Please help with my next Lee Valley/Veritas purchase!

[Kevin in Keswick]

Hi there,

IMy birthday just passed and I now have some birthday cash kept aside for my next Lee Valley/Veritas purchase. My trouble is that I don't know which way to go with my purchase. Let me explain. I have a fairly well equipped shop and don't really need any other power tools so now I try to focus on buying good quality hand tools. I have a passion for them. At this point I am trying to decide what plane etc. to buy next. I have sort of narrowed it to a LV LAJ, LV Bullnose/chisel plane or a LV medium shoulder plane. My plane collection currently contains older Stanleys 3,4,5,5 1/2, 6,7and my latest, the Bed Rock 608. I also own the Veritas LA Block and Veritas 5 1/4 bench plane. As you can see I do not as of yet have a Bevel up plane. Hence why I am thinking of the LAJ. At the same time I keep wondering if I need another plane of bench plane style and maybe i should go with one of the shoulder planes instead, mainly the Bullnose or Medium Shoulder. Trouble with that is that I don't really get into mortise and tenon ever (or haven't as of yet but maybe this type of equip would allow to get into this a bit more-not sure)so I don't think I would use the Shoulder plane all that much. I am thinking of the LAJ as a shooting board plane mostly. I should also say that I am thinking of the Veritas Router plane as well.

What did all of you guys do when purchasing your plane collections? I just don't want to buy something that is going to sit in the box and never get used. I would appreciate any help as to the best way to "fully" equip my shop without tools that won't get used. Any opinions are appreciated.

Thanks for reading and your help.

Kevin

 

[Paul Chapman]

Hi Kevin,

You don't mention scrapers - very useful for dealing with difficult grain and tear-out. LV do an excellent one http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx ... 10&p=46266

Very easy to set up and use. You'll wonder what you did without one :wink:

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Kevin in Keswick]

Thanks Paul for your thoughts. You make a good point. Is this scraper better than card scrapers as I use them most of the but at $50-60 it isn't exactly going to break the bank. I have looked at them before but just thought they were some sort of card scraper in a sense.

Thanks for you rhelp.

Kevin

 

[Paul Chapman]

I find it easier to control than a card scraper and there's less danger of making hollows in the workpiece - and your thumbs don't get hot

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Harbo]

I would normally say go for a tool you have not got but you seem to have most types of planes.
Personally from your suggestions I would go for the LV LAJ and the Medium Shoulder Plane - both excellent planes and very useful.
And how about the LV Spokeshaves and the LV LA Jointer?

Rod

 

[dunbarhamlin]

It does depend on what you do, but I'd go router - great for refining rebates and groove bottoms, tenon cheeks and, oh, yes - routing sunken fields. Otherwise a good plough (Record/Stanley or LV)
Any of your bench planes could be made to shoot well enough, and a shoulder plane does just one thing (it does it well, but mine more often than not sits and watches a chisel do its job)
Cheers
Steve

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

You could try this ..

..or this ..

.. or even this ..

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[marcus]

I agree with Rod that the medium shoulder plane is a great tool - one of those things I wonder how I managed without.... The knob and finger hole just make so much difference when compared to any other shoulder plane on the market. It's ultra precise too.

Marcus

 

[Lord Nibbo]

Derek you missed this

and this