New hand planes?

[Phil Pascoe]

In the mid '60s my father had labourers that worked 7 days a week to take home £10 - and for Cornwall, they were not badly paid.

 

[Mr_P]

Paddy already pointed you all to his thread earlier that clearly shows a bog standard number 4 cost about a days wages

comparison-of-tool-prices-over-time-t91056.html

 

[Trafalgar]

From that thread:

If the assertion being made is that the L-N is the equivalent in price to Stanley Bailey at a particular point in time, and we acknowledge the fact that workers very commonly owned Stanley Bailey, then I guess we need to reconcile the perception (fact?) that Lie-Nielsen is an 'aspirational' brand (Derek's very lovely term) and they are perceived to be a boutique firm (which they are and Stanley certainly was not) with boutique-like prices to match (which seems to be the general consensus).

Otherwise, sump'n don't gee-haw.

One must also reconcile all the Bailey copyists. I think we counted a couple-dozen or more in a past thread and I'm sure a few were left out. Can you imagine two dozen plus Norris copyists? It's absurd. The market could never have absorbed this many copyists of a plane that is being asserted was as premium as Lie-Nielsen is today (Bailey, that is).

If the assertion is that Stanley Bailey was as premium a brand then (with prices to match), as Lie-Nielsen appears to be today, then it's difficult to reconcile this assertion with Stanley's production and sales numbers. One cannot sell and the market cannot absorb as many Rolls Royce cars as Pintos.

I'm sure L-N would love to understand the market mechanics behind Stanley selling orders of magnitudes more planes if the brand perception and pricing schemes were essentially identical. Even allowing for the mechanization of woodworking there's a huge difference.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

Charles, we went through all that months ago. The overall conclusion was that the woodriver or QS planes are, in the UK, ROUGHLY the equivalent price, compared to UK wages, as a Stanley bailey was 50 years ago. A lot cheaper than a LN, but considerably more than a modern stanley. Anyone interested can read the old thread, surely we don't need to repeat it all here.
Paddy

PS here in England nothing goes Gee-haw

 

[Bedrock]

Going back a page or two, as to who actually buys Clifton, LN or LV, I go to the Edward Barnsley workshop open days, near here, every year or so, for the chat, the buzz from their design/making quality, but also to look at what tools their apprentices are using. From recollection, there seems to be a fair cross section of planes, from revamped older Stanleys and Records, usually with thicker replacement blades, LNs, LVs and the odd Clifton.
Whether you like Arts and Crafts or not, I doubt that there is a better training scheme, and it seems to me that their young apprentices are not having to limit themselves to older revamped planes, nor that only hobbyists are willing/able to buy the more expensive equipment.

 

[Trafalgar]

Of course not but in no way could Lie-Nielsen survive on sales to professional furnituremakers in shops like Barnsley. At least not with the line they have now. Lee Valley sells lots of other things so perhaps they could. Otherwise, both need the hobbyist market as it must account for the majority of sales. And the fact that apprentices at Barnsley can be seen using older Stanley and Record, at all, is telling. Assuming that there is a standard of craftsmanship, and surely it is high, these old planes must be able to meet it.

A mouse killed by an older model trap isn't any less dead.

Isn't Clifton now out of business?

 

[Mr_P]

Charles ???

You commented on the recently launched new Clifton block plane page

first-impressions-of-the-clifton-block-plane-t91140.html

 

[Trafalgar]

What a happy refreshing of memory!

 

[Peter Sefton]

Clifton are very much alive and re investing.

The Barnsley workshop have a good selection of planes in use including QS and WoodRiver. They are happy to use good quality old planes because they have the experience within the workshop to teach them how to fettle them and get them working to their best ability.

The apprentices have usually done at minimum of a 1 year course if not 3 years at college/uni prior to being selected. They will also have different budgets for tools as we all do and had various Birthday and Christmas presents to assist. I am sure they are advised to buy the best they can afford and build a tool kit from there.

Cheers Peter

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Isn't Clifton now out of business?

No.

Earlier this year, Clifton's parent company, Clico Tools, went into liquidation. Their main business was the making of tooling for the aircraft industry, but they had a sideline making woodworking boring tools (mainly tooling for woodworking machinery, but some hand-tool bits), and the plane-making. Before the company failed, the plane-making business was sold to Thomas Flinn and Co, who continue to manufacture Clifton planes.

http://www.flinn-garlick-saws.co.uk/

 

[Trafalgar]

Yes, that sounds familiar now. Thank you.

 

[D_W]

Sellers has mentioned a number of times that (in the mid 60s as an apprentice) his Stanley No 4 cost him a weeks' wages. Could just be an anecdote/exaggeration of course (I don't have any data).

He may not be too far out sploo. I don't recall precise figures, but I do remember my first week's wage packet as a trainee cabinetmaker/ joiner in the 70s contained about £7 after tax and National Insurance deductions. The cost of a plane is hazier, but in my mind, something like a brand new Record No 4 (with a stained beech handle [prior to plastic, anyway]) was in the region of £4- £5. Don't quote me on the plane cost - and that really quite large spread between £4 and £5 surely indicates how unreliable my memory might be on this occasion, ha, ha. Slainte.

There's a hidden part there in the states, too, though it may not be quite so severe as the fees you're talking about.

If the skilled labor wage was about $5 a day in 1915, I'd imagine the worker got to keep a pretty fair bit of that. It's true still for low paid in the US that credits and such things make their burden low, but move up from that a bit and the effective tax rate makes it so that the worker would have to work some more in a day.

 

[D_W]

If stanley still made planes in volume these days, i doubt they'd cost more than about $150 at their quality level to be made in the US and provide good service. Maybe less. Lie nielsen's operation and LV's operations look clean and neat, but I doubt their output is remotely close per hour of labor (adjusted for CNC type stuff if necessary) to match what stanley would've been doing 100 years ago. No part of a stanley plane from 100 years ago is low quality, though the bloggers and such might make it out as if they were.

At any rate, I find the quangsheng, et al, to be a bit of a slap in the face price-wise given where they're made. That's separate from the discussion of the quality, I'm sure they make a workable plane, but the price that they're sold for makes no sense to me.

 

[Graham Orm]

If stanley still made planes in volume these days, i doubt they'd cost more than about $150 at their quality level to be made in the US and provide good service. Maybe less. Lie nielsen's operation and LV's operations look clean and neat, but I doubt their output is remotely close per hour of labor (adjusted for CNC type stuff if necessary) to match what stanley would've been doing 100 years ago. No part of a stanley plane from 100 years ago is low quality, though the bloggers and such might make it out as if they were.

At any rate, I find the quangsheng, et al, to be a bit of a slap in the face price-wise given where they're made. That's separate from the discussion of the quality, I'm sure they make a workable plane, but the price that they're sold for makes no sense to me.

I have a 1900 Stanley #7. The as well as being tissue thin, the casting on one side is visibly thinner than the other, I doubt if that would get past quality control anywhere these days. My #6 QS in comparison is like a Rolls Royce. The Stanley is a novelty for my shelf. It cuts.......OK, but it's way too far from flat to even attempt to sort it out.

 

[D_W]

If stanley still made planes in volume these days, i doubt they'd cost more than about $150 at their quality level to be made in the US and provide good service. Maybe less. Lie nielsen's operation and LV's operations look clean and neat, but I doubt their output is remotely close per hour of labor (adjusted for CNC type stuff if necessary) to match what stanley would've been doing 100 years ago. No part of a stanley plane from 100 years ago is low quality, though the bloggers and such might make it out as if they were.

At any rate, I find the quangsheng, et al, to be a bit of a slap in the face price-wise given where they're made. That's separate from the discussion of the quality, I'm sure they make a workable plane, but the price that they're sold for makes no sense to me.

I have a 1900 Stanley #7. The as well as being tissue thin, the casting on one side is visibly thinner than the other, I doubt if that would get past quality control anywhere these days. My #6 QS in comparison is like a Rolls Royce. The Stanley is a novelty for my shelf. It cuts.......OK, but it's way too far from flat to even attempt to sort it out.

What's tissue thin? Does it affect the plane from being used? I guess in the context of weight of the plane, that's probably what I'd be concerned with. when I started building planes, I noticed a lot of the jointers that are intended to be #7 sized, wood or not, are about 7 to 7.5 pounds.

Well, except wood river (quangsheng) 7s are quoted at 9.5 or 9.8 pounds. I guess they couldn't be bothered to find out what weight professionals actually wanted their planes to be, and instead just wanted to make a plane heavier because amateur users who do not use a plane very much don't notice the weight.

I would very quickly prefer your stanley over your woodriver plane in less than a half hour planing session.

I've had my share of stanley planes, probably 50. I guess I still have 7 of them, and of all of those, one had the casting that was wider on one side than the other, but the plane worked fine. I guess at the time, stanley may have been making planes with subpar labor due to war time, I'm not sure. After type 10 or so, they're all the same to me, war time or not. I've not had any planes during that time that I can remember not working well, and that includes the modern type of frog that is coarsely belt sanded. Some have required some lapping due to a mouth being high, but who knows if that occurred over many years (it probably did, but I'm not metal expert).

I guess what i'm getting toward is I wouldn't trade a stanley jointer or smoother in the shop these days for anything from a premium maker. I've tried both. I especially don't find much favor for the overweight chinese planes, and one of the reasons I never got the urge to search for a used clifton is because of the weights they quote.

I do find it unsurprising that stanley's 7 and the old long planes (the longer versions of a try plane but short of jointer length) are somewhere in the same weight range, I don't think that's by accident, but the users in those days would've been quite a bit more critical about how well their planes worked with them over a full work day. Thick irons and heavy castings wouldn't have been acceptable.

Cosmetic pluses and spec sheet improvements (how many thousandths of flatness) have been confused with making a plane that's more capable or more accurate in work.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Heavier plane = thicker castings = less flexible.

Lighter plane = thinner castings = more flexible.

If there's one plane you don't want to be too flexible, it's the one you want a dimensionally accurate finish on the workpiece from.

But that's life, isn't it? There's no such thing as the 'perfect' plane, they're all a compromise to some degree. Some come close to perfection in some circumstances, and fail in others. Some are not perfect at anything, but do a generally good all-round job most of the time. Pays yer money, takes yer choice.

 

[D_W]

I guess I've used probably 6 stanley 7s, 3 stanley 8s, a lie nielsen 7 and 8 (both of those long gone, as well as all of the stanleys), and now I have one metal jointer remaining (a millers falls), and they ran the whole range of thicknesses, including a prelateral 7. I never noticed any of them to flex enough to actually affect work. Those are the kinds of things that are sold to woodworkers now as being a situation that we have to be aware of, just as the 1.5 thousandth flatness standard is sold. The problem with that flatness standard is one that it's probably just there because that's what the machines are capable of, but two, because a plane biased three times that in favor of the mouth being low is far better to use than one where the mouth is high at spec. I had a LN 8 that the mouth was high exactly spec limit - 1.5 thousandths according to starrett and feeler. With a fine shaving, it mildly crowned a board - a real pain. Same thing with old jointers that I've lapped (I was afraid to lap the LN because who wants to buy a spotless LN plane that's had the sole lapped - most of the buyers of LN planes would rather have a plane untouched than one functioning a little better, and I sold it).

I lap my woodies to final fit them to make the mouth a hair low. Over time, they'll get more that way I'd imagine, but who knows? I don't know how low they are, but by eye I'd say half a hundredth? They match plane wonderfully that way.

Those things, though, that have to do with weight, time sharpening, easy setting of an iron - those really have a big effect.

(the other plane that comes to mind with the ends being below the mouth was a bedrock 607, and a lap leaving the toe and heel low just a couple of thousandths still made the plane want to start on a flat edge and then interrupt the cut for a second when the tail got onto the board. Horribly annoying, and the castings on 607s aren't generally heavier than a #7 that I could tell, but it still had plenty of rigidity for that to be a nuisance).

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

DW, how come you have had so many planes? What are you searching for? This is not a criticism, I am genuinely baffled. I've got two benches, one at the dry dock where I work and one in my shed at home (I have no machines at home, at the dock I do). In each I have a couple of record jacks (5s), a no.4 (stanley at work, marples at home) and a couple a wooden jointers. I also have a 4 1/2 that I take from one place to the other that I use for final smoothing. They all work. They needed some attention when I got them (my local saw doctors flattened them for me £5 a plane). I have some other wooden planes that I've not had time to get properly accustomed to, one day I would like to. I have some other planes (rebate, block, moulding, ploughs etc.), all of them work, some needed a bit of work and getting used to. The most I ever spent on a bench plane was £20 on the 41/2. Most were a tenner or less (my stanley 4 was £1). I did buy a new QS block plane and very nice it is. If I had money to burn I would buy QS or even a Clifton or LN bench planes and they too would work, maybe they would need some work, maybe I would need to get used to them. They may be heavier or lighter than what I have, I would learn to adjust.
My point is they all work, one plane might be heavier than another, but they all work. Why would you keep buying and selling planes? For me if there is a problem it is either that I need to work on the plane or work on my technique. I've noticed you have the same tendency with sharpening stuff, you've had every different type of stone and the watisha is your current favourite. For me, like the planes, they all work, the best one is the one you have. I dunno, do as you like, but I think my time is better spent learning to use what I've got rather than trying a whole bunch of different stuff to find what works for me, I prefer to think that I need to adjust to the tool and not try to but myself out of trouble. From what I am reading in your above post you have had at least 12 long metal planes!! I can't imagine ever needing more than one (well two, one at work, one at home), I have wooden ones as they were cheap and they work. If I had a metal one I would make that work.
Please don't get me wrong, do whatever you wish, but you seem to have got through so much equipment, what are you hoping for? How many edges have you jointed with all the long planes you've had? I can't quite believe that it could be enough in your leisure time to have given 12 long planes, not counting the probably large number of wooden jointers you've had (and made?) to have given them all a fair shot.
You may disagree, but rather than looking for the perfect tool, chopping and changing all the time, glued to ebay and gumtree (do you have gumtree in the US?), I'd rather spend my time trying to get perfect results from the tools I have.
Paddy

 

[BearTricks]

I'm sure you're right, and I think most folks would be worn out by selling to an uneducated clientele, which is what the premium makers have to do these days.

It's not like there's a great big supply of new apprentices jumping at the bit to buy a basic set of metal planes. But there's a huge array of middle-aged white collar workers who are looking for a hobby and who will pay for a plane that's ready to work as soon as they learn to sharpen.

Near as I can tell, Stanley's planes cost about half a day's labor in the early 1900s, maybe closer to a day for an apprentice. that could easily be done these days if there was any volume, minus the rosewood handles, maybe.

Some well considered points there.

Apprentices in the UK are only entitled to a nugatory wage. The legal minimum wage for anyone over 21 in this country is £6.70 an hour, £5.30 for anyone aged 18-20, £3.87 for anyone under 18, but only £3.30 an hour for apprentices aged under 18 or indeed apprentices of any age during their first year. That's barely enough to keep body and soul together. You can guess what the result has been, a rush to classify many jobs as "apprenticeships" and 12 month employment contracts for those aged over 18. This has led to the nonsensical situation where you can serve a year long apprenticeship as a coffee brewing barista or a shelf stacker in a supermarket.

I've noticed this while looking for jobs recently. When I got out of school maybe 11 years ago, without trying to pass too much judgement, some jobs along the lines of shelf stacking and working in a warehouse were filled by people using them as a stop gap until something better came along, or by people who didn't have the qualifications and skills to do something else.

If you do an apprenticeship in plumbing that should be a statement of intention that you're going to be a plumber. Most of the apprenticeships that pop up on my job feed are jobs that I'd have got when I was 16 by wandering in to the place with a CV. Only then I'd have got minimum wage for it and the freedom to leave whenever as it was generally understood that they were high turnover jobs. Instead everyone is expected to pretend that an apprenticeship as a barista in a high street coffee chain isn't a ridiculous idea. It used to be something that anyone could do with a couple of days training. Now we're all acting like it's a career.

Anyway, this is probably for another thread.

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

 

[sploo]

The thing I've learned from reading this thread (and indeed many others on this, and other, websites) is that:

• Stanleys made after the 1990s are junk (but earlier ones are good)
• Stanleys made after the 1960s are junk (but earlier ones are good)
• Stanleys made during WW2 are junk (but other ones are good)
• Stanleys with plastic handles are junk
• Stanleys with plastic handles are fine
• An old fettled Stanley (or Record, or Woden) is easily a match for a modern boutique (LN/LV/Clifton) plane
• A LN/LV/Clifton is simply better than any of the old Stanley/Record/Woden planes
• A Clifton is much better than a LN
• A LN is much better than a Clifton
• Old thin irons chatter and new thicker irons are much better
• New thick irons are a pain to sharpen and no properly set up plane with a thin iron chatters
• Super heavy modern planes (usually with a Bedrock frog) are much better than lighter old planes - in fact, the weight is a selling point
• Heavy planes are totally unnecessary and just become unpleasant to use over a long period

I can't possibly think why plane noobs such as myself are confused :wink: