Great response from Lie-Nielsen - Australia

[Driver]

I've been dealing with David Eckert and Philip Dixon at Lie-Nielsen, Australia over the past couple of weeks and I thought I'd let everyone know of my experience because I reckon they deserve a pat on the back.

Several weeks ago, I ordered from the LN Australia website a blade and chipbreaker for my Stanley Bailey #8 plane. For those who don't know, Lie-Nielsen make a range of replacement blades to suit Stanley planes. They need to be a little thinner than the ones fitted to LN's own planes in order to work properly in the Stanley tools. The LN chipbreaker (or cap iron) is a unique design. It's thicker and flatter than the conventional curved design of a Stanley cap iron.

I have a couple of smaller Stanley planes fitted with the LN blade and chipbreaker combo and it works really well.

Anyway, the #8 is not a particularly common size and the LN Aus blokes ordered the parts in from the US.

When the chipbreaker arrived, I fitted it to the plane and discovered a problem. The yoke slot - that's the slot near the top of the blade where the adjustment yoke fits, allowing you to adjust the blade's depth - was too close to the leading edge. In order to get the blade to engage with the wood at all, I had to adjust the yoke so far forward that the adjustment nut was almost hanging off its thread. When I compared the LN chipbreaker with the original Stanley unit, I found that the yoke slot on the LN unit was 3/16" nearer the leading edge than on the Stanley unit.

I emailed David Eckert at LN Australia and told him this - sent him a photo. He got in touch with Thomas Lie-Nilesen who said that they have only very recently discovered this as a problem in the US. Stanley #8s were made with the yoke slot on the cap iron further back than on their other sizes. Apparently this is compounded by the fact that there was variance in manufacturing specs at Stanley over the years. (My #8 is an early-ish model). LN's chipbreaker is made for their own range of planes, of course.

Anyway, the upshot is that Lie-Nielsen in the US are going to make some special #8 chipbreakers to fit the Stanleys. They'll make one for me and they'll take back the original one - no drama.

It's great to see that Lie-Nielsen's service matches the quality of their products.

Col

[sea dragon]

Do they also use cryogenics as a option for some of their blades?:confused:

[Driver]

Do they also use cryogenics as a option for some of their blades?:confused:


I think all their blades are cryogenically treated. Have a look at the website:-

http://www.lie-nielsen.com.au/catalog.php?cat=512

[Greg Q]

Hi Driver...

For comparison, I purchased a Clifton cap iron and blade for my #8 a few years ago. Same story-the slot for the adjuster was about 8mm out of place. The dealer could only offer an exchange for another just like it, no emails to the factory were answered.

I finally had to resort to a welder to heal up the slot, then re-drill, and re-saw
a slot with a jeweller's saw. This was a 10/10 on the PITA scale.

Tom Lie-Nielsen exchanged an email or two on this problem, and offered to send a couple of their yokes to try. I didn't pursue that option, but it would be an interesting afternoon's work to try to get a Bailey frog to work with a full thickness L-N blade. (And widening the mouth of the plane too, of course)

Greg

[Auld Bassoon]

Glad to see that this one is sorted Col.

LN's service is every bit as good as that from their counterparts north of the border :)

[Driver]

but it would be an interesting afternoon's work to try to get a Bailey frog to work with a full thickness L-N blade. (And widening the mouth of the plane too, of course)

Greg


G'day Greg

You're right, it would be an interesting afternoon's work. Not as big a problem as the one you had to solve, however! :eek: I wouldn't fancy trying to weld and re-cut a piece of A2 steel. Too much like hard work!

As for fitting a full thickness LN blade to a normal Bailey frog, the biggest issue would be the length of the stub end of the yoke, wouldn't it? I can imagine it might be easier to weld or even braze an extra bit of metal onto the yoke than it was for you to modify your Clifton cap iron. Actually, I seem to recall that Jake (apricotripper) has done something similar - using thick old cutting irons from wooden planes in some of his old Stanley Baileys. I'm sure I've seen photos somewhere on the BB.

Come in Jake! How did you do it?

Col

[Greg Q]

G'day Greg

You're right, it would be an interesting afternoon's work. Not as big a problem as the one you had to solve, however! :eek: I wouldn't fancy trying to weld and re-cut a piece of A2 steel. Too much like hard work!


Col

Oui, d'accord. But Clifton use pretty mild steel for the cap irons. The ones that I have are two-piece, with a milled tounge and groove to fit the nose piece. The welding was trivial...finding a guy who could be bothered to do it for me was not.

Greg

[Driver]

Oui, d'accord. But Clifton use pretty mild steel for the cap irons. The ones that I have are two-piece, with a milled tounge and groove to fit the nose piece.

I bought a couple of those Clifton 2-piece cap irons and I have one still fitted to a Record #5 jack plane. The principle is copied from the old Record Stay-Sharp system, I think. The idea being that you can take off the front bit of the cap iron while you give the blade a quick hone without having to disturb the plane's set-up. What do you think of it? I'm not all that convinced, I must say.


The welding was trivial...finding a guy who could be bothered to do it for me was not.



Shock! Horror! Ya mean ya didn't weld it yerself! :eek: Quelle domage! Quelle horreur! Sacre bleu and camembert!

[Greg Q]

The principle is copied from the old Record Stay-Sharp system,..... I'm not all that convinced, I must say.



Shock! Horror! Ya mean ya didn't weld it yerself! :eek: Quelle domage! Quelle horreur! Sacre bleu and camembert!

...and a nice Chateau Lafitte Rothschild...just to drown out the voices of derision at not having a welder to call my own. It's on my list of things to get, but I fear its just the top of another slippery slope. Next it'll be a milling machine. Where does it all end?

Gregoire (who just helped a mate commission a full size hoist in his garage at home. Now that's an illness)

[Greg Q]

Oh yeah, to answer your question:

They are OK, but just. I think the cap irons are better than the Stanley standard thickness irons-they do help dampen chatter on a standard blade.

As for the removable bit...its goofy. Who sharpens that way? Like many people on this forum, I use a jig when honing. That pretty much negates any advantage of the two piece design. In fact, when I remove the cap iron a part of it will often fall to the floor. This dovetails nicely with the cheesy trademark etched off-square on the cap iron. It's almost like they didn't care. In fact, its exactly that way.

Greg

[Driver]

Where does it all end?

You're kidding, right? It doesn't end, mate. That's the point. I would refer you to the Code - Section 6 Tools, para 6.1:-

"A bloke shall NEVER have enough tools. It is an immutable Law of Shed Physics that there is no known quantum of any given tool that can be considered to be in excess of requirements."


Gregoire (who just helped a mate commission a full size hoist in his garage at home. Now that's an illness)

True - very, very true (deep intake of breath, accompanied by thousand-mile stare).