadium (niobium will probably be the next popular thing) and without being stainless are popular right now due to the ability to have great toughness and good wear resistance or OK toughness and bonkers wear resistance. 

1095 is often marketed in the US in knives, but there is a steel called 1095CV often used here that's just a 0.9 or 1% chrome vanadium steel that's really got no resemblance to 1095 and is probably far friendlier to use industrially.


----------



## D_W (21 Mar 2022)

LV got sort of lucky when they went looking for V11 because the knife people only sort of like XHP (chromium carbides are falling out of fashion with them), and the enormous number of chromium carbides makes the steels sharpenable on regular abrasives, even though they do still grind at a slow speed compared to low carbide steels. 

Any move toward something with vanadium carbides will leave a bunch of people in the ditch trying to sharpen such stuff well with anything other than diamond grit (The vandium steels - 3V and above - sharpen wonderfully with diamonds, of course, but crappy with anything else -both incompletely and very slowly).


----------



## Adam W. (21 Mar 2022)

Vann said:


> I don't know that 2014 is "recent".
> 
> Clico sold their plane making "Clifton" division to Thomas Flynn in late 2014, and then folded about a month later. Under TF Clifton planes lost their two-piece (stay set) cap irons, changed away from blacksmith forged cutting irons, and changed the paint colour from green to charcoal.
> 
> ...


Mate, I know you live on the other side of the planet....But the flag is still the wrong way up.


----------



## MikeK (21 Mar 2022)

Adam W. said:


> Mate, I know you live on the other side of the planet....But the flag is still the wrong way up.


It could be intentional to signal distress.


----------



## SMALMALEKI (21 Mar 2022)

WOW 
Such an amazing response. I am delighted with all the new information I learned 
Has anybody got a spare LN 7 or 8 for rehousing?










Found - Lie Nielsen jointer plane


I am after a no: 7 or 8 Lie Nielsen jointer plane. I bought another brand but it was an absolute pain to get it to work. Has anybody got one suitable for a new home? Ta




www.ukworkshop.co.uk


----------



## D_W (21 Mar 2022)

SMALMALEKI said:


> WOW
> Such an amazing response. I am delighted with all the new information I learned
> Has anybody got a spare LN 7 or 8 for rehousing?
> 
> ...



I did my part and sold off all of the LN stuff I don't use (which is everything but a pair of spokeshaves) in the last two years. to my shock (not knowing what was going on), straight up auctions on ebay yielded stupid prices (I thought someone was running up my auction bids on the first two things I listed only to refuse to pay - but that didn't happen).


----------



## paulm (21 Mar 2022)

Some of the old school Cliftons, from the limited anniversary run of 25 sets with walnut handles 

Must get them out again, it's been a while !


----------



## Valhalla (21 Mar 2022)

paulm said:


> Some of the old school Cliftons, from the limited anniversary run of 25 sets with walnut handles
> 
> Must get them out again, it's been a while !


Nice set......they look like they only come out at Christmas


----------



## Sporky McGuffin (21 Mar 2022)

Last Tuesday Axminster Basingstoke had a couple of LN bits on clearance - maybe 5-10% off. I was sorely tempted by the shoulder plane. There were a couple of chisels and one other plane too.


----------



## D_W (21 Mar 2022)

Devmeister said:


> Exactly how cryogenic treatment improves the blade is unclear.



we had a long post on this (sorry if you posted in it - I didn't keep track of all of the responses). If not, the biggest gain that I can think of is a combination of:
* improving terminal hardness at a slight cost of toughness (A2 is tough enough - that's all that counts - too much toughness has caused problems in tool tests I've done as the edge won't let go but rather becomes a blunt foil and then propagates while making it difficult to get the edge into or through wood). 
* increasing forgiveness at the top end of the austenizing ranges - instead of ending up with decreasing hardness in a lot of steels, cryo treatment allows for additional hardness or expansion of the top end of the heat schedule before quench

I've never used cryo, or even a furnace, but figure no matter how good someone claims to be at heat treat (as a firm, with a process, etc), more forgiving ranges combined with higher potential hardness is significant. 

I've seen pictures of cryo that came along with either LN or Hock A2 that show smaller and more evenly distributed carbides, but it's hard to know for sure if that's just due to cryo since carbide and grain size is so dependent on stuff that happens prior to quenching. 

For A2 and especially higher chromium lower carbon steels than that, it seems to do a great job getting full hardness, and at least looking at beach's page, hock's A2 (cryo) seems to have a finer grain structure than LV's A2 (not cryo, at least at the time of the test). 

but if anyone is starting to look at the size of the grain, pretty much everything without much chromium has finer grain than A2 and D2 in the first place (non-PM D2 is terrible looking with carbides big enough to leave lines on wood as they break up and come out of the matrix - no edge damage needed). 

I forgot one last consideration above - cost of the alloy and cost of follow-up grinding. A2 isn't that expensive - it's very expensive compared to 1084 and 1095, but otherwise not that expensive. V11 is expensive (but no clue how much it costs if you buy a whole melt yourself - for me to get barstock costs something like $30 a plane iron for XHP - and V11 may be different chemically some small way, but I can't see it in house made irons vs. V11 - still possible, but...). 

last 1095 I got was something like $6 an iron more or less on average. 

Other steels with more wear resistance than V11 with lower carbide volume are available, but they'd be both expensive to buy and very slow to machine after heat treat (and only sharpenable by diamonds).


----------



## Devmeister (21 Mar 2022)

The metalurgy post is very informative and goes to illustrate my argument of an arms race.

When I first began making tools, I started using A2 as everyone said it’s the cats meow. But did notice issues empiricaly as stated in DW post. I still have a few chunks laying about.

when I began making my own machine tool cutters like form tools etc. I went to using 01 in a pinch and then onto M2 and M42. Machine cutters cutting metal on machines can get a bit hot. The edge needed is no where as sharp as the one needed for wood.

when I began playing with side escarpment planes, the consensus was to use an 01 iron.

I was using new Irwin taps and I sure as hell have broke my share of them! They just snap as they are totally brittle.

often folks will buy tools but no sharpening kit. They tend to avoid it and slowly evolve into it as cheaply as possible. Everyone has a new process to sharpen. Even going as far as triple angles and a variety of plates including everything from translucent Arkansas to wet stones to tormeks. I think you should use what works for you and stay on it.

Personally I like 01 and M2. They are basic, cheap and readily available.Note that M2 is a high speed steel and I have it in my shop as I work metal as well.

I would like to know what those Sorby chisels were made of. They just say Sheffield Steel.

Ay the end of the day, a vintage Norris can keep up or out perform virtually any new plane. I have been quite happy with my LN planes and my smoother is a bedrock from the 1930s.

it will take a huge amount of convincing to prove to me that planes like the Veritas can take you to the next level.


----------



## SMALMALEKI (21 Mar 2022)

paulm said:


> Some of the old school Cliftons, from the limited anniversary run of 25 sets with walnut handles
> 
> Must get them out again, it's been a while !



The collection looks amazing. Are they getting neglected in the box?


----------



## SMALMALEKI (21 Mar 2022)

Sporky McGuffin said:


> Last Tuesday Axminster Basingstoke had a couple of LN bits on clearance - maybe 5-10% off. I was sorely tempted by the shoulder plane. There were a couple of chisels and one other plane too.


Thank you for the information. I’ll try to call them.


----------



## Devmeister (21 Mar 2022)

SMALMALEKI said:


> The collection looks amazing. Are they getting neglected in the box?


What a lovely set of planes. And that British racing green looks so juicy! Damm I Love It


----------



## paulm (22 Mar 2022)

SMALMALEKI said:


> The collection looks amazing. Are they getting neglected in the box?



Treated myself to the No.3, 4 1/2, 5 1/2 and 7 at the time as I had intended to get into box and small cabinet making when time permitted. The 7 would have been overkill for that, maybe only needed the 4 1/2 to be fair but, well, shiny tools and all that ! 

Have since found that I tend to favour turning and some green woodworking, and the flat work never really happened !

So the Cliftons sit in their plane socks on shelves in the workshop and come out only occasionally to be checked over, re-oiled etc, shame really they ought to be used as intended. The boxes are still around somewhere in the house I think.

Before I got them I had a range of the LN planes and they were top notch of course, but the Cliftons just spoke to me more, had more soul or magic or whatever  The LNs went to new homes except for a low angle 5 and a couple of block planes, (one bronze small one) which I figured were useful alternatives to keep around but they never get used either !


----------



## Devmeister (22 Mar 2022)

The green Clinton’s do have a voice. I know as I have heard them speak. Cliftons are just hard to get in the states. And I am not sure about the new cliftons. That British green is just eye candy. I also prefer the older blade that was used.

In looking at the green Cliftons, I get the impression that the base sole plate is actually thicker than on other planes. Are they slightly heavier?

I have seen a couple of examples of Sorby bench planes. They are painted red. Another really nice looking plane but collector rare.


----------



## paulm (22 Mar 2022)

Devmeister said:


> The green Clinton’s do have a voice. I know as I have heard them speak. Cliftons are just hard to get in the states. And I am not sure about the new cliftons. That British green is just eye candy. I also prefer the older blade that was used.
> 
> In looking at the green Cliftons, I get the impression that the base sole plate is actually thicker than on other planes. Are they slightly heavier?
> 
> I have seen a couple of examples of Sorby bench planes. They are painted red. Another really nice looking plane but collector rare.



Not sure if they are heavier, but it was the weight and handling of a Clifton 5 1/2 I tried out that first made an impression on me, and the aesthetics are just lovely !


----------



## planesleuth (22 Mar 2022)

Message to the budding realists out there. You don't need these expensive tools to create beautiful furniture. Just learn how to sharpen and hone well. All you need is a few good old tools, as long as they have Sheffield steel, because it is the best in the world. Get all your advice from Grandad and not 'you tube' and away you go. All you folks that pay hundreds or thousands of pounds for one tool.... pah! you need to get over yourselves!


----------



## Devmeister (22 Mar 2022)

I just watched a vid on a new Clifton 5.5. My problem is that I got the idea the soles were heavier.

Not So! Here is the deal. At the front and rear of the plane sole, there is a web about 12 mm high. This gives an initial impression of a thicker sole. Nope, it a web that defines the outside edge

The I spotted two diagonal webs running in a cross cut fashion in the back near and under the tote.

What does this mean? It means the casting is webbed to enhance stability. I have never seen this before but it makes really good sense.


----------



## Devmeister (22 Mar 2022)

planesleuth said:


> Message to the budding realists out there. You don't need these expensive tools to create beautiful furniture. Just learn how to sharpen and hone well. All you need is a few good old tools, as long as they have Sheffield steel, because it is the best in the world. Get all your advice from Grandad and not 'you tube' and away you go. All you folks that pay hundreds or thousands of pounds for one tool.... pah! you need to get over yourselves!



OUCH! Let me introduce you to a secret. I love making furniture and the like in wood. But I also enjoy making tools for both wood and metal. Yup, I am one of those closet tool makers. So the beauty of the well made tool is part of our satisfaction. What Carl Holtey does is artwork.

Bit here is the secret … as much as I love LN, I also love my coffin nose smoother. I paid one dollar for it at a garage sale. It needed lots of work. I stripped it down to the wood to get a nice, newer linseed finish on it. I don’t care about it’s value as it is a production plane to me.

The iron was knackered and rusty. Lots of work here but that’s OK. When I saw the iron set all cleaned up, I could see who made it.

SORBY/Sheffield Steel

Thay plane feels different than a LN as it’s a wooden plane. But in a nice way.

My older Sorby chisels feel better than my LN chisels.

So at the end of the day, you are absolutely right. If the tool was not the end game but rather the path to the end game, I would not have bought some of the tools have.

And I can’t say enough about the Sheffield Steel used. I would kill to know what alloy it is and the process to finish it the way they did!


----------



## BucksDad (22 Mar 2022)

planesleuth said:


> Message to the budding realists out there. You don't need these expensive tools to create beautiful furniture. Just learn how to sharpen and hone well. All you need is a few good old tools, as long as they have Sheffield steel, because it is the best in the world. Get all your advice from Grandad and not 'you tube' and away you go. All you folks that pay hundreds or thousands of pounds for one tool.... pah! you need to get over yourselves!



Such a lot of nonsense. To the new woodworker, identifying the correct old tool to buy on Ebay can be daunting and how do you know if you have a good one? Plus some people are not interested in restoring tools, they just want to get on and use tools.

Also, some rarer, old tools (e.g. router planes, LA planes) cost as much as the new ones so why not buy new?

Not everyone has a Grandad they can learn from? 3 of mine had died before I was born, and my Grandad died when I was 14. He also wasn't very good at woodworking as he was an electrician. My Dad is actually the better woodworker but he hasn't made any furniture in a long time. I'm sure if I showed him a few videos of someone like Matt Estlea on YouTube, he'd probably agree that Matt is a good teacher and his experience of working at Rycotewood school means he knows more about furniture making and using tools than my Dad does.

Lastly, buying new tools is no bad thing - it helps the economy and provides / create jobs. New tools are expensive because demand for woodworking tools is low.

It would be sad if LN can't recover... a few companies able to sustain themselves and employ people and allowing others to purchase well made tools to make their living in woodworking or enjoy their hobby is a wonderful thing


----------



## D_W (22 Mar 2022)

More for devmeister - sorry I forgot to mention this since you bring up the topic of dies. There's a lot of literature talking about edge life improvement due to cryo and it's not to be. I would imagine unless you had an issue with dies where an extra point of hardness would prevent deformation, you'll see no real difference in the life of a die.

I vaguely recall LV saying something along these lines years ago - paraphrasing, they found that they end up in the same place either way.

For the edge of a chisel or plane iron, though, finer grain and additional hardness (one can temper back and still have a better quality edge than lower terminal hardness and less tempering) if there's no real cost difference, great there.

Clifton got raves for the forged irons (and in my opinion, a deep stamp speaks to quality far more than an etch, decal, etc.), though it appears that a well done iron from bar stock with careful temp control actually results in a finer grain. I think as good as rolled material comes now, if you do minimal things to it aside from careful temperature control prior to hardening and tempering and then during, it's really difficult to improve grain size. I had to do a lot of tinkering to improve anything more complicated than a quick high heat, quench and accurate double temper. Even then, the visual difference is minimal with a hand scope - what little difference I can get with 1095 and O1 with thermal cycles is a tiny fraction of how much bigger the grain will be with anything else. Even the surplus carbon in a file will make for a much more coarse visual grain (and that's not terribly reliable as an only indicator as I sent O1 and 26c3 to a metallurgist and expected because of the visible coarseness of the iron carbides in the latter, it would test worse than O1. It turned out to be 2 full points harder at the same temper and almost twice as tough.

it'll be interesting to see if the niobium carbide steels catch on - I'd have to go read more about them to even remember what the virtue is.


----------



## Devmeister (22 Mar 2022)

Wow! You do have a point. As a woodworker and metal worker, learning never ends. Years ago I bought a lot of stuff. Not sure where I was going. Sold a lot of stuff as my personal direction evolved. Today I call it vintage woodworking and I have never been happier. But it’s been a journey. Lots of wins but some loses. My metal work evolved from my background in engineering to support my woodworking. I am a pretty good machinist but my experience has been in steam engines and wood working tools. I got involved with LN over thirty years ago. I do love my LN tools. I just saw s video on Thomas Flynn making their new block plane. Wow! The body is vacuum cast bronze. The body pattern is awsome with rib structures to give rigidity and stability. The adjuster is a modified Norris adjuster and I love the two part cap with its bronze and walnut. As a toolmaker I am impressed. I love using tools like this and I love making tools like this. Even if all I make this month is a bird house. At least it’s a happy bird house.


----------



## Devmeister (22 Mar 2022)

I just found a reference to Sorby using EN45. I need to check this stuff out. You know anything about it?


----------



## SMALMALEKI (22 Mar 2022)

planesleuth said:


> Message to the budding realists out there. You don't need these expensive tools to create beautiful furniture. Just learn how to sharpen and hone well. All you need is a few good old tools, as long as they have Sheffield steel, because it is the best in the world. Get all your advice from Grandad and not 'you tube' and away you go. All you folks that pay hundreds or thousands of pounds for one tool.... pah! you need to get over yourselves!


I started with some tools from eBay and enjoyed hours of flattening and sharpening. That said I bought a plane (brand new) and spent days trying to flatten it. Rewarding myself with some beautifully made tools is a treat and almost the only remaining one.


----------



## D_W (22 Mar 2022)

Devmeister said:


> I just found a reference to Sorby using EN45. I need to check this stuff out. You know anything about it?



I've not looked up modern sorby stuff before, but it appears to be a steel with about 0.65% carbon and some additives for hardenability and toughness. That explains why the modern sorby chisels are soft if that's what's in them - it's more of an alloy that you'd expect to see in a tool box site chisel, and when optimally hardened, it'll end up in the high 50s hardness (which creates an edge that will have trouble in hardwoods). 

As far as the old sheffield steels go, I have probably a 150 or so irons and have made about 30 or 40 bench planes with different irons (I rarely buy american irons from that time period - I think the auburn/ohio steel stock was not good quality and thus it's difficult to make the irons come close to sheffield or current stuff like Starrett O1). The really old irons are water hardening steel of some sort - I would guess the very early irons are chosen by ore (as in, use the ore that has the right alloying to make a good steel - without necessarily knowing why it does, but once you find it, keep using it). I'm not a reader of steel history, so I can only go by what I feel and what the microscope shows for wear pattern (which is both how evenly an edge wears and also whether or not carbides show up due to surplus carbon or other additives above a percent or so). 

Late 1800s, things may have changed and the steel in laminated tools may have been more controlled or alloying adjusted without relying on the ore to have a certain property. 

Once irons became solid in sheffield, they feel on the stones to me like they're oil hardening. As time goes on, they got a little softer (the solid steel end to end tapered wooden plane irons all seem to be a bit softer - someone working at the factory would've know why for that decision). 

Some of stanley's irons in the early 1900s that are solid feel more like a water hardening steel and they have high hardness potential. I have some block plane irons that don't quite feel like 1095 or sheffield steel, but they're not as slick on the stones as O1 - they're probably one of the W-series of water hardening steels or something similar. I don't see much for carbides other than one here and there in the matrix (which is something that happens with tungsten). 

I've never had the chance to play with W-1 steel - the spec is very wide and if you got some that didn't give the carbon content, it can literally vary and still meet spec within a range of something like 0.6 to 1.5. 0.6 and 0.8 are vastly different, let alone the range they give. I looked some up this morning and realized that if we want plane irons made of 1095 (I can send you one sometime - they're cheap and easy for me to make), one of the W series of steels would be a better option - they have only a little bit of alloying but much better toughness than 1095 - more like what you'd get in something like 1084 steel or A2 at high hardness (but without the coarsened grain and without the chromium). 

I know there are natural ores with nickel, and natural ores with chromium. Either would've improved the outcome in the 1700s and 1800s by making steel a little tougher and more hardenable. There may have been manganese in them, too (which is in 1095 and others to make them more hardenable). It would've been an interesting time to make things - not knowing what made for a better outcome, but judging based only on the outcome itself. We now push specs which from an engineering standpoint can lead to improvement, but choosing spec first and then accepting outcome leads to stuff like A2 when you compare to something like an older ward or even older yet, a very old butcher laminated iron with extremely fine steel. The latter doesn't plane as long (maybe only 70% as many feet) ,but the edge is pleasant the entire time and sharpens easier at same hardness. 

So, summary of sheffield steel:

early - weldable and water hardening - probably success in terms of fineness and toughness determined by ore source

later, like late 1800s - not sure, but still a lot of laminated tools - could still have been done the old way. There's little quality difference between something made around 1800 in sheffield and a 1900 ward iron. The difference I see is in average hardness (sharpening options would've been more starting mid 1800s with introduction of the washita allowing a harder iron, and then of course, synthetics by the late 1800s - starting to appear around that time. I don't know exactly when, and you could get corundum(alumina) before then as it had a lapidary use. When they started making vitrified stones like india stones, though, I'm not sure. 

Later yet (before 1950 or so and after the early 1900s) - lots of solid steel irons that feel like water hardening and are often a click or two softer (not sure why - could be sharpenability, etc). As time went on toward the 1950s and marples, etc, were still marketing laminated irons, they were soft. That could've been lack of care, a nod to site workers, or to make grinding after heat treat faster. 

After 1950, no-man's land. Lots of use of steels with lower carbon amounts (like EN45) that don't have the potential to have high strength, and thus won't hold a hard fine edge. 

(Lie Nielsen's early irons were apparently W1 - the whole W series of steels is interesting as there are some versions that have carbon over 1% but a tighter spec and tungsten to improve toughness. Add a little tungsten, things get better. Add a little chromium, things get better. Add manganese, hardening is vastly more forgiving. Add silicon, and steel gets tougher. Add small amounts of vandium and peak hardness increases slightly and grain grows in heat less easily). 

Add them all at one time, though and maybe the fancy sauce might not be that good. I think 1095 with just a bit of chromium added would be much better. 26c3 is basically a drastically cleaner spec of 1095 with a small addition of chromium and carbon at 1.25% instead of 0.9-1%. It's super dandy stuff, but requires quench oil to get full hardness and doesn't wear very long.


----------



## D_W (22 Mar 2022)

I'll look a little harder for W-bar. After rehardening an older stanley 18 plane blade (all steel, but definitely not O1 and not 1095 either), I'd love to make some irons out of the same thing. W is common in narrow bar stock and drill rod here (since you're in the states with me), but in rolled material less so. The same is true for 52100, but enough knife guys use it for the specialty retailers to heat and roll drill rod into bar stock themselves (it's just OK for tools - great for knives because it can be bent almost onto itself at full hardness, but for some reason, the edge doesn't wear nearly as uniformly as O1 and it doesn't pick up a shaving as well when it's dulling even though it will plane about the same distance as O1). 

I thought when I started making chisels, 52100 was going to be what I used - which leads back to the outcome statement above. 52100 has high hardness potential and very high toughness. it just turns out that at the very edge, it's not quite as good and then the toughness isn't the asset that I thought it would be.


----------



## Devmeister (22 Mar 2022)

Wow! And all this in seeking the ultimate edge steel for a wood working tool. It’s complex requiring one read the posts several times. I know by the Flinn website that they use 01. It seems we always tend to gravitate back to 01.


----------



## D_W (22 Mar 2022)

It's like anything else - it's complex to read about but pretty trivial to feel or see the difference. 

If you have an older plane, one good way to get an idea of what it is is to sharpen it identically to a known source (like a hock O1 iron for example) and plane the same wood alternating back and forth with the test iron and the known iron, measuring the shaving thickness once in a while and weighing the volume of shavings on a postal scale. The water hardening irons will always end up a little behind the O1 iron due to lower alloy content (unless they have extra chromium like 52100 - that's the one example I can think if that will match O1). 

A ward iron will last about 75% as long as an O1 iron at same hardness, but that's with smoother shavings around 2-3 thousandth. 

That lets you know what's in an iron, though. There's not much in older irons that is even as alloyed as O1. O1 seems to be the standard for sheffield makers who are still making solid steel tools because it through hardens pretty easily, sharpens easily attains good hardness and tempers relatively simply. In europe, the tool steels seem to be more of the chrome vanadium variety, but the name is a bit misleading as they don't feel like they have surplus chromium or vanadium - they're just additives to improve toughness and keep grain small. 

The boutique makers with CNC machines don't seem to like anything that's not very dimensionally stable, though (thus, less O1 or O1 is done overseas with the exception of LV who makes a too-soft-tempered version of O1, maybe due to the preference of someone there who like soft irons). Hock's O1 stuff is almost entirely done in france where labor costs are lower than the US. 

After all of the above and experimenting with a little of everything, I've settled on O1 for plane irons and 26c3 for chisels. O1 makes a slightly better plane iron than 26c3 and 26c3 makes a slightly better chisel than O1 (two points harder, twice as tough, but not so tough that it won't release edge damage). 

It would be nice if the BS and DIN steel melts were available over here - I'd like to compare some of the CV steels to O1 and 26c3, but they're tariffed and don't seem to show up at retail here. 









Silver steel - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org





1095CV used by knife makers isn't easy to find, either, and when it's found, it's usually overpriced (I'm sure in large melts, it's cheap, or it wouldn't be in knives that are literally sold at walmart and sams club). 

All of these would be fun to experiment with, but they probably warp more than O1, which LN and LV already think is warpy. LN is the only company I can think of that used W series steels, but they couldn't do it well and the whole line of W steels seems to have fallen out of stock favor deferring to O1, D2 and A2 for lower wear range die making.


----------



## Tony Zaffuto (22 Mar 2022)

I just sold an LN 4-1/2 that had a W1 blade. Got it in a trade years ago, and did not care for the plane. The blade sharpened OK.

I think LN will be around a long time and will retain the growth rate desired by the owner. I believe he fully understands the hand tool market, and the past decade's whims of the internet barkers. Watch the content of the YouTube content producers and what they promote. Next check their bio! So many have just a couple of years under their belt, with their experience predicated on what some other content producer yelped about last week. In the US, we have too many "fan boys" of woodworkers that have marketed themselves as experts, with many selling goods to the fan boys, while true craftsmen go unnoticed.


----------



## Jameshow (22 Mar 2022)

Carbon Knife Steel 1084, 10 x 50mm


Knife Making Steel bar, 1084 Carbon Steel in 3.5 x 50 x 1000 mm Ground flat stock. The most popular carbon steel for new makers is probably 1084 Carbon Steel, due to ease of heat treatment.



uknifemakersupplies.co.uk





What's 1084 like??

Soft??


----------



## D_W (22 Mar 2022)

Jameshow said:


> Carbon Knife Steel 1084, 10 x 50mm
> 
> 
> Knife Making Steel bar, 1084 Carbon Steel in 3.5 x 50 x 1000 mm Ground flat stock. The most popular carbon steel for new makers is probably 1084 Carbon Steel, due to ease of heat treatment.
> ...



longer answer follows, but short answer is:
* it can be made plenty hard
* it doesn't have any wear resistant anything in it so it only wears - in my only head to head test - 81% of the footage and volume planed that O1 and 52100 does

******************
It can get terminal hardness around the same level as O1 (I sent samples to be tested - I missed on its toughness for some reason - the only one I missed on, but I don't use it so I can't claim that it should've turned out well as I haven't snapped samples like I have 1095 and O1. So my routine may result in it being less fine...)

At any rate, it should be about as hard as O1 with regular process, very fine grained, but less edge life than O1. I think it'd make a nice chisel, but it won't have the brash keenness that 1%+ carbon steel chisels get (which is why razors are made with steel that's generally above 1% - to get edge strength in a fine edge and initial edge taking). 

1084 is *really* cheap and sharpens really nicely due to the lack of wear-resistant carbides - I'll show some pictures following below. 

My test samples of 1084 ended up (400F temper but fast quench and low terminal temperature) at 61.6 average hardness, which is nearly identical to 3 of the 4 O1 samples I sent for a prior test. I had one flyer (60.9) but the other three were all 61.6 or 61.7 C scale hardness, which kind of dispells the myth that you can't get accurate hardness by hand - even the flyer, which was a little overheated but I sent it to see what it would be - was within 1 point of the narrower group). 

Long story short, 1084 is perfectly usable and can get hard but it needs a special quench oil to get hardness numbers like above, and accurate tempering. The quench oil sold here is called parks 50, and it's kind of pricey (about $80 a gallon with tax and any place that carries it cheaper has exorbitant shipping charges). 

O1 will get to or very close to the numbers above with cooking oil due to the addition of a lot of manganese. Doubling the manganese further makes something like mushet steel (which will harden in air - the earliest high speed steel). 

For some reason, 1084 is described as an ideal starting point for knife makers because it doesn't have much surplus anything, but O1 is easier to heat treat and doesn't require anything special, as long as you're just heating and quenching samples and not forging. O1 is more expensive, but the domestic O1 is intended for industrial customers and very very good quality. No clue where most 1084 is coming from - probably india. 

..I'll just post the pictures in a separate post.


----------



## D_W (22 Mar 2022)

(1084 will usually be tempered softer in knives because people like to stick the tips of knives in cracks of trees and then bend the knife tip to see how far it will go before it breaks. We don't do soft/tough temper for tools - edges deforming is a bad thing and we have high priced screwdrivers to abuse prying rather than chisels). 

Edge profiles at 150x to see grain uniformity - fully worn and needing resharpening at this point. If an edge is uniform at the start and the finish, it will be pleasant even if it doesn't wear as long (you can just do pre-finish shavings at a higher thickness and still plane more, anyway. The fascination with extreme edge life is a beginner's folly) .

The little grove appearing here is where the shaving stops rubbing due to a cap set about 2-3 times as far from the edge. The cap turns the shaving, holds it down, it wears the tip slightly hollow, thus the very defined edge and no long scratches going past the divot. 

O1







1095 (this iron had trouble with chipping early on and then had to break in - this is before I had parks 50 oil, so I would not likely have the early chipping, but it does chip and nick easier than 1084 or O1)

I would guess the more pronounced grooving is due to carbides leaving at the edge and then wear being less even. 










Sorry about the stuff at the edges on the last two pictures the banding is just oil - even the tiniest amount of oil shows up like this. You have to wipe an iron with a dry cloth section five or six times to get rid of it. The jello looing stuff on 1095 is either skin or oil or wood, don't know which, but something very thin that light passes through. 

I only have an A2 sample from an older scope in smaller picture size. You can scale the image up to match the wear band size. 

Compare the uniformity of the edges and you can see why I mentioned that the A2 starts to go south with edge uniformity and the surface and the effort to use the plane follows it.


----------



## D_W (22 Mar 2022)

01, 1084 and 1095 all have supremely nice even wear as long as there's nothing defective about an iron. LN's A2 is the most uniform I've seen, so A2 doesn't get better than the picture above. The only higher wear steels that maintain a fine edge wear (still not as nice) are matrix type steels (lower carbon versions of high speed steels, etc - there's not enough carbon for them to form carbides with their alloying elements - there aren't many of those. AEB-L is one of them for anyone wanting to search.). 

I proposed this as a potential steel for LN, but I don't think they take suggestions. Plus, it takes careful heat treat to get it to high hardness. 

I don't know why the wear profile doesn't look the same (apologies for the oil again). Durability was 1.7 times O1 and 52100, but I can't get it to high hardness so the initial edge was fragile. 






Which leads to an interesting comment - if you have subpar steel that can't hold a fine edge that well, put it in a plane where the edge doesn't need to be as fine (soft irons are great for jack planes if they're not defective soft, or jointers- they'll break people of the habit of trying to take tissue shavings with a jointer, which is a dippy practice in the first place). 

Hock's O1 showed the same behavior (hard tempered). Very minor initial damage, but once the edge had some wear and the initial edge wasn't so thin (it becomes rounded and a little more blunt/thick) it didn't get any more defects. 

(AEB-L is really cheap. Half the price of O1. It's stainless, but it also warps when fast quenched to get high hardness - someone with a dewar of LN would probably be able to get the hardness that I can't in the open atmosphere). 

Notice the uniformity vs the worn LN edge, though, especially given there's far more chromium in AEB-L - there just isn't enough carbon for it to make big chromium carbides.


----------



## D_W (22 Mar 2022)

Back to LN, adding to what Tony said. When LN was unable to meet demand when going through mostly retailers and gray market, they went back to mostly marketing in house and only increased in size moderately and not immediately. 

If they are having trouble meeting domestic demand in the US without compromising their principles, it probably signals at least for now, they'll pull distribution back closer to home (the US) and you'll be stuck trying to buy planes on ebay and ship them to England. 

This doesn't help people in the US trying to find planes for less than new at used price, but we do plenty of this to you guys buying your tools on ebay at a price several times that which you'd pay in person there. 

From LN's standpoint, they like to travel around and demonstrate their planes because they have a philosophy that they need to be accessible and able to be tried in a certain way. If they are shipping planes overseas and not able to travel around and demonstrate and take domestic orders, they probably don't like it.


----------



## Vann (22 Mar 2022)

Adam W. said:


> Mate, I know you live on the other side of the planet....But the flag is still the wrong way up.



Yeah, that's what it looks like from down-under .

Actually, I never noticed. I wonder if I sourced the picture from the Russians...





Is this better?

Cheers, Vann (who's off to source another flag photo).


----------



## shed9 (23 Mar 2022)

BucksDad said:


> In their accounts filed last year, Thomas Flinn & Co (the makers of Clifton) had net assets of $350,000 (£270,000). Their corporation tax liability was £60k so approximates to £300,000 profit. Now you can't tell everything from a limited company accounts about the health of a business, but it implies to me they are not a massive business and there is no reason to lower prices - they can't afford it and can't meet demand either


That's not a profit calculation. I agree you can't tell everything from the posted accounts of a limited company, so why go on to make specific negative claims that can't be extracted from those accounts? 

No disrespect to yourself meant but it's a tad irresponsible to comment on the viability of a business online without actual facts, especially when those comments are aimed at that company's target customer.


----------



## Adam W. (23 Mar 2022)

Vann said:


> Yeah, that's what it looks like from down-under .
> 
> Actually, I never noticed. I wonder if I sourced the picture from the Russians...
> 
> ...


Perfect!


----------



## BucksDad (23 Mar 2022)

shed9 said:


> That's not a profit calculation. I agree you can't tell everything from the posted accounts of a limited company, so why go on to make specific negative claims that can't be extracted from those accounts?
> 
> No disrespect to yourself meant but it's a tad irresponsible to comment on the viability of a business online without actual facts, especially when those comments are aimed at that company's target customer.



I don't believe I commented on their viability or success as a business, I commented on the fact they're a small business and therefore there is not the margin or incentive to lower prices - I think we'd agree that large companies have much more flexibility with pricing and expansion to meet demand.

It was merely to serve as an explanation of why they have no need to lower prices as someone said their pricing strategy was wrong and I was arguing that their accounts show the strategy was correct.

What we know for certain from their accounts is they had an audit exemption which means they are a small business


----------



## pgrbff (23 Mar 2022)

I have a Lie Nielsen 62 in good condition I haven't used in some years. I'll have to dig it out as it's still packed from when I moved in 2012. 
Should still have box.
I have been intending to list it on eBay, but after a bad experience where a courier signed the delivery docket but failed to deliver for several days, and Paypal wouldn't consider reimbursing me. 
Fortunately, the item did turn up in the end.


----------



## shed9 (23 Mar 2022)

BucksDad said:


> I don't believe I commented on their viability or success as a business, I commented on the fact they're a small business and therefore there is not the margin or incentive to lower prices - I think we'd agree that large companies have much more flexibility with pricing and expansion to meet demand.
> 
> It was merely to serve as an explanation of why they have no need to lower prices as someone said their pricing strategy was wrong and I was arguing that their accounts show the strategy was correct.
> 
> What we know for certain from their accounts is they had an audit exemption which means they are a small business




....and yet you carry on sharing your opinion on their viability, this time their margins, incentives and strategy? Do you have any details on their group structure or commitment to the limited entity from within that?


----------



## SMALMALEKI (23 Mar 2022)

BucksDad said:


> I don't believe I commented on their viability or success as a business, I commented on the fact they're a small business and therefore there is not the margin or incentive to lower prices - I think we'd agree that large companies have much more flexibility with pricing and expansion to meet demand.
> 
> It was merely to serve as an explanation of why they have no need to lower prices as someone said their pricing strategy was wrong and I was arguing that their accounts show the strategy was correct.
> 
> What we know for certain from their accounts is they had an audit exemption which means they are a small business



I need to make it clear. 
LN has its products priced for the US market let’s say $250 which is almost £190 but we end up paying £280 due to different added costs of importing. The TF is pricing their products almost £280 and equal to LN product. 
They could use their advantage of being local producer to dominate UK market with a competitive price.
for this simple reason I don’t but new Clifton products. 

I would have done it if it was my business.


----------



## Blackswanwood (23 Mar 2022)

SMALMALEKI said:


> I need to make it clear.
> LN has its products priced for the US market let’s say $250 which is almost £190 but we end up paying £280 due to different added costs of importing. The TF is pricing their products almost £280 and equal to LN product.
> They could use their advantage of being local producer to dominate UK market with a competitive price.
> for this simple reason I don’t but new Clifton products.
> ...



Not sure I follow your logic.

LN small shoulder plane is $185 local price which is £140 at current exchange rates but retails in the UK at £206.

Clifton small shoulder plane retails at £192.07 which is already competitive.

I don't know the size of the market for premium wood working tools but guess it's not massive so the scope for larger market share at a lower margin resulting in higher profit sounds exceptionally risky.


----------



## BucksDad (23 Mar 2022)

Blackswanwood said:


> Not sure I follow your logic.
> 
> LN small shoulder plane is $185 local price which is £140 at current exchange rates but retails in the UK at £206.
> 
> ...



And this was the point I was trying to make, particularly when you are a small business.

@shed9 I still don't believe I was commenting on their viability, just pointing out their pricing strategy was correct. And yes, if you look at Companies House, you can see how their company is structured... However for the avoidance of doubt, I would gladly remove the comments & figures from my previous postings, unfortunately the forum doesn't allow me to do so, so the mods will have to remove it (@MikeK)


----------



## SMALMALEKI (23 Mar 2022)

Blackswanwood said:


> Not sure I follow your logic.
> 
> LN small shoulder plane is $185 local price which is £140 at current exchange rates but retails in the UK at £206.
> 
> ...


 That’s exactly the numbers thank you. LN small shoulder plane was £185 until last weekend and Clifton was £190. 
I think they should be near to £140 as LN actual pre export/input duty added.


----------



## D_W (23 Mar 2022)

I think you'd find that Flinn can't make them profitably at that.

If the figures above are correct, let's assume (anyone with facts can change these to be the right facts - and for self appointed mothers on here, if these are completely off- seems a bit low to me from a feel standpoint for total numbers - this is an illustration with the important point of this being margin. Not magnitude).
* Flinn make 370k revenue
* flinn shows a margin of 60k
* clico folds, but before they do, they sell of anything anyone is willing to buy (clifton planes here). If flinn has purchased the brand for some cost, that has to be repaid or it makes no business sense. An upstart making their own way has to popularize what they're selling, but they don't have this initial cost
* Flinn changes certain elements (one on this case, the iron, may be due to sourcing the iron - they could be sourcing all kinds of stuff, who knows).
* Flinn charges 190 for a plane that they make in small numbers compared to LN

Your proposed price is 24%+ less than their current price.

Where does it come from? If the margin figures above are correct (or even close), they may be before repayment of the cost of acquiring the rights to make clifton planes. In the US, that's an after tax purchase, which is painful.

Even if they're not, they are suddenly making something at or below cost to grow market share.

Sheffield is famous in the US for not changing processes to be competitive. Two very popular instances on US forums occurred where clifton planes came to the US unusable, and the buyer was never made whole. At the time, LN actually gave accuracy specs and they would often take stuff back even if a user was just dissatisfied with something that was in spec (I unfortunately did that once thinking an iron may be a bit soft - they tested it, it was 61.5 hardness - I was embarrassed. They mentioned that it was from a prior heat treater and may have a different feel on the stones that I"d noticed and offered to send me a new one for free along with my old one. I apologized and declined their offer).

I'm not sure why flinn is taking heat here (I get the price difference). Clico couldn't make planes at the same price or they'd probably be doing it. LN is privately held, so we don't know what they make, but their prices have changed 10 or 15 percent in 15 years. I'd bet they're hard to compete with at a same quality level without offshoring planes (and then that creates a burden - if you really want a specific quality in china, you either have to get lucky and find an enthusiast, which is probably not that common, or have someone in china permanently or often. The fickle market of internet buyers will pick apart the smallest differences)


----------



## BucksDad (23 Mar 2022)

@D_W please remove your comment. We don't know their revenue or true margins

(I have upgraded to a UKW Supporter so I can edit my previous post and remove it)


----------



## D_W (23 Mar 2022)

BucksDad said:


> @D_W please remove your comment. We don't know their revenue or true margins



it is an example, an illustration - you need straw numbers to grasp the concept. We don't know the actual numbers, so it doesn't really matter what they are unless they are materially incorrect (e.g., a lot of overseas stuff sold at woodworking suppliers is marked up 2-3 times. If someone would assert that's the case with flinn, that'd be interesting - and incorrect). 

Nobody is assailing their business condition - rather making the case that it's a bit entitled for folks to look from the outside and state what their prices should be (this always ends up being lower than the current price).


----------



## Daniel2 (23 Mar 2022)

We pay it, they stay in business......everything is good with the world.


----------



## SMALMALEKI (23 Mar 2022)

D_W said:


> I think you'd find that Flinn can't make them profitably at that.
> 
> If the figures above are correct, let's assume (anyone with facts can change these to be the right facts - and for self appointed mothers on here, if these are completely off- seems a bit low to me from a feel standpoint for total numbers - this is an illustration with the important point of this being margin. Not magnitude).
> * Flinn make 370k revenue
> ...


Hi 
My price comparison was just a market reality. We get charged more compared to our friends on the other side of the pond.
The fact that I see some item overpriced is my personal opinion. Although I would love to support the last man standing but my budget stretches to a limit.


----------



## D_W (23 Mar 2022)

I don't think your comment was unreasonble. It's entirely reasonable from the standpoint of if something is made at a price in the US at the same level, then what's the difference in the UK? I don't know the answer to that aside from making the side point that LN probably operates "solvently" at their price level much because they're in maine and partially due to them not making rash actions. 

Stuff made in the US tends to be cheaper here than it is in the UK, and other things imported from neither place can be cheaper here due to volume. We get shelled on stuff from Europe or UK, though. Like the Marshall UK amplifiers (and probably all Marshall). For whatever reason (I'd love to know what it is), distribution and retailing makes the marshall amp price much higher than UK or europe even after they've added vat and _before_ we add sales tax. 

Part of the answer to that is that marshall can get it here and I guess not in europe. But for overseas (especially first world goods) items, we often have someone with exclusive distribution here and the price is very high. 

Shapton stones are a good example - some of the pro stones in the US cost twice the Japan cost. Which is interesting because they're regarded as a basic commodity stone in Japan (not hard to find a 12k pro on buyee for the equivalent of $55 from a retailer _including_ shipping and 9% japan consumption tax). 

The name-adjusted version of same here in the states for a long time was well over $100 (125-140). The gap was made up by touting the capability and higher end nature of the stones. Which just wasn't factually true in my opinion. 

AT the time I'm talking about H. Stanley was the source of US market stones. I have no clue what his share was as distributor (it would've been the retailers tacking on, too), but you could just buy the stones from japan and pay EMS shipping and pay far less. 

We also have a US distributor of chosera stones - those aren't that cheap in japan, but to be cost competitive, apparently, a second line of stones came up and was distributed here (one distribution point) with the statement that the chosera stones were too expensive to make so a smaller replacement was being offered. This also turned out to be factually false - I saw them sold on japan yahoo new at retail for a long time and a quick look now shows that amazon fulfillment just sells the stones:


https://www.amazon.com/Naniwa-Chosera-800-Grit-Stone/dp/B001TPH9CM/ref=asc_df_B001TPH9CM/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309802506143&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=3206709217475799949&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9005947&hvtargid=pla-348082930249&psc=1



When someone here, china, japan, whatever, has a whole bunch of things like japanese diamond hones or exclusive japanese stones sent surface mail and listed for a small markup, I guess it torpedoes someone who has exclusive distribution rights, but it gives us a bit of a shocker in terms of true cost of distribution. 

Atoma is another example - limited distribution appx 2010 and cost in the US was $105+shipping. 

Now just sent to amazon fulfillment and sold third party - $58 including shipping for a #140 made in japan bench stone. 

Sorry for the too-long answer, those things just stick in my head because I always remember the things we pay more for due to distribution and I think the overseas sentiment is everything here is cheap. Most things sold here that are made here are cheaper here unless another market won't tolerate it (e.g., gibson guitars are cheaper in japan than they are here despite being made here - because the japanese market apparently just won't pay gibson's advertisable price as they have a number of domestic guitar makers who make guitars just as well for cheaper than even their lower price). 

It does give me a bit of a wedgie to see gibson's guitars for 10% less in japan after they add a 9% consumption tax (our prices are before sales tax). They're getting the same thing for somewhere around 18% less once you do up the ratios.


----------



## D_W (23 Mar 2022)

Side comment, too - canada and the UK have an advantage over US manufacturers where employee benefits are concerned. The cost of health care and compliance here for lower paid individuals (health care costs being flat as a dollar figure for an insurance carrier regardless of EE wages vs. stating the load as tax percentage) such as unskilled labor....really makes it difficult to manufacture things here. Benefits have to be offered for full time (30+ hours) employees at a baseline level that's way above the cost of related taxes covering them in the UK or Canada. 

Though I don't actually use LN tools, I see their holding the line over the long term as being kind of exceptional. I can't believe they can weather the current high inflation environment for long and would think a pair of 10% increases are coming or one of 15-20%. 

They could prove me wrong. Eons ago, I bought a LN 7 when their list price was 425 (it's still 425) and I got a retailer (also in maine) to ignore their new no-discount rule and give me $25 off. I wouldn't ask that now, but was a little miffed at the time because LN was pulling most retailing back to in house and they banned retailers from offering discounts. That stings a little bit when it's new. Now, I would buy from their store front end because they've erased whatever they gained from that several times over.


----------



## D_W (23 Mar 2022)

I find a topic like this highly interesting because it illuminates to some extent what it costs to get domestically made goods. 

An apprentice in 1910 in the highest of union wage areas would need to work a full day or more to afford a stanley jointer. 

It's hard to compare pay now because so much is in it other than cash (it would've been mostly cash back in 1910), but it's not uncommon for a union carpenter to have a wage package that's $80 an hour here or more, which puts something like an LN plane kind of where stanley was. Stanley probably had more operating room (margin) at the time, and their planes more "industrially" than the more precise modern version of CNC clean up tightening results on relatively routine goods (there's still casting by a supplier, and still a lot of hand fitting and finishing work done on certain parts). 

One other example here that may no longer be the case - Ashley iles bench chisels in the US - a set of 6 would've cost me around $240 with tax half a decade ago. I wanted to try them (I still adore them). I ended up buying them from the UK and paying for royal air mail and they were still cheaper by $60. We don't pay the vat, of course, so anyone doing this where it's allowed tends to find the retailers who won't charge VAT to US addresses. 

it costs money for TFWW (who sold the chisels here) to market them and retail them, and if I weren't what I am - someone who will buy, try, move on, pass along and hopefully limit exposure - I would've just bought from TFWW. Even they didn't have them in stock at the time, though. 

That's a better comparison to the LN thing because it's flip flopped and the extra that we pay is probably about the same as the reverse on the LN side. 

Nobody in the US makes chisels comparable to AI. LN makes nice chisels, and maybe some other folks do, but at the time, the AI cost with shipping was $30 a chisel and they have the English chisel proportions that little over here has. Sorby and crown are sold here, but their chisels are probaly made of steel with less carbon than O1 and the performance suffers a lot for it.


----------



## richarddownunder (23 Mar 2022)

planesleuth said:


> Message to the budding realists out there. You don't need these expensive tools to create beautiful furniture. Just learn how to sharpen and hone well. All you need is a few good old tools, as long as they have Sheffield steel, because it is the best in the world. Get all your advice from Grandad and not 'you tube' and away you go. All you folks that pay hundreds or thousands of pounds for one tool.... pah! you need to get over yourselves!


That's a bit unfair. Sure you don't need them but I would have thought it was up to the purchaser to decide what they want and what fits their budget. If we cant admire nice tools, why bother admiring nice (and expensive if you buy it) furniture, when a second hand Ikea will do the job just as well?.


----------



## Jameshow (23 Mar 2022)

richarddownunder said:


> That's a bit unfair. Sure you don't need them but I would have thought it was up to the purchaser to decide what they want and what fits their budget. If we cant admire nice tools, why bother admiring nice (and expensive if you buy it) furniture, when a second hand Ikea will do the job just as well?.


Of course you can have nice tools.... 

But nice tools dosen't make you a cabinet maker! 


Cheers James


----------



## Vann (24 Mar 2022)

D_W said:


> ...* clico folds, but before they do, they sell of anything anyone is willing to buy (clifton planes here). If flinn has purchased the brand for some cost, that has to be repaid or it makes no business sense. An upstart making their own way has to popularize what they're selling, but they don't have this initial cost...



I believe at least one of the management team at Clico was a handplane enthusiast and/or former Record employee. Whichever, they started making Clifton planes, not for a massive profit, but because they wanted to. I think they may have sold Clifton to Flinn for a song - just to keep the operation going - shortly before closing down.

Clico employed the last people in Britain (and possibly the Western world) who could manufacture auger bits a la blacksmith. So blacksmithing their cutting irons was all part of their skill base. Alas, too many people felt the blacksmith-made irons weren't up to the job - and I'm sure that made the decision to close down that part of the operation much easier for Flinn.

Cheers, Vann.


----------



## Devmeister (24 Mar 2022)

This has been quite a chunk to swallow but really interesting. As a one person tool maker, it gives one food for thought.

Its nice to go to work and worry about making the best tool you can and worry if the customer is going to like it. Where you don’t need to concern yourself with the latest management fads etc.

I have been a Lie Nielsen user for over 30 years. Always been impressed and never let down.

Just recently I became aware of the Clifton saga. I carefully watched them making the block plane in the video which would be the latest version of Clifton. I took note of their production tools and methods. While they are a small company I stand impressed by what they do. I would not hesitate to obtain one of their tools if they were available to us.

Likewise I stand impressed by the French company Liogier. Yesterday I got my sausage fingers on one their rasps. The quality is nothing short of outstanding. Again, very hard to obtain with many dealers showing out of stock.

I personally am working on my own issues with the likelihood of moving my shop. Currently I have nothing in inventory while I work thru these issues.

COVID had been difficult on all of us. And I hope that folks can understand the effort it takes a small tool maker to create a very high quality tool. While some may find them unreasonably high in price, I find many to be reasonable. LN has kept pricing quite stable and reasonable from this perspective.

As a tool maker you depend on your metal cutting tools. If you think some hand planes are expensive, you should check out pricing on the metal side. Hardinge Brown and Sharpe collets for one of my milling machines are close to $200 dollars each. For a basic collet. A taper attachment for an HLV lathe is over $8000 dollars. So you learn to scan EBay!

So I think we all need to take a moment and appreciate the opportunity afforded us by the small tool makers. They love what they do and aren’t getting rich doing it. And they love to hear back from happy customers.

So I am willing to do my share in supporting them thru the COVID period and hope they all make it. We need them!


----------



## GregW (24 Mar 2022)

BucksDad said:


> [Post removed]


From that reason I’m self employed


----------



## Devmeister (24 Mar 2022)

Jameshow said:


> Of course you can have nice tools....
> 
> But nice tools dosen't make you a cabinet maker!
> 
> ...



I have worked in three production shops equipped with millions of dollars worth of Homag, Weing and Holtzer machines.

Your comments are very true. As a CNC machinist, I had to fix problems from engineering and subsequent problems from assembly. Engineering simply sucked. It was a miserable time in my life.

That is why I will never buy cabinets. I know all the bodges and screw ups.

Nice tools don’t make you a cabinet maker but nice tools make a cabinet maker progressively happier and ultimately more productive.


----------



## GregW (24 Mar 2022)

Devmeister said:


> I have worked in three production shops equipped with millions of dollars worth of Homag, Weing and Holtzer machines.
> 
> Your comments are very true. As a CNC machinist, I had to fix problems from engineering and subsequent problems from assembly. Engineering simply sucked. It was a miserable time in my life.
> 
> ...



True, but most of clients with money, like to buy products bespoke and handmade.
with CNC you become IKEA competition


----------



## paulm (24 Mar 2022)

richarddownunder said:


> That's a bit unfair. Sure you don't need them but I would have thought it was up to the purchaser to decide what they want and what fits their budget. If we cant admire nice tools, why bother admiring nice (and expensive if you buy it) furniture, when a second hand Ikea will do the job just as well?.



Yep, if you look at other posts from the same source they are invariably much the same, chips on both shoulders, another one on the ignore list !


----------



## Daniel2 (24 Mar 2022)

Some of us perceive tools purely as a means to an end, no more no less.
Others, myself included, see the tools we use as an intrinsic part of the
story. Although I'm no cabinet maker, I enjoy a deep pleasure and
satisfaction from using beautiful, well made tools coupled with an
absolute admiration and respect of their provenance.


----------



## GregW (24 Mar 2022)

Daniel2 said:


> Some of us perceive tools purely as a means to an end, no more no less.
> Others, myself included, see the tools we use as an intrinsic part of the
> story. Although I'm no cabinet maker, I enjoy a deep pleasure and
> satisfaction from using beautiful, well made tools coupled with an
> absolute admiration and respect of their provenance.



Machines made now are not letting me to do work. They are made from aluminium for button-operators, not for artisans


----------



## paulrbarnard (24 Mar 2022)

GregW said:


> Machines made now are not letting me to do work. They are made from aluminium for button-operators, not for artisans
> 
> View attachment 132355


Looks like that has two buttons. Does that make you a button pusher too?


----------



## Daniel2 (24 Mar 2022)

An *on* button and an *emergency stop* button, what more do you need ?


----------



## GregW (24 Mar 2022)

paulrbarnard said:


> Looks like that has two buttons. Does that make you a button pusher too?



ON / OFF



rest is on me.


----------



## GregW (24 Mar 2022)

paulrbarnard said:


> Looks like that has two buttons. Does that make you a button pusher too?



I don’t mind CNC, I’m can program C++, logic, Siemens… but in that case programmer and machine does elements, not the machine operator…

Making anything BY HAND, is the craftsmanship. It’s different from full automatisation, factory replication, mass production, etc…


----------



## D_W (24 Mar 2022)

paulm said:


> chips on both shoulders



wood, metal or potato?


----------



## DBC (24 Mar 2022)

Vann said:


> Yeah, that's what it looks like from down-under .
> 
> Actually, I never noticed. I wonder if I sourced the picture from the Russians...
> 
> ...




Just noticed you live in Petone. Great little place with some great old timber houses. I once moved a colonial weatherboard house from Petone up to the Kapiti Coast in the mid 90s. Cost the owner a fortune as the house carrying trucks were so wide he had to pay to get some roads closed as no one could could pass in either direction. All done in the middle of the night. Sorry for the off topic comment.


----------



## Jameshow (24 Mar 2022)

paulm said:


> Yep, if you look at other posts from the same source they are invariably much the same, chips on both shoulders, another one on the ignore list !


Just another point of view what's wrong with that?


----------



## Vann (25 Mar 2022)

Jameshow said:


> Just another point of view what's wrong with that?



The point of view could have been put more diplomatically, but I didn't think it was too far out of line. For me what stood out was the insult at the end...



planesleuth said:


> ...All you folks that pay hundreds or thousands of pounds for one tool.... pah! you need to get over yourselves!



If he meant it in fun he could have added a smile. If he has a track record of this, then the ignore list is the least we can do for him.

Cheers, Vann.


----------



## clogs (25 Mar 2022)

not so much now but in my youth working in California we had so many options on tools.....esp batt tools....
never heard of Makita before going there....
and u were able to afford them easily.....
Best we had was a Stanley pump s/driver.....hahaha....
nobody has mentioned but lets say DeWalt...they can tool upto make 1/2million drill drivers....and sell em all.....the best we could do in the UK was to make say 50,000....it's all a matter scale.....
As for LN products as nice as they are, for what I do the Stanley and Baily planes do it for me....
Thats mostly because I just use em for a clean up....
the machines do my grunt work....
and whoever started this post .....thanks.....
this forum is a great place to be.....


----------



## Jameshow (25 Mar 2022)

Vann said:


> The point of view could have been put more diplomatically, but I didn't think it was too far out of line. For me what stood out was the insult at the end...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I didn't see that bit I agree.....


----------



## Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) (25 Mar 2022)

Jameshow said:


> Of course you can have nice tools....
> 
> But nice tools dosen't make you a cabinet maker!
> 
> ...



James, my rule is never to knock the tools someone owns. True, tools do not make a cabinetmaker, but there are plenty of cabinetmakers who would enjoy better tools. Many who probably do. We focus on the knowledge gained and not the books in the library.

I am fortunate to have been able to purchase many of the tools I aspired to, although it has taken quite a few decades to do so. They are not responsible for making my work possible, but they have made my work pleasurable. I do enjoy the aesthetic presentation of the tool as much as using the tool when I build furniture. And I will go to the trouble of building my own tools when I believe I can do better.

LN make wonderful tools. 

Regards from Perth

Derek


----------



## shed9 (25 Mar 2022)

Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) said:


> They are not responsible for making my work possible, but they have made my work pleasurable.


This is kind of where I'm at. I get the often touted argument that you don't need expensive tools to do the job but that misses the point of using well made tools when you have access to them.

If LN or Veritas didn't exit, chances are we would be having s similarly loaded thread on why that was the case lamenting on the loss of better made tools. The world is a better place for them in my opinion.


----------



## Jameshow (25 Mar 2022)

Derek Cohen (Perth Oz) said:


> James, my rule is never to knock the tools someone owns. True, tools do not make a cabinetmaker, but there are plenty of cabinetmakers who would enjoy better tools. Many who probably do. We focus on the knowledge gained and not the books in the library.
> 
> I am fortunate to have been able to purchase many of the tools I aspired to, although it has taken quite a few decades to do so. They are not responsible for making my work possible, but they have made my work pleasurable. I do enjoy the aesthetic presentation of the tool as much as using the tool when I build furniture. And I will go to the trouble of building my own tools when I believe I can do better.
> 
> ...


I agree and am somewhat of a hypocrite! 

I have a myfold ml8, Naerok table saw and pillar drill so I appreciate decent tools..... 

Slowly ridding myself of anything branded titan...!!!


----------



## Devmeister (26 Mar 2022)

I agree with Derek. I have been a LN user for 30 years. I also like my vintage tools as they have a sole. You don’t own them… rather you add your bit to their story. And LN tools will add their story as we all pass on.

I own a Kearney Treker 2CH slab mill milling machine. It was used by the Navy and then went to Los Almimos lab. From there it went to the engineering lab at CU Boulder were it was used to build a get away package for the space shuttle Challenger. It was never used again and I was lucky to get it. This machine has a sole! Real Provenance.

I remember Jim Kingshot’s view on tools. Almost religious on how he took care of them. He taught me to respect the history of old tools and the respect of those who came before you.


----------



## Devmeister (26 Mar 2022)

shed9 said:


> This is kind of where I'm at. I get the often touted argument that you don't need expensive tools to do the job but that misses the point of using well made tools when you have access to them.
> 
> If LN or Veritas didn't exit, chances are we would be having s similarly loaded thread on why that was the case lamenting on the loss of better made tools. The world is a better place for them in my opinion.



Yes it is!


----------



## Devmeister (26 Mar 2022)

Jameshow said:


> I agree and am somewhat of a hypocrite!
> 
> I have a myfold ml8, Naerok table saw and pillar drill so I appreciate decent tools.....
> 
> Slowly ridding myself of anything branded titan...!!!



The Myford ML7 is a classic. What a wonderful lathe to do small work and model engineering. And that comes from someone with both a Hardinge and a Monarch 10EE.

when my buddy and I first got the 10EE running, it was emitting a blue glow. The speed control uses a series of tubes including two Thtratrons.

His wife knew we had gotten out of an atomic bomb lab. So we told her it was Residual Atomic Radiation leaking out!

Don’t ever do that! It was a joke and the pour woman went totally Nutzoid! It took two days to convince her we were joking!


----------



## clogs (26 Mar 2022)

Devmiester,
that's Naughty.....
I wanted a bigger lathe so my wife said get rid o the one u got....so out went the Super7.....
sorley missed.....and in came a Colchester Student square head.....
Thats until a machine trader died unexpectedly.....
I was then able to buy his S7 and a Myford VMFmill both with delivery wax on em.....
by this time she totally agreed that money in the bank was worthless......hahaha...
as it happens both have increased in value....well what they'll fetch now....
plus on that note a load more machines have been bought.....


----------



## Devmeister (26 Mar 2022)

Colchester is an old English maker. They are amongst the finest lathes made. Precision Industrial to the max. In the states they are few and far between. Monarch is our top of the line lathe followed by LeBlond. There are other good makers but they tend to be rare or odd ball. American made the pacemaker. One of the finest lathes made but most start at 8000 pounds weight! They were huge!

south Bend was our Myford. But there are features about the Myford with consideration. First the saddle has a milling slotted plate design. This allows for versatile milling attachments, line boring set ups and rear mounted tooling blocks. The ML7 is the only lathe that took this concept that far. But ML7 lathes are hard to find in the states.

One of the coolest wood lathes ever made was the Wadkin RU. It was a gear head pattern makers lathe with an adjustable gap bed. In England they are rare. I finally found one and will move it stateside sometime this summer. It will be a long hard restoration.


----------



## shed9 (29 Mar 2022)

I knew the LN's were going for extortionate amounts on the bay of E but just noticed a 51 shooting plane sold late feb for £1,250  

I get it that they are near impossible to buy and there is uncertainty when stocks will be replenished but effectively paying double for a used one is just nuts, especially when it's already one of their highest priced planes.


----------



## MikeK (29 Mar 2022)

shed9 said:


> I knew the LN's were going for extortionate amounts on the bay of E but just noticed a 51 shooting plane sold late feb for £1,250
> 
> I get it that they are near impossible to buy and there is uncertainty when stocks will be replenished but effectively paying double for a used one is just nuts, especially when it's already one of their highest priced planes.


Wow! My LN 51 is still in the original wooden box. If I flogged it for that price, it would be a good return on the unintended investment. I wonder what the unused No. 1 would fetch.


----------



## raffo (29 Mar 2022)

It's interesting that a lot of commenters state that their LN tools haven't been used in years or still in the box. Yet they're constantly recommended as the tools to get for your shop.


----------



## shed9 (29 Mar 2022)

raffo said:


> It's interesting that a lot of commenters state that their LN tools haven't been used in years or still in the box. Yet they're constantly recommended as the tools to get for your shop.


For reference, in the case of the LN51, it comes in a purpose built wooden protective box, hence comments like Mike's about being in the box. Doesn't necessarily mean it's not getting used, but the box is as well.



MikeK said:


> Wow! My LN 51 is still in the original wooden box. If I flogged it for that price, it would be a good return on the unintended investment. I wonder what the unused No. 1 would fetch.


Same here, I have a 51R boxed, I paid a lot less than current RRP and was just lucky in the initial purchase more than anything. I bought it whilst rebuilding my workshop (still not complete) so it hasn't even seen action yet. I have a fair amount of LN tools (far too many really), logically it would make sense to sell them given the silly high prices they are going for now but then I didn't buy them as investments, as you say, its purely unintended. 

No 1's are just insane in price since they discontinued them.


----------



## MikeK (29 Mar 2022)

raffo said:


> It's interesting that a lot of commenters state that their LN tools haven't been used in years or still in the box. Yet they're constantly recommended as the tools to get for your shop.


I never said I don’t use my LN tools. As shed9 wrote, the best place for to store it when not being used in in its original wooden box. The 51 is too large to fit in my plane till.

The No. 1 is a different matter. I didn’t realize there were specific child labor laws in place when I bought it.


----------



## raffo (29 Mar 2022)

My mistake. Obviously, I don't have one, otherwise I would have known about the box deal 

I think it was on shooting plane thread where a member mentioned not using his.


----------



## Tony Zaffuto (29 Mar 2022)

I sold a #9 about a month ago for more than double what it cost me! I was shocked at the going price for some of the LN tools. For my tastes, I prefer the LV miter shooting plane hands down over the #9. I got my LV for a song during the "LV scratch and dent" sale. For the life of me, I cannot find anything wrong with the plane! I also sold an iron sole standard angle LN 4-1/2. Got it on a trade and sold it for way more than the value I would have set for it. It just was not to my liking-I also have a Stanley & Sargent 4-1/2, and they may go one of these days.

I have a number of other LN (and LV) tools that earn their keep however.


----------



## shed9 (29 Mar 2022)

Just as a heads up to anyone looking to buy LN and finding it hard to find stockists. Classic Hand Tools have a bunch back in stock this week. They have the;

LN 101 low angle bronze
LN 102 violin makers bronze
60 1/2 block
LN 4 (iron version)
LN 71 closed mouth router
LN 271 mini router
LN 073 large shoulder

They seem to have lots of blades back in as well. 

Just ordered the 101, 102 and the closed mouth router myself this afternoon. Yes, I know it won't make me a master craftsman.............


----------



## CStanford (29 Mar 2022)

People should buy what they need to put themselves above blaming the tool. If that's L-N, so be it.

This gentleman (and wife) make stunning furniture and appear to employ a lot of Lie-Nielsen and some Lee Valley hand tools in doing so. Granted, they're not hurting for power equipment.



https://www.youtube.com/c/Doucetteandwolfefurniture



If they're good enough for them, well, watch a few videos and you be the judge if they'd work for you or if you should be able to make them work for you.


----------



## Democritus (29 Mar 2022)

As shed9 has noted, Classic handtools has both Clifton and LN planes for sale on their website.
D


----------



## shed9 (29 Mar 2022)

Democritus said:


> As shed9 has noted, Classic handtools has both Clifton and LN planes for sale on their website.
> D


Not sure they have Clifton planes in stock at the moment, I think they have some blades but that's about it. Peter Sefton seems to have best availability for Clifton bench planes (albeit just a No 3 and 5 1/2 right now), whereas I believe Workshop Heaven has some shoulder planes in;






Hand Planes


We stock a full range of hand planes from block planes to smoothing planes and jack planes through to fore and jointer as well shoulder and routing planes.




woodworkersworkshop.co.uk





I only have one Clifton, a 4 1/2 which was a birthday gift, it is a thing of beauty and I have to say certainly has the pedigree to play with the likes of LN and LV. I'm sorely tempted to get a No 3 in the near future from Peter.


----------



## TRITON (29 Mar 2022)

shed9 said:


> Just ordered the 101, 102 and the closed mouth router myself this afternoon. Yes, I know it won't make me a master craftsman.............


Here, hang on, nobody told me that. I was under the impression to be a pro, you just need a couple of LN planes and maybe a few Japanese saws.

I have the closed mouth LN router, and while it is very nice, replacement blades are a tad over priced.Plus are limited to sizes, though you can buy an expensive adaptor to use LN smaller irons.
If i was to make the choice again, it would be veritas
A replacement or smaller blade on a veritas is £20, the same on the LM is £40, or £75-80 to get the adaptor too.


----------



## Democritus (29 Mar 2022)

Shed9,
They have a Clifton 770 bullnose at £126, a Clifton 410 shoulder at £174.50, a 420 shoulder at £187.50, a 310 at £210, and a 400 shoulder at £73.50. They have No5 jack at £318, a No. 6 Fore at £348, and a 51/2 at £324.
They also have a number of Clifton replacement blades.

Fill your socks, boys!


----------



## shed9 (29 Mar 2022)

Democritus said:


> Shed9,
> They have a Clifton 770 bullnose at £126, a Clifton 410 shoulder at £174.50, a 420 shoulder at £187.50, a 310 at £210, and a 400 shoulder at £73.50. They have No5 jack at £318, a No. 6 Fore at £348, and a 51/2 at £324.
> They also have a number of Clifton replacement blades.
> 
> Fill your socks, boys!


Those planes are not in stock though unfortunately......They may be listed but you need to tick the 'in stock' filter to confirm availability.


----------



## Devmeister (30 Mar 2022)

OMG Guys!
First, some tools get used and some don’t. LN makes a bit over 20,000 tools per year. So if a handful wind up as gifts or impulse buys that don’t get used, I get that. And with the market what is you can’t blame them.

LN has been working like mad men to catch up. COVID shut them down for three months: that is a loss of 25 percent of a years production. Not easy to make up.

Then add in the crazy COVID demand curves and every one is hurting.

The Cliftons are on par with the LN planes. Not bad for such a small operation. If I got a new Clifton, I would refinish it with British racing green as that was traditional. A damn fine plane and their block plane is quite nice and unusual.

LN production numbers have been on the rise with slight relief in some inventory’s as noted. The same observations on this side of the pond. 5.5 jacks are much easier to get now.

The two foundaries LN uses have also been hit hard as they are family owned businesses. But things are moving forward.

LN is running at full head count with some new employees. So some re-training goes without saying. Good news is some production slots are opening up for core two tools. LN will have a batch of 51s available at the end of April.

I have been struggling to find LN tools needed to fill tooling voids in my shop. The 51 is one of them. I recently got a 5.5 jack to replace my Fulton 5 jack. I am not selling the LN tools as they all are users.

I would like to find a LN 49 T&G plane and the fixed cab scraper, the 85 as I recall. The price of 85s are crazy right now.

Would also like to find a LN bronze #4 to retire my grand papa’s bedrock 604. I don’t want to use it for work due to family value.

In short things are getting better and I am happy. The info above is from an email by Thomas himself.


----------



## Democritus (30 Mar 2022)

Shed9

I should have looked more closely. Sorry, guys.


----------



## shed9 (30 Mar 2022)

Democritus said:


> Shed9
> 
> I should have looked more closely. Sorry, guys.


No apology needed, the only reason I knew was I was caught out by it myself.


----------



## Devmeister (30 Mar 2022)

Same here. No worries. I scan the LN website each morning over coffee. Managed to get the 5.5 jack. Still after the 51. I do like the 60 1/2 block full width and the Clifton block. If we can pull out of this COVID mess, it may be an expensive year for the shop.

I looked at some stuff on the D&W furniture site. URL listed above. Holy Cow are those guys good!


----------



## Tony Zaffuto (30 Mar 2022)

How much are 85 (scraper plane) going for?


----------



## Devmeister (30 Mar 2022)

One guy on eBay is trying to get around 700 USD. I know of an original Stanley 51 right going for 700.


----------



## Tony Zaffuto (30 Mar 2022)

Wow! I have an 85 that I've never quite grown to like!


----------



## shed9 (30 Mar 2022)

Tony Zaffuto said:


> Wow! I have an 85 that I've never quite grown to like!


To be fair, it's the sold prices you need to look at not the asking. That said the 85's seem to fluctuate all over, I've seen the go for around £300 and as much as over £500 in recent months. I think the 85 is discontinued so it's likely to increase over time.


----------



## Tony Zaffuto (30 Mar 2022)

shed9 said:


> To be fair, it's the sold prices you need to look at not the asking. That said the 85's seem to fluctuate all over, I've seen the go for around £300 and as much as over £500 in recent months. I think the 85 is discontinued so it's likely to increase over time.


These are tools are not investments! I’m curious what the three Wenzloff saws I have are worth!


----------



## shed9 (30 Mar 2022)

Tony Zaffuto said:


> These are tools are not investments!


Given their value used is sometimes many times the RRP, clearly they are investments. It is the very definition of an investment.


----------



## Tony Zaffuto (30 Mar 2022)

shed9 said:


> Given their value used is sometimes many times the RRP, clearly they are investments. It is the very definition of an investment.


I doubt very many are purchased as an investment. Until the pandemic, the best that could be said was a LN tool holds its value and when you tire of it, you could probably sell for what you have in it.

To me, when I bought the 85, it was a tool. I do not save boxes and I care not if it gets banged around.


----------



## shed9 (31 Mar 2022)

Tony Zaffuto said:


> I doubt very many are purchased as an investment. Until the pandemic, the best that could be said was a LN tool holds its value and when you tire of it, you could probably sell for what you have in it.
> 
> To me, when I bought the 85, it was a tool. I do not save boxes and I care not if it gets banged around.


I agree, I doubt many are bought for investment purposes and I also hope they aren't but my point is they are a product which clearly has a track record of holding and increasing value. Regardless of the reasons for purchase they are technically an investment is all I'm saying.


----------



## Devmeister (31 Mar 2022)

It’s not an investment I would go for. It’s a COVID bubble that is a pain in the rear when you need one. LN is working hard to get thru this bubble. Don’t forget they have the patterns and programs. As soon as they get breathing room, there goes your investment.


----------



## shed9 (31 Mar 2022)

Devmeister said:


> It’s not an investment I would go for. It’s a COVID bubble that is a pain in the rear when you need one. LN is working hard to get thru this bubble. Don’t forget they have the patterns and programs. As soon as they get breathing room, there goes your investment.


That COVID bubble hasn't quite popped yet, we have a gas and by extension a world wide power issue that will impact logistics and industrial processes for the next decade at least and to top it all off, inflation is at a 40 yr high in the US. 

In addition to this brief synopsis of the return to norm you think is happening, Lie Nielsen has consistently gone up in price since they started making planes and that increase far exceeds the basic interest rates comparative to standard financial savings.


----------

