This guy ordered some very cheap planes

[jimi43]

Ah...but it will be guaranteed to put a huge smile on your face.

8)

Jim

 

[iNewbie]

I may have not been clear in my original response...it's not the masterpieces from Karl I have any problems with....it's the craze of videoing cardboard box opening which does my head in. :roll:

You get it with mobile phones...laptops....gadgets...freaking hair straightners...

WHY!!?

No Hitchcock fan then, jimi - the suspense kills me... :wink:


I'd like to see whispy cellotape shavings off the boxes edges me-self! :mrgreen:

 

[Yorkieguy]

More money than sense !

Most likely less skill than money too!

Lovely planes of course, but the video is as good an example of any of the maxim that 'the only difference between men and boys is the price they pay for their toys'. It's not for me to lecture others on how they spend their hard earned cash, but as I've passed through the 'university of life', I discovered long ago that there is little correlation between money expended and enjoyment derived, but maybe that's just me.

If I see a youtube video of him actually using the planes with consummate skill to turn out some top class work, then I'd eat my shorts as well as my words.

I know quite a few people who derive much pleasure from the 'pride of ownership' of high end tools, but who rarely use them and if they do, the don't produce exceptional results. I recently saw some Record Irwin planes and found them offensive to the eye, but the harsh reality is that if properly sharpened, honed and adjusted, whilst they won't have the 'feel' of say a Clifton, Lie Neilson, Veritas, or whatever, the difference in results attained will be so marginal as to not be noticeable. Fact is that the end result is a measure not so much of the tools performance, but the skill with which it is used. A low level of skill with a high end plane won't produce any better result in the same hands than a run of the mill plane.

Or so it seems to me.

As to the price of the planes, the website states:

"Although I no longer publish a price list, prices for the low angle planes start at around £2500 pounds and rise to around £7000 for the large panel planes".

Looking at the work and process involved in making those planes, I don't actually think that the prices are exorbitant but they exceed what I'd be prepared to pay by a factor of 20. And incidentally, of the £2,500, £417 will be VAT so the plane would be £2083 + 20% VAT. For the £7,000 plane, the plane itself is £5,833 + 20% VAT (£1,167). A nice little earner for the Exchequer!

 

[Doug B]

Yep, you'd definitely want to be VAT registered before buying one of those babies.

 

[RogerP]

These prices do seem ridiculous but it's loose change compared to ....

£37,695 for a pair of Hi-Fi speakers? http://tinyurl.com/ouha25z

$29,000 for a compact camera? http://tinyurl.com/85wwkmr and scroll down a bit.

... I could go on

 

[JohnCee]

These prices do seem ridiculous but it's loose change compared to ....

£37,695 for a pair of Hi-Fi speakers? http://tinyurl.com/ouha25z

$29,000 for a compact camera? http://tinyurl.com/85wwkmr and scroll down a bit.

... I could go on

The speakers are one of those weird nonsense prices that crops up on amazon from time to time. They retailed for about £200 before they were discontinued.

 

[jimi43]

When a supplier temporarily runs out of stock...instead of taking the item down, they put ludicrously high prices on it to prevent sales.

Nothing sinister or crazy.

Jim

 

[Kalimna]

The Wharfedales may originally have retailed for £200, but these didn't/don't...

http://www.audiofile.co.uk/bw-nautilus-speakers/

Cheers,
Adam

 

[Racers]

Some people have more disposable income than others, I know a chap who must have spent over 10K on cameras (3) in the last year or so.
I do feel jealous but I don't harbour any ill feelings against him.


Pete

 

[Phil Pascoe]

There is a picture thread here at the moment posted by someone who is quite new to woodworking. I'm sixty, and the gear I've bought since I was thirteen hasn't cost me a fraction of what he has spent on his workshop. Good luck to him! (But it won't make him better.)

 

[RogerP]

Some people have more disposable income than others, I know a chap who must have spent over 10K on cameras (3) in the last year or so.
I do feel jealous but I don't harbour any ill feelings against him.

Pete

You can spend way over that amount on a single lens .... http://tinyurl.com/px66hg4 .... and that's not the most expensive :shock:

 

[Racers]

Some people have more disposable income than others, I know a chap who must have spent over 10K on cameras (3) in the last year or so.
I do feel jealous but I don't harbour any ill feelings against him.

Pete

You can spend way over that amount on a single lens .... http://tinyurl.com/px66hg4 .... and that's not the most expensive :shock:

Yes you can, but he has kept all 3 cameras, I know I have 3 SLRs but they didn't cost that much.

Pete

 

[markturner]

I love my tools and love spending money on nice ones, I have what you would probably describe as a very nice collection, I never buy cheap tools, always top of the range, but sadly, I don't think I would ever be able to justify spending that on a single plane...unless of course if I was wealthier though!

I guess its like buying a Purdey shotgun....wont make me shoot any better than my trusty Berretta silver pigeon, but as a thing of beauty and an example of a craftsman at the peak of his skill and field, you cant get better.

karl is to be admired for his amazing engineering talent and the fact that he is actually doing this commercially. The world would be a poorer place if he was not - I think, it's how many of us would love to be able to work....to be able to charge for our time like that - I for one know that if I ever had to make a living making the furniture etc I make now, as opposed to doing it for a hobby, it would have to sell at Holtey prices to cover the time that goes into it...and who would buy it at those prices? No one I bet......

Cheers, Mark

 

[condeesteso]

Bit late to this, but like many others I'll be more interested when I see him making stuff. Don't know if he laid his own floor but it's ropey.

 

[SpinDoctor]

With those fat soft looking hands I doubt he even knows what it mean to work with wood. They'll have an easy life behind glass

 

[Graham Orm]

£17k on 3 planes? I bought a house once for £13k.

 

[Racers]

I spent 15K on my first house and it left a terrible finish on wood.

Pete

 

[JohnCee]

Some rather spiteful comments on this thread.

 

[iNewbie]

'tis sad - but the fat lady's having the last laugh with her Holtey's.

 

[Andy Kev.]

There's another possible slant on this: a lot of people spend more than 17k on a new car, presumably in the knowledge that:

a. They'll be ditching it after about five years.

b. The buying of a car represents only the start (albeit the biggest) of the costs.

c. It will constantly and drastically depreciate in value.

I imagine that none of that applies to these planes. In fact the owner will probably be looking for somebody to leave them to in his will. I think we have to assume that he will use them and let's just hope he gets a lot of pleasure out of them.