To plane? or to buy?

[lurker]

Now I find myself back in the UK and using a computer 24/7.


A slight exaggeration ?.?

Those Axminster planes are not brilliant value for money.

You appear to have a wad burning a hole in your pocket, maybe you ought to be putting some of it aside for a deposit.

Get. Yourself to a car boot buy a number 4 ot 5 learn to fettle it and sharpen it
The plane should cost between 10 - 20 the stuff to fettle it another tenner (don't fall for al the rubbish from the sharpening fettish gang)

Something to buy
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/094 ... 76P0AFAMM4


Use it, use it, use it, until you know how to use it.

 

[craigs]

you would be surprised how much time per day im staring at a screen. if i'm not using computers for work (doing that cloud magic), i'm watching, reading and digesting info.

A deposit i have, just looking for a place and what this brexxit impact is going to have on house prices. Also i would rather get a few tools now and build them up over a few months than shell out a ton in one go. What I do keep finding though is my list gets bigger and bigger as im starting from scratch pretty much.

a bench is a must, without one i cant do much, i have a plasticy thing thats as much use as a chocolate fireguard, a plane a mallet and some chisels along with some basic hand tools. I may not be a pro or will ever be a pro, but i dont see thats a reason to buy rubbish that wont last.

I'd like some more fancy power tools but they can wait, I have learnt quite a lot here from peoples opinions and figured I could save a few sheckles and use a router and a saw to bring sawn boards to a point they can be planed smooth and i might learn a thing or two.

Im sure i must come accross as some jumped up **** with a pocket full of 50's but that isnt particularly true.

I thank everyone for their opinions and respect that they know a damn site more than me. Im just trying to learn some new skills.

If you dont like these excuses, i have others.

EDIT: thanks for the book recommendation, I has purchased for a whopping £0.94

 

[lurker]

Well ! Your self awareness is refreshing :wink:

I doubt I could afford a garden shed in baaarkshire so you must be minting it whatever you do.

Mucking around with a router is going to be a drain on your enthusiasm.
Believe me I have tried it.

Anyway I am off to bed, I need my beauty sleep.
Work in the morning, in Berkshire as it happens :shock:

 

[craigs]

Well ! Your self awareness is refreshing :wink:

I doubt I could afford a garden shed in baaarkshire so you must be minting it whatever you do.

Mucking around with a router is going to be a drain on your enthusiasm.
Believe me I have tried it.

Anyway I am off to bed, I need my beauty sleep.
Work in the morning, in Berkshire as it happens :shock:

feel free to pop by the office for a fancy coffee

I try to run before i walk, but i'm persistent at least and I wont be buying a house in berkshire, im looking around chippenham area where i might actually be able to afford a mortgage.

 

[MusicMan]

I'm not disagreeing with the comments above, but I bought a DeWalt lunchbox thicknesser off eBay for about £250 and it has served me well. The ability to thickness precisely and quickly makes a big difference to me in preparation of either hard or soft wood. I can plane by hand quite well, and usually finish with a hand smoother, but it is MUCH faster when I have to hit a precise dimension, and copes well with awkward grains. I do have a sharpening jig to keep the blades sharp, which has paid for itself over buying replacement blades.

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

Forget flattening boards with a router, it will be noisy, messy, no faster than a hand plane and will give mediocre results, indeed for the time being I'd say forget routers all together. Hand planing, indeed using most hand tools, is not that hard, will give excellent results and for the price of even a cheap bench top planer you could buy all the tools you need to make quite a range of furniture. You will have to learn some skills, but it is not like deciding to become a concert violinist, it is all achievable.
Custards suggestion of going on a course is an excellent one, failing this check out Paul Sellers Woodworking Masterclass. A lot of videos are available for free, and for £10 pcm you can get full membership and he has loads of projects you can make along with him, all with inexpensive hand tools.
At some point in the future if you enjoy it you will probably want some machines (planer/thicknesser and bandsaw) in order to speed things up, however it's a fallacy that machines will make up for lack of skill, there is nothing that can't be made with hand tools, but plenty that can't be made just with machines.
Paddy

 

[craigs]

Thanks,

Ill check out paul sellers and might sign up to that for the time being. ill invest in a planer/thicknesser when i get a workspace sorted out. Meanwhile i'm looking for planes, chisels, saws and marking / measuring kit. Ill probably build up on a project by project basis. right now though i rely on the smarter people here, I have no idea what to look for in a plane, im a salesmans dream. is there way to tell what is a good stanley plane? from everything I have read, there are No.4's and then No. 4's (or 5's) or do i just hit buy now for £20 on fleabay?

I'm sure there will be much mocking when i ask about good chisels / saws Apparantly the Japanese stuff is the way forward?

please forgive the stupid, but i suppose we all have to start somewhere.

 

[murdoch]

Advice I never see is to visit your local joiners shop and ask them to plane it for you. We have around 15 local hobbyists which regularly pop in with a cutting list and we'll quickly machine it for them. For 10-20 quid we can plane a serious amount of timber. They often but timber from us too.

 

[MarkDennehy]

A deposit i have, just looking for a place and what this brexxit impact is going to have on house prices. Also i would rather get a few tools now and build them up over a few months than shell out a ton in one go.

The handy thing about a #5 vs a P/T and jointer is that you can pick up a #5 and move house with it a lot more readily.
I mean, don't get me wrong, if I had the space I'd have already dipped into savings to get a second-hand bandsaw because resawing - while not the hardest job in the world - is a bloody good argument for buying a bandsaw But odds are we'll move in the next few years and at that point, the hand tools can all go into three or four reasonably sized boxes, the hardware can come out of the bench and the rest be left for the next tenant and I can build another one at the new site; and if I have to build a new shed there, I'm not left trying to find a home for five or six washing-machine-sized machines for a few weeks or months...

 

[craigs]

Advice I never see is to visit your local joiners shop and ask them to plane it for you. We have around 15 local hobbyists which regularly pop in with a cutting list and we'll quickly machine it for them. For 10-20 quid we can plane a serious amount of timber. They often but timber from us too.

Also a nice idea, but the amount of trouble i have had even buying plywood because "trade only mate" is ridiculous. i'd like to learn to do it myself, and especially as sawn timber is a damn sight cheaper than PAR.

 

[MarkDennehy]

I have no idea what to look for in a plane, im a salesmans dream. is there way to tell what is a good stanley plane? from everything I have read, there are No.4's and then No. 4's (or 5's) or do i just hit buy now for £20 on fleabay?
I'm sure there will be much mocking when i ask about good chisels / saws Apparantly the Japanese stuff is the way forward?
please forgive the stupid, but i suppose we all have to start somewhere.

If it makes you feel any better, I started by asking a question on here about sharpening.

BTW, whatever you do, don't ask about sharpening on here

Also, when you start buying planes, the hardest part is quitting buying planes. A wiser man than me would have just bought a single jack plane (either a #5 or if your hands are larger and you're built like a farmer, a #5½). Unfortunately, I am not a wiser man than me, and I now appear to have somewhere around twenty planes in a box at my feet. I know how to use three of them. And "know how" is being horrendously abused as an english phrase there. But I'm having fun so long as I don't add up how much I spent before I got sense (I refute totally the allegation that I got sense at the same time I ran out of record planes to buy - I still don't have a T5, so there ). I pretty much bought all record stuff as well, because I couldn't figure out how to reliably tell if a stanley was okay or one of the later pieces of tat, whereas for record, they didn't go too far downhill before changing their name. Plus some of their planes are just better designs (and having said that, I'm now going to run away as quickly as I can ).

BTW, from what you're saying, I think you'd enjoy reading Christopher Schwartz's The Anarchist's Toolchest. Just sayin'.

 

[jlawford]

Thanks,

Ill check out paul sellers and might sign up to that for the time being. ill invest in a planer/thicknesser when i get a workspace sorted out. Meanwhile i'm looking for planes, chisels, saws and marking / measuring kit. Ill probably build up on a project by project basis. right now though i rely on the smarter people here, I have no idea what to look for in a plane, im a salesmans dream. is there way to tell what is a good stanley plane? from everything I have read, there are No.4's and then No. 4's (or 5's) or do i just hit buy now for £20 on fleabay?

I'm sure there will be much mocking when i ask about good chisels / saws Apparantly the Japanese stuff is the way forward?

please forgive the stupid, but i suppose we all have to start somewhere.

In a similar position while back, I have since purchased a Stanley #3 from ebay for £9.99, and a #4 1/2 for £14.99- both rusty as hell on first sight, but a couple of hours ourselves work with each and and they are better than new.

Build yourself a bench I used 10 linear metres of 3" PAR redwood pine for about £30, some pre-laminated pine boards for the tbe apron and bench top (about £50) then a new vice for £30. You'll learn mortise and tenon and housing joints along the way

Paul Sellers is the man. YouTube and his blog. There are no shortcuts and you will find progress slow to start with- for instance learning sharpening- but you will build real skills along the way! I certainly am.

 

[Benchwayze]

Im sure this has been covered and the search button did indeed bring results on the subject but i couldn't find what i was really looking for.

So it seems the sawn boards are sooo much cheaper than PAR (obviously) But how easy is it to buy sawn and get a finished result? With limited space, a REAL planer/thicknesser doesn't seem to be on the cards anytime soon.

So my question would be, are there any recommended benchtop machines that would give favourable results? im not sure i would trust myself with an electric plane or worse, a hand plane, the results might be considered "abstract" rather than square.

Thanks

I work from a single-garage 17.5 feet x 9 feet. (No use even as a garage, as you can't get out of a saloon once inside!)

I have a Sedgwick, 12" over and under planer/thicknesser. When I bought the machine I decided where best to site it, and then planned the rest of the shop around it. It's a big lump, and I had to deny myself a proper table-saw and relied on a 10" saw table attachment on a Coronet Lathe-based machine.

I am cramped at times, but never had any real problems; until I bought Festool MFT. Big mistake. It's plain too big, unless I retire my lathe.

It's satisfying planing your own stock, and you know it's square and accurate.
HTH

John

 

[skipdiver]

Thanks,

Ill check out paul sellers and might sign up to that for the time being. ill invest in a planer/thicknesser when i get a workspace sorted out. Meanwhile i'm looking for planes, chisels, saws and marking / measuring kit. Ill probably build up on a project by project basis. right now though i rely on the smarter people here, I have no idea what to look for in a plane, im a salesmans dream. is there way to tell what is a good stanley plane? from everything I have read, there are No.4's and then No. 4's (or 5's) or do i just hit buy now for £20 on fleabay?

I'm sure there will be much mocking when i ask about good chisels / saws Apparantly the Japanese stuff is the way forward?

please forgive the stupid, but i suppose we all have to start somewhere.

Chisels- you can get a set of four from Aldi for £8 and even Paul Sellers advocates their use. Saws- get yourself a hardpoint for £7-£8 until you get the feel of hand sawing, then get yourself a hand plane from ebay or car boot and get used to using and sharpening stuff before splashing out on Japanese chisels and the like.

 

[craigs]

so im guessing any record No 4 would suffice? from something I saw, Stanley is a bit hit and miss and kinda went downhill since dubba-ya dubba-ya 2, but record kinda kept the quality up? any stone recommendations and the angle jiggy thingy-ma-bob ?


to fully show my inner heathen, I was watching paul form a groove in some pine last night, took about 20 minutes with at least 2 sharpenings of the chisel which he then finished with a hand router.....my thoughts were, you could have done that in 3 minutes with a powered router :S

 

[Khendon]

5 1/2 is not too big to use as a smoother, no plane is. Good cabinet makers have been known to use only a No.7. for smoothing - a short plane is no use for truing stuff up. A five is fine, although I prefer the weight and size of a 5 1/2. A 5 or a 5 1/2 is only personal preference ; I owned a 3, 2 x 4s, 2 x 5 1/2s, a 6, a 7 and an 8 before I got a 5, and only had that because I was given it. I didn't own a block plane for the first 35 years and still use one only about once a year.
For a first plane virtually everyone would say get a No.5 or a No.5 1/2.

Happy to be wrong here! As I did say in my disclaimer above I'm pretty new at this myself.

However what I will say that is from all the "online" advice I have watched and read (from Paul Sellers to the Fine Woodworking chaps) they all seem to say get the no.4. "You can do everything with the no.4". "If you have one hand plane just get the no.4".

Ironically my most used plane by far is my Veritas LA Jack, i seem to use it for everything... but hey ho!

Regards

 

[MarkDennehy]

so im guessing any record No 4 would suffice? from something I saw, Stanley is a bit hit and miss and kinda went downhill since dubba-ya dubba-ya 2, but record kinda kept the quality up?

Until they got sold off the second or third time, apparently. Don't touch anything with Irwin in the name and the older the better, was the basic rule I used.

my thoughts were, you could have done that in 3 minutes with a powered router :S

Yeah, but I stabbed myself in the finger once and the stomach twice with a chisel while building my bench.
Can't do that with a power router, you'd be out of action pretty convincingly after the first accident

 

[MarkDennehy]

However what I will say that is from all the "online" advice I have watched and read (from Paul Sellers to the Fine Woodworking chaps) they all seem to say get the no.4. "You can do everything with the no.4". "If you have one hand plane just get the no.4".

Everyone I saw was saying "get a jack plane" and some were including the #4 as a jack (which makes no sense to me, I always thought the #5 was the jack, but oh well). I guess it depends on the scale of what you're making. If you're just building small trinket boxes from exotic woods, a #8 is probably not going to do you much good, and if you're making a 12' long bench, you probably want something bigger than a #3...

 

[craigs]

im gonna go with a 4 or 5, im looking at coffee tables, side tables, tv cabinets, built-ins etc.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

For what you aim to do, get a 5 (1/2?). They all inevitably involve butt joints, and a four is not the ideal plane for them. There are things that all sizes are ideal for, but if you only have one you need to cover as many bases as you can - I worked with an old chippie who only used a No.5 for the whole of his working life. Who knows, we all have different ideas - this one's been done to death. Just remember there are things that you need a long plane for, but very few that you can only do with a short one (the only thing I can think off is when the physical size of a larger plane is a hindrance)- sure, sometimes they make things easier, but that's it.