Rider Number 5 Jack Plane Any Good?

[pollys13]

http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster-ri ... e-ax945302

 

[AJB Temple]

Depends how fussy you are with finish and whether you are prepared to put some time into it. I think they are good value for money. But I don't buy into the principle of buying planes that need some fettling as most of the cheap ones do, since I have better things ot do with my time these days and just buy what I want from for example, Veritas or Clifton. I know people who have put dozens of hours into levelling the sole of an old Record or whatever plane and consider it cheap. Only cheap if the time is not valued.

Rider planes get some decent reviews. Most reviews suggest that quality control is a bit variable but they are very decent for the price.

 

[AJB Temple]

PS Also consider Quangsheng No5 from workshop heaven. Friend of mine has one and reckons it was machined spot on and has top notch blade. Not used one myself though.

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Rutlands are having a sale on Quiangcheng planes at the minute. Probably the best value/performance at the moment. I would still go for Veritas myself. I know it might seem like a lot of money, but they just work flawlessly. I started woodworking at what was probably the nadir of toolmaking. All my planes are heavily fettled old Records. I was young then and enthusiastic for doing mindless cleaning, flattening and tweaking, and I have a very good set of tools because of it. If I had the benefit of new Vertas tools then, assuming I had the means, I would have had a better set for no effort, and perhaps lots more woodworking projects under my belt because of it. The few Veritas planes I have added later have been gratifyingly superb. Admittedly, I have lots more tools than I actually need, because it was easy to come across cheap tools to fix up. Buying the better brands would mean less, but more useful tools in my kit. If time spent fettling is your thing, then second hand is the best bet for value and performance. Otherwise I'd get a few, well chosen, Vertas or LN, whichever is your preference, and get woodworking straight away.

Mike.

 

[G S Haydon]

It might be OK. I tried a 4 1/2 and sent it back as I felt it was not great value for money.

If you want the No5 for rough jack work I'd get a old Stanley or similar. When I say old don't go mental, anything made up until the 70's is a pretty good bet

If you want it as a bench plane for smoothing and edge jointing on small work then modern planes mentioned above would be good but the Stanley would also be fine. It might be just my luck but old planes don't need much more than an hour spent on them. If they do you chose a bad one!

The new route is a good one for sure but as an alternative perspective on the other responses, the money you save on a vintage one could be spent on wood. finish or fittings.

Best of luck whichever route you go for.

 

[woodbrains]

It might be OK. I tried a 4 1/2 and sent it back as I felt it was not great value for money.

If you want the No5 for rough jack work I'd get a old Stanley or similar. When I say old don't go mental, anything made up until the 70's is a pretty good bet

If you want it as a bench plane for smoothing and edge jointing on small work then modern planes mentioned above would be good but the Stanley would also be fine. It might be just my luck but old planes don't need much more than an hour spent on them. If they do you chose a bad one!

The new route is a good one for sure but as an alternative perspective on the other responses, the money you save on a vintage one could be spent on wood. finish or fittings.

Best of luck whichever route you go for.

Hello,

Good advice, I think the Rider planes have become too expensive. They were good value before Axmonster made them look fancy and increased the price considerably. But they need fettling, then you might just as well fettle a good old Record or Stanley and save money. Or stump up the cash and get a superb new plane, which is what I was driving at earlier.
I would say though, an hour is minimal fettling and might be good enough. To get an old plane as good as a new LV or LN , I suggest a lot more than an hour will be needed and a fair amount of abrasive!

Mike.

 

[ED65]

In a new plane I think the sweet spot in the UK for value for what you get might be Faithfull. You can pay quite a bit less for a Silverline but you're probably taking more of a chance with those.

With the Rider planes being subject to the same sorts of production variations as both these brands according to buyers (some need little work but others need quite a lot of work, and there is the occasional lemon) I think the main reason to pay the slight premium for one is for the ductile casting rather than common grey cast iron, which you'll be glad you paid a bit more for if you're ever unlucky enough to drop it on a hard workshop floor.

Another reason to choose one would be for aesthetics, if you like its lines (some Bailey-esque touches) and the brass screw cap, which I certainly think knocks a cheap-looking plated cap with a shoddily-cast brand name at the toe into a cocked hat.

But if you don't mind that the tool is old and might look its age to some degree buying a seconhand Stanley, Record or Woden will give you the most bang for the buck (for other brands worth a look, see previous thread). These can often be about the same price as a Silverline and sometimes much less, but they can be every bit as good a plane as any similar one made today including those at the pricey end of the spectrum (e.g. Lie-Nielsen).

 

[Hatherton_wood]

The Rider planes are made by Shobha Industries in India I understand - they have now got too expensive I agree for the work needed. While much better than most Indian made planes they seem to have nothing like the quality standards of Quangsheng - there are defects getting through which really should not happen - for instance block planes with the bronze cap not ground square and slightly banana shaped. You can get them to work very well but if Stanley could make such nice planes accurately made over 100 years ago really there is no excuse for not getting things spot on these days.

 

[memzey]

All my bench planes are 100+ year old Stanleys. They all work exactly as they should and I wouldn't swap any of them for a new LN or Veritas (very nice thought they may be). There are definitely some real bargains out there and very few planes I have come across are in such a state that they can't be fettled back to life in less than an hour, although I may have been lucky with the ones I bought I suppose. I would certainly go vintage Stanley again if I had to.

 

[Zeddedhed]

Personally I've had enough of fettling planes to get them to work.

I've a number of old stanleys and records and once I've done the work on them they all perform extremely well. The problem is time as AJB said. I simply don't have the time to spend on them. I've currently got a Stanley 51 shooting plane, several Preston shoulder planes and a few old block planes all waiting for the somewhat tedious Corrodip, flattening, mouth filing, cap iron fitting, re-grinding, re-handling and final tuning processes. In the case of the Stanley 51 it may be worth it, but in reality there is at least two or three days work to bring the rest back into service, and if I value my time at £200 per day (which is a minimum in my opinion) then I'm better off buying either Veritas, Lie Nielsen or Clifton and getting them working more or less straight away.

I only have a few premium new planes - a dainty little Lie Nielsen block plane, a Veritas 4.5 and a Veritas small plough - all three of them were earning me money within 5 minutes of unpacking - a quick hone and they were ready.

New all the way for me from now on.

 

[Hatherton_wood]

The thing is with old Stanley's is that they are not new and it all depends on their previous treatment - some will work extremely well immediately if they have been treated right. I was just looking at my 1910 jack and its perfect in every respect - flat, sides are dead on square etc. I always admire what was done with cast iron back then - the castings were so good, beautiful rosewood... hard to beat.

 

[AJB Temple]

I am 100% with Zedd on this. I read an article in a woodwork magazine this year and some bloke had bought a Stanley block plane for a few quid off the bay. Each day (for ages and ages) in his workshop he would spend about 20 minutes flattening it on wet and dry on a glass plate. By the end, after a about a year as I recall, he had a decent enough block plane and was very pleased with it. My alternative was buy a Veritas DX6 for about £120 as I recall, take it out of box, hone blade very briefly (2 mins), fit blade, use plane. It is perfect. Zero time wasted for me.

 

[Corneel]

It really sounds like that bloke with the Stanley block plane didn't know what he was doing. A small blockplane can be flattened within 5 minutes or so.

 

[JJ1]

Sounds like no one had the heart to tell him he was using the wrong side of the sandpaper. He should have used the rough side, so much quicker. :wink:

 

[ED65]

I understand the time thing with old planes, even if just purely from a CBA perspective, the tedium does become cumulative for most people. And with a pro you do have to price your time.

But to be fair with the general run of bench planes the user could skip a lot of the steps some mention, and curtail others, to make the commissioning process much quicker.

Rather than bog this thread down with debate about this I think it would be useful to potential buyers to start a thread on the subject.

Edit: so I did Re-commissioning old planes, what's worth your time?

 

[ED65]

By the end, after a about a year as I recall, he had a decent enough block plane and was very pleased with it.

What was he using, worn 120 grit paper from HF? Sheesh.

It really sounds like that bloke with the Stanley block plane didn't know what he was doing. .

I'll say!

Accounts like this are really misleading, even the people who take this kind of thing too far could get even a 7 or an 8 up and running in less time than that block plane took :shock:

 

[memzey]

There's no real reason I can think of for a block plane to take more than 10 minutes to fettle unless it's a real lemon (in which case don't buy it - there are plenty more out there). The sole on a block plane is so diddy flattening shouldn't take but a few minutes even if it is quite badly out of true. Take for example this 100+ year old No. 19 I picked up earlier this year for buttons:

It was working like new literally 5 minutes after I got it home. Now if new and shiny is your thing then there is no substitute for unpacking a new tool (and I respect that) but in my limited experience old timers like this one can be made to work just as well without huge amounts of fuss or money.

PS: when flattening the sole of a plane I normally use 60 or 80 grit alox paper to remove material, followed by a few swipes over some 400 grit wet and dry to refine the stryations. This works well and is very quick on anything other than the largest of planes.

 

[Sawyer]

In a new plane I think the sweet spot in the UK for value for what you get might be Faithfull. You can pay quite a bit less for a Silverline but you're probably taking more of a chance with those.

With the Rider planes being subject to the same sorts of production variations as both these brands according to buyers (some need little work but others need quite a lot of work, and there is the occasional lemon) I think the main reason to pay the slight premium for one is for the ductile casting rather than common grey cast iron, which you'll be glad you paid a bit more for if you're ever unlucky enough to drop it on a hard workshop floor.

Another reason to choose one would be for aesthetics, if you like its lines (some Bailey-esque touches) and the brass screw cap, which I certainly think knocks a cheap-looking plated cap with a shoddily-cast brand name at the toe into a cocked hat.

But if you don't mind that the tool is old and might look its age to some degree buying a seconhand Stanley, Record or Woden will give you the most bang for the buck (for other brands worth a look, see previous thread). These can often be about the same price as a Silverline and sometimes much less, but they can be every bit as good a plane as any similar one made today including those at the pricey end of the spectrum (e.g. Lie-Nielsen).

A few years ago decided to add a no. 6 to the armoury and not knowing how useful I'd find this size, did not fancy stumping up the cash for Clifton or LN. Hence I bought a Quangsheng: one of the good'uns from Workshop heaven. I didn't care much for the QS, but became a fan of the no. 6 size and so bought a 1940s Record. This was an absolute gem, with almost no fettling - but snapped in half when I dropped it on the floor (A Clifton would probably survived this accident and dented the floor with its massive weight!) Its replacement was a pre-Record era Woden. A bit scruffy, but with <1 hour's fettling works beautifully.
My conclusion is that vintage, pre 1960 is the way to go. Usually cheaper than modern medium range stuff and generally far better.

 

[pollys13]

Hello,

Rutlands are having a sale on Quiangcheng planes at the minute. Probably the best value/performance at the moment. I would still go for Veritas myself. I know it might seem like a lot of money, but they just work flawlessly. I started woodworking at what was probably the nadir of toolmaking. All my planes are heavily fettled old Records. I was young then and enthusiastic for doing mindless cleaning, flattening and tweaking, and I have a very good set of tools because of it. If I had the benefit of new Vertas tools then, assuming I had the means, I would have had a better set for no effort, and perhaps lots more woodworking projects under my belt because of it. The few Veritas planes I have added later have been gratifyingly superb. Admittedly, I have lots more tools than I actually need, because it was easy to come across cheap tools to fix up. Buying the better brands would mean less, but more useful tools in my kit. If time spent fettling is your thing, then second hand is the best bet for value and performance. Otherwise I'd get a few, well chosen, Vertas or LN, whichever is your preference, and get woodworking straight away.

Mike.

Yes I saw the Quiangcheng sale at Rutlands, I already have a Quiangcheng No 4 smothing plane, very nice bit of kit. Is in my big airtight plastic box with moisture absorbers. Someone was very generous, the other day and gave me a brand new Clifton No 4 shoulder plane, can be used as a bullnose or chisel plane. ( expect you all know that anyway ) Beautiful little plane, really nice. Is in the airtight box too.

 

[ED65]

I already have a Quiangcheng No 4 smothing plane, very nice bit of kit. Is in my big airtight plastic box with moisture absorbers.

You need to discover the joys of waxed steel