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Alas, I was too young to learn all my handskills from Grandad, a joiner who worked in the huge, then newly built, late victorian and edwardian "luxury" houses on the south coast, in his younger days. But he always said 50 deg planes were for hardwood, and thus I got myself a couple of LN bench...

Any extractor bigger than a domestic vacuum (and even they are hard on 20A rated switches) needs a proper starter with a contactor; running currents may be modest. but motors can start up with a big surge (too short to blow fuse, but hard on switches) I uses to have a 45A (shower) pull switch...

I think there used to be a lot of small stones, about 5x1" about, for sharpening cutthroat razors (every man had one). If that was the use of yours, they are probably worn hollow. I have a slate, and a "Belgian stone" one somewhere. I wonder what Belgian stone is?

Sorry, just realised that and edited my 1st post accordingly. Maybe you've got a point, a full depth pass at rad + 2mm doesn't smack of undue care! Has he got strong arms? Try a spiral, since getting 1/2" up, down, and up/down to try in the Woodrat have been quite impressed; presumably because...

The split came at the pointy bit of the "D", where curve meets straight? Could you glue on infeed/outfeed blocks with piece of newspaper in glue joint, so they knock off afterwards, then it's the block that splits, not the job? If the split is in the middle of the curve, a spiral, always...

PS Steve, I think I've seen something similar (to shelix) in some literature here recently, but at considerably more expense, thus binned. It might have been JKO (?) the German firm, Wealden have some of their replaceable tip router cutters and spindle tooling. This latter includes a spirally...

I was really thinking more about best P/T technique than the best solution for the troublesome maple. Philly, done that; it was DC who grumbled about commercially PAR brought by his students with surface divots 2mm deep, as an intro. He also suggests back bevel, he hand honed his on knives...

The usual advice (apart from reading the grain) is to hone the blades, perhaps with a back bevel, take small cuts under 1mm down to perhaps 0.3mm, and maybe dampen the surface with water to swell / tighten the fibres, and slow the feed rate if you're lucky enough to have variable speed. Tried...

This seems to have come out with a very quiet fanfare? Not sure how new it actually is, but not seen anything about it in print/on line before. Ordered mine from Axminster, and it seemed to lack about 25 thou of machining, so the mouth would not close less than this. Ax sent a second frog next...

I have a 310, my best value tool ever, I should think. Would definitely buy again with all hindsight. Built like a tank. Get the digital display if your eyes are less than perfect - rather plasticy for 50 quid but so easy to set thicknesser, and accurate to considerably better thant 0.1mm, easy...

Agreed; a really useful teaching or experimenting tool; although mine is only 30x and has a slide to focus button which is a bit filddly. It helps you see how you're doing and how may strokes you need to remove the wear on the back of the blade, say. Also for scoping the fit of the cap iron...

My saw takes 152" blades and Dragon charged about 20 odd quid a blade for bi metal on the last order, was for 5 or 6 blades in all, mostly 3/4 and 1".

Just a thought - how do you know your marble is flat? Generally you need the flat surface about 10x flatter that your desired plane flatness. Thus to get plane to about 1 thou flat, your ref surface must be better than O.1 thou. One of the cheaper granite surface plates is about this flat, and...

I'd better make it plain that the cramps reviewed are both cast iron on steel bar, not aluminium. They are real alternatives to the Record, which is now almost £30 a cramp at this size. The Axminster Ali cramps linked to above, are made of thin Ali and are very bendy, suitable for very lightest...

In need of more cramps and gasping at the price of the market leader, I chanced my arm on a dozen Silverline Expert 900mm at £7.70 each (inc VAT), well under 1/3 of the price of the Records, (which are now made in China for Irwin). What did I get? As you might expect, at this price you don't...

A proper vacuum pump gets closest to a true vacuum, and this gives about 15 lbs of clamping pressure per sq inch. A hand pump might do for a very small bag press - I think one was available in a kit to laminate a skateboard; but otherwise far too slow to build the vacuum. Vac cleaner motors can...

Butyl pond liner makes a good (but opaque) bag V cheaply. Connectors to bag: screw-together tarpaulin eylets (see post by Scritt). You fix the eyelet to bag having tap-ed it to standard bsp thread for air fittings. It was Scritt who suggested using fridge / freezer compressor (also post here)...

Rutlands have replied that LN frogs will not fit their planes. So as a matter of interest, someone didn't pass the Chinese a LN sample with a request to make this for $5. Vann, neither the 2" nor 2 3/8" LN frogs will fit Cliftons. Clifton said they didn't think the market big enough for their...

If you are tempted to dubious practices, be aware you may well be invalidating any insurance you have by an act of "contributory negligence". If your hobby accident means you loose your day job and insurance cover, this could be a serious problem for the whole family. At work, if practice is...

The Kell isn't really suited to waterstones - or at least running on waterstones - the rollers are very thin so it's impossible to keep abrasive slurry out of the precision machining. For blades narrower than the (wide) roller, the LV Mk2 can be tipped by shims under the roller to give a...