How to store Handplanes?

[D_W]

It's always amusing how many people think there's much of a difference.

I had someone in my shop lately who doesn't use hand tools and who chewed me out about not setting *planes that I made* on their soles, because it was "wrong".

Must've been in fine woodworking at some point.

David, I've seen pictures of your shop, and I'm certain that once you put a plane down - regardless of the manner in which you do so - you will never see it again under the mess! :lol:

Regards from Perth

Derek

There is truth to that!!

Also, if I put one on end like the video above, there is a 100% chance that something else in my shop would hit it and knock it over, even if I was personally 4 feet away. If you have enough junk, it becomes like billiards.

(inability to organize - or lack of interest in doing it on a continuous basis - is one of the reasons I need to downsize my piles)

 

[AJB Temple]

I found myself drawn to this thread. I had do woodwork and metalwork at school until I was about 16 (after which all I did was mathematics) and I still have some of the things I made then. My woodwork teacher was absolutely obsessed with putting planes down on their sides, and with the blade facing away from the boy / planer. He was more worried about boys cutting their fingers on the exposed blade than anything else.

I am a bit obsessed with high end Japanese kitchen knives, and the standard practice is always place them on the board with the (razor) sharp edge facing away. I have just been resurrecting to use my various planes from 30 years ago, that have rested in waxed paper and boxes for quite some time. Mostly Record and Stanley. I would have no problem putting them down on the sole - because I am careful with my tools! having been impressed by their chisels, I am tempted to buy a Lie Nielsen bronze plane no 3 and a No 6 jack that I have been offered for £200 the pair. Seems like a good deal as both the planes and the boxes are pristine. It is however, pure tool lust as I already have perfectly serviceable planes around these sizes. They almost look pretty enough for display!

 

[iNewbie]

I'd buy 'em an ebay 'em if you don't want to use them.

 

[D_W]

I'd buy 'em an ebay 'em if you don't want to use them.

Ditto that, they don't come around for essentially less than half price very often. Even if you don't want them terminally, they won't lighten your wallet any in the exchange.

 

[AJB Temple]

Thanks. Yes, I have since looked at the new price for these, which is well in excess of double. So I have purchased them this afternoon for £180 cash. I have no idea what the advantage of bronze is, if any, but it appears to be some sort of limited edition thing. Very well made. From reading up a bit on them it is apparently recommended to change the blades for Clifton as it is apparently better carbon steel than the material LN use.

On the subject of eBay, I think the smart thing to do is maybe eBay the old planes. Two of them are quite nice and belonged to my dad, so they will be kept, but one of them is a No 4 Stanley and the handles are plastic in a fake wood effect and the other is a Record No 8 which is not in great condition really. There are few block planes that I may as well keep but I will never use the wooden planes again. They actually came out of my school workshop as they were thrown away when I was 14 and the woodwork teacher let my dad have them. Never been used by me.

 

[yetloh]

You certainly bagged yourseelf a bargain. I am sure there will be lots of people on here who would dispute the suggestion that Clifton steel is better than LN. I personally doubt that you would detect any significant difference. Personally, I would stick with what you have and invest the cash in a block plane of comprable quality.

On the ssubject of school woodworking, my experience sounds similar to yours. A few years ago I attneded a woodworking evening class held in a school worshop, where the clapped out benches were peppered with almost buried nails and panel pins driven in to catch the unwary by bored daytime pupils. In that context the adice drilled in about puttiing planes down was eminently sensible.

Jim

 

[Phil Pascoe]

When I was at school the woodwork master refused to have nails in the 'shop - if nails were absolutely essential, we would have to go to the maintenance man's 'shop and ask for the exact number we wanted.

 

[AJB Temple]

The advice on plane irons came from David Savage. It is in an article on his site fine furniture making dot com where he has some interesting views on planes, chisels and steel. I am quite interested in Japanese and American artisan made kitchen knives, and this tends to result in an obsession about the merits of different steels (especially Japanese blue and white 1 and 2) and how sharp they can be made, how durable and for how long. Many people like the high carbon steels and accept the drawbacks. I am not a great fan of semi stainless in knives, but planes are a different animal.

I will be running the Lie Nielsen blades over my knife stones today. Looking at them I am not sure these planes have ever been used as there is no secondary bevel or micro bevel on the blades and they seem to measure at exactly the factory standard setting and have no marks other than what appears to be the original grind. The soles appear to be 100% flat and dead square to the sides, which is nice machining. The bronze one in particular is extremely well finished. Whether or not they will work better than my old Stanley's and Records will be interesting to see. The record No 8 (which possibly belonged to my grandfather) is obviously quite long and I don't think it is dead true (although it is flat). The LN machining and finish quality is much higher which surprises me for modern stuff.

Adrian

 

[Jacob]

....The LN machining and finish quality is much higher which surprises me for modern stuff.

Adrian

Record, Stanley were making practical planes for practical people. Machine finish quality is not that important from a practical point of view - low friction is achieved when the high points of a surface are buffed up a bit e.g. you can flatten a sole with 80 grit and go straight to 400 grit to make it low friction.
The new retro planes are high finish because people imagine this has value. It's also easier as they are made of softer ductile steel (inferior?) as compared to the cast steel of the old ones. I managed to impart a deep scratch to a Clifton almost the first time I used it and hit a nail. It wouldn't have marked a Record.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

The LN machining and finish quality is much higher which surprises me for modern stuff.

Not surprising in the least to most of us who have been around LN, LV and Clifton planes for many years. That is their selling point -- that they are well made. Indeed, they are the stuff that Stanley in their heyday could only dream about!

That is not a comment about better or worse design or whether the Stanleys or Records cannot work as well, or even better, than these modern planes. It is just a statement about the quality of production notable in the fit of of their part, steel, and durability.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Bluekingfisher]

The advice on plane irons came from David Savage. It is in an article on his site fine furniture making dot com where he has some interesting views on planes, chisels and steel. I am quite interested in Japanese and American artisan made kitchen knives, and this tends to result in an obsession about the merits of different steels (especially Japanese blue and white 1 and 2) and how sharp they can be made, how durable and for how long. Many people like the high carbon steels and accept the drawbacks. I am not a great fan of semi stainless in knives, but planes are a different animal.

I will be running the Lie Nielsen blades over my knife stones today. Looking at them I am not sure these planes have ever been used as there is no secondary bevel or micro bevel on the blades and they seem to measure at exactly the factory standard setting and have no marks other than what appears to be the original grind. The soles appear to be 100% flat and dead square to the sides, which is nice machining. The bronze one in particular is extremely well finished. Whether or not they will work better than my old Stanley's and Records will be interesting to see. The record No 8 (which possibly belonged to my grandfather) is obviously quite long and I don't think it is dead true (although it is flat). The LN machining and finish quality is much higher which surprises me for modern stuff.

Adrian

Keep your planes lying on the floor under your bench, apparently it does them no harm at all. :wink:

 

[AJB Temple]

Interesting. I inherited, begged or bought most of my tools when I was a student, and had no idea until quite recently that this high end stuff even existed, or was so expensive. I have been for over 3 decades using a set of Footprint bevel chisels that my dad gave me when I was about 17. They have red plastic handles. I recently replaced them with LN because I had quite a bit of stuff stolen (since returned, to my amazement as police got lucky). There is no doubt the LN socket chisels are better made, but the Footprint set, which I expect cost rather little, have excellent steel and are still extremely functional, despite much abuse (such as using one as a scraper on a violin top). Most hand tools haven't really changed much in years it seems. In some ways we have gone backwards - screwdrivers these days are often rubbish.

 

[Jacob]

Footprint tools have always been excellent. Being cosmetically "better made" doesn't make LN etc any more useful.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

... In some ways we have gone backwards - screwdrivers these days are often rubbish.

Agreed. When tools get made to a price point, and the price point get lowered constantly to remain competitive or to maximise profits (usually the latter), then what you end up with is a photocopy of a tool.

For example, I have some nice screwdrivers, made in the 70s or 80s, but I needed to hollow grind the tips to prevent them camming out of a slot. How often do you find screwdrivers made correctly?

Footprint tools have always been excellent. Being cosmetically "better made" doesn't make LN etc any more useful.

Relax Jacob ... no one necessary disagrees about the ability of a cheaper plane like Footprint to work as well as a LN - if you know how to do so. There is no doubting that the LN will have less backlash, have general better fit and finish, and survive better if both fall off the bench. More importantly, some of us actually derive enjoyment from the tools we use, and there is no doubt which one will provide the greatest pleasure. Understandably, that is not your interest.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Screwdrivers? Buy Wera or Wiha.

 

[shed9]

If the likes of Lie Nielsen, Clifton, Veritas, etc didn't exist, the wood working world would be a duller place for it.

My own £0.02 on this one, I have a whole range of planes from Stanley type 9's, LN, LV along with many others. After using all of them extensively I always go for the LN's whenever I can. Sure you can probably achieve the same end result with most tools but the enjoyment of using LN usurps sheer function every time for me.

That said, you can argue until the cows come home on the merits or folly of high end high cost tools over low cost mass produced options but the bottom line is the options are out there.

 

[D_W]

....The LN machining and finish quality is much higher which surprises me for modern stuff.

Adrian

Record, Stanley were making practical planes for practical people. Machine finish quality is not that important from a practical point of view - low friction is achieved when the high points of a surface are buffed up a bit e.g. you can flatten a sole with 80 grit and go straight to 400 grit to make it low friction.
The new retro planes are high finish because people imagine this has value. It's also easier as they are made of softer ductile steel (inferior?) as compared to the cast steel of the old ones. I managed to impart a deep scratch to a Clifton almost the first time I used it and hit a nail. It wouldn't have marked a Record.

The old records must've been made from something different. I don't favor buying new planes for anything other than indulgence (or perhaps one to learn what a plane should function like if someone is in complete isolation and can't otherwise learn), but one thing I haven't heard from anyone who grinds or cast is that the new planes aren't higher quality castings than the old ones by a mile.

they're ductile and they should be plenty hard. The issue isn't whether or not the casting is better (to me), it seems the opinion is that the newer ones are better castings, but that the ways that they're better don't provide any material benefit in the long term. If they did, stanley would've made their planes out of malleable cast, but as it was, they only did that for planes they expected people to drop.

Many of my stanley planes had deep scratches from nails, screws or staples.

 

[D_W]

Sure you can probably achieve the same end result with most tools but the enjoyment of using LN usurps sheer function every time for me.

As far as arguing, I think everyone will do it all the time, period, about every aspect. I started with LNs. One stanley and I guess 5 LNs. I no longer have any LNs, and the only stanley I use regularly is a #4.

I went...
LN..
Stanley/Millers falls, to
mostly wood..

If I didn't dimension wood from rough, I probably would've stopped at step 2. I like the irons better in the old planes for matters of workflow and sharpening with stones that are pleasing to sharpen with.

Use of the cap iron in those middle planes all of the sudden negates anything LN has done to "improve" the planes, and there is a user effort tax on the premium planes that are absolutely perfectly flat, and that is the amount of friction they force the user to work through. Wax lasts less long, and through the cycle of wax to no wax and wax again, they require more effort if you don't consciously push only forward on them.

There is also a lack of feeling of engagement with them that the bailey patterns haven't lost. Working a bailey plane hard is akin to the feeling of driving a truck with a full load, it's engaging.

 

[mouppe]

To answer the original question in the thread, I store my handplanes vertically in a tool cabinet. I have rare earth magnets embedded in the cabinet back which keeps the planes in place.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Sure you can probably achieve the same end result with most tools but the enjoyment of using LN usurps sheer function every time for me.

As far as arguing, I think everyone will do it all the time, period, about every aspect. I started with LNs. One stanley and I guess 5 LNs. I no longer have any LNs, and the only stanley I use regularly is a #4.

I went...
LN..
Stanley/Millers falls, to
mostly wood..

If I didn't dimension wood from rough, I probably would've stopped at step 2. I like the irons better in the old planes for matters of workflow and sharpening with stones that are pleasing to sharpen with.

Use of the cap iron in those middle planes all of the sudden negates anything LN has done to "improve" the planes, and there is a user effort tax on the premium planes that are absolutely perfectly flat, and that is the amount of friction they force the user to work through. Wax lasts less long, and through the cycle of wax to no wax and wax again, they require more effort if you don't consciously push only forward on them.

There is also a lack of feeling of engagement with them that the bailey patterns haven't lost. Working a bailey plane hard is akin to the feeling of driving a truck with a full load, it's engaging.

The choice of blade steel depends on the wood you work, how you sharpen, and how frequently you believe is reasonable to sharpen.

There are no absolutes. Softer carbon steels, such as in the Clifton plans, as well as in vintage irons, hone up easily and take a good edge, and would satisfy one working with softer woods than I do. I am not saying that they are soft woods, just softer compared to the rock hard stuff I have to deal with. This is the other end of the spectrum. It is not your norm. Steels such as A2 are much preferred to O1 because they resist abrasion better. PM-V11 is even better still, and some prefer HSS (M2).

Planes work as well as the blade is sharpened, so do not attempt to evaluate a blade or plane unless you have mastered the steel you are using.

David, you and I are going to disagree about chipbreakers for a while yet. Our preferences are diametrically opposite. Having said this, it is also relevant to point out that the hole position on LN chipbreakers is different from those on a Stanley and a LV. I have no difficulty setting up a LN chipbreaker on a LN plane and getting straight shavings (which indicates that the chipbreaker is working). I can get the same result on a UK Stanley #3, and on a LV Custom #4. They all work well when set up correctly.

But these are smoothers and they get the least use of the planes. Jack plane? I predominantly use a woody. Jointer? I have two metal planes (LV #7 Custom and a LV BU Jointer - both far, far more engaging than a Stanley #7!) and a woody. Which do I prefer? They are different. Also what is different is that I do use machines as well. They blend in with my handtools - dimensioned boards are finished with handplanes. If I was only working with handtools, then it might be different. But I am not. Consequently, one cannot speak in absolutes, only with similar work patterns.

Regards from Perth

Derek