woodbloke
Established Member
Paul Chapman and Newt (Pete) have just left after a very enjoyable afternoon just messing around with planes and other tools. Paul brought his Cliftons and we had a close look and play with Newts' new bronze LN No4. The pic shows the very small selection of hardware we were comparing, it's such a shame that my take-off table wasn't a bit bigger 'cos we had loads more to play around with :wink:
We were mainly comparing the smoothers, the LN No4, Clifton No 41/2, Clifton No3 and the Record Calvert-Stevens. All three were consistently taking shavings from some ash of 0.0005" (half a thou) which is impressive and even worked well on some interlocked and nasty Indian Laurel, I liked the No3 alot. I thought it would be too small in the hand but this is'nt the case, it works as well as the larger smoothers, really good to use. The LN is without doubt a beautifully engineered plane and really does work 'straight out the box'. The main conclusion that we came to was that all the planes we tested performed fairly equally but each had a different 'feel'. Paul's larger Cliftons were again very, very impressive.....are you sure Paul, that your No6 was in your holdall at the end and not in the back of Pete's Audi?....it was a close call :lol:. Pete also had his marking gauge which he made in his engineering workshop...just immaculate and probably much superior to anything produced by LN. Big thanks also to Pete for showing me how to harden and temper plane blades and to Paul for leaving me his own Record No4 and Clifton blade to play around with for my own Record No4 refurb.
In all a very, very enjoyable afternoon which we are going to repeat, just a shame that Philly couldn't get here..... :lol: - Rob
We were mainly comparing the smoothers, the LN No4, Clifton No 41/2, Clifton No3 and the Record Calvert-Stevens. All three were consistently taking shavings from some ash of 0.0005" (half a thou) which is impressive and even worked well on some interlocked and nasty Indian Laurel, I liked the No3 alot. I thought it would be too small in the hand but this is'nt the case, it works as well as the larger smoothers, really good to use. The LN is without doubt a beautifully engineered plane and really does work 'straight out the box'. The main conclusion that we came to was that all the planes we tested performed fairly equally but each had a different 'feel'. Paul's larger Cliftons were again very, very impressive.....are you sure Paul, that your No6 was in your holdall at the end and not in the back of Pete's Audi?....it was a close call :lol:. Pete also had his marking gauge which he made in his engineering workshop...just immaculate and probably much superior to anything produced by LN. Big thanks also to Pete for showing me how to harden and temper plane blades and to Paul for leaving me his own Record No4 and Clifton blade to play around with for my own Record No4 refurb.
In all a very, very enjoyable afternoon which we are going to repeat, just a shame that Philly couldn't get here..... :lol: - Rob
