Thread: What would I keep.

Ian, regarding the machines ...

Hand tools always seem "friendlier" than machines. Who can develop the same affection for a large lump of steel or iron? However, I spent a few decades without any machines .. just power- and hand tools. Then I purchased a Chinese tablesaw and a Chinese jointer, and a Chinese lunchbox thicknesser. The tablesaw and jointer were okay, but ordinary, and the thicknesser was just plain horrible and LOUD. I had also acquired a pillar drill, which worked fine, but also was very ordinary. None of these machines was something to look forward to using. They did their job, which should be enough but ...

Over the past dozen years I replaced all these machines. Funds became available - it was difficult to justify these expenses all those years back with family needs, where building furniture was not just an interest/hobby, but also a necessity if one wanted certain furniture. Nevertheless, each machine, purchased some years apart, represented a significant cost ... and some here would be saying (as I was thinking as well) "would the money be put to better use in a Super fund?". By now, however, it was also about quality of life, and so I replaced the machines with decent quality Hammer (Felder) items. A few years ago I replaced the pillar drill with a Nova Voyager and the little Jet mini drill with a Nova Saturn, both powerful, variable speed machines.

Hammer are still hobby level machines, by accounts. Yet I know of a number of pros who own and use lesser machines in their daily work. For mysef, they represented a huge step up, and one I have absolutely no desire to upgrade further. Each time I use the K3 slider, the N4400 bandsaw, and the A3-31 jointer/thicknesser I am reminded how fortunate I am, and what an absolute pleasure they are to use. The Voyager still takes my breath away.

The price of each machine has doubled since I purchased them, and I would get more than I paid if I sold them. But why would I? This is not about money. This is about quality of life.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by jpdv

There's a common thread emerging here - it's the ones that you like using... One of my favourites is a $12 (yes, you read that correctly) block plane from trade tools. Horrible crank lock on the lever cap, rough as guts finish - but it has a remarkably good iron, and is capable of fine cuts. Every time I use it, I get a buzz from the cost/effectiveness ratio. Sits in my apron, and gets whipped out to relieve edges every day I'm in the shop. Weirdly pleasing to own.

Ya, I have a HNT Gordon smoother that sells for 450 and a Mujingfang equivalent that cost me 25. The Muji is better. It has a laminated blade that smashes through anything. It's slightly narrower which is also a bonus and a bit longer. The HNT is gonna get culled, but I'm not interested in selling the muji for any price. It's just an all-round good plane.

Originally Posted by The Spin Doctor

Ya, I have a HNT Gordon smoother that sells for 450 and a Mujingfang equivalent that cost me 25. The Muji is better. It has a laminated blade that smashes through anything. It's slightly narrower which is also a bonus and a bit longer. The HNT is gonna get culled, but I'm not interested in selling the muji for any price. It's just an all-round good plane.

I felt the same way - the mujis aren't as well finished and may take a little tuning, but they are more practical to use once tuned. I had an HNT Gordon jack and realized pretty quickly there wasn't anything to do with it (55 degree plane - I found it cheap and it took a little while to sell cheap here in the US as Gordon isn't as recognized as most stuff here).

Mujis high speed steel is M2-ish (just a few of the alloying elements cut a bit short), and sometimes at very high hardness despite the spec claim of 61. I tested a blade in a planing test several years ago and from the pair I bought, sent one off to someone else on the forums for analysis - it averaged 65.5 hardness and was very crisp. the person I sent it to had it XRFed to find out the composition. "almost" M2 but for saving a few pennies, I guess.

At the time, i was describing the mujis as a bargain in a euro type that was sold here (continental smoother) and someone said "I wouldn't pay to buy a plane that the Chinese copied from HNT Gordon" (they were talking about the typical plane with the crossbar. About as humorous and ill informed as someone claiming perhaps that stanley copied their plane design from record.

Originally Posted by D.W.

....."I wouldn't pay to buy a plane that the Chinese copied from HNT Gordon" (they were talking about the typical plane with the crossbar. About as humorous and ill informed as someone claiming perhaps that stanley copied their plane design from record.....

Yairs, HNT himself has written that it was using Chinese style planes when he was in Malaysia that got him started. He has come up with a few tweaks & innovations of his own, though, like the swivelling brass abutments for wedges, a neat idea that would save the time & angst of chopping out traditional European style abutments & ensures even pressure on both sides of the wedge.

Early on in his plane making he used a lot of Cooktown ironwood (Erythrophleum chlorostachys), another bone-hard wood like the gidgee he favours now. Not only is it hard, it's brittle, as I discovered chopping out a throat in a small smoother I made years ago. I don't own any suitable floats so my throat was a bit rough, and the mouth came pretty ragged, too, so I patched it with a brass insert:

Ironwood cf 4.jpg Brass insert red.jpg

Not one of my finest creations, I'm afraid; it worked ok after some fettling, but definitely not a candidate for a beauty contest! It gave me a very healthy respect for Terry's ability to make planes commercially from very hard woods, but I think that was the point at which I decided that using metal for the whole thing was no harder....

Cheers,

that insert looks great to me - the business part of it is just as it should be.

The jack plane that I had used the brass things for the wedge to rest against - triangles or something. the wedge material was too hard, and it had a front knob but no back handle. Not long after that, I bought a bunch of old english planes, and guess and try type designed planes were struck from my shelves across the board.

Mine was gidgee - if one cuts planes with machining tools, workability doesn't matter as much, but when making by hand, as you found out, it definitely counts!

Gabon ebony is a wood that looks wonderful in planes but chips on corners easily and doesn't wear that well on planes - learned that the hard way. What makes it great for chess pieces and things that can be carved and scraped to a shine makes it bad for planes.

Originally Posted by D.W.

....Mine was gidgee - if one cuts planes with machining tools, workability doesn't matter as much, but when making by hand, as you found out, it definitely counts!......

I don't know how much machinery Terry uses nowadays, as much as he can, I'm sure, but in his early days he did it all by pretty traditional hand tool methods - he used to demonstrate at woodshows, & as you can imagine, he was well-practised & pretty slick at it!

Machines certainly worry less about hardness than hand tools, but it can still create problems - you need to secure small items very thoroughly to prevent chatter, for e.g. Brittleness can cause trouble however you work your wood! Gidgee is a bit inclined to be chippy if you get careless, especially the figured stuff but it's not as bad as some. One of my favourites is another dry-country acacia (A. rhodoxylon) which is very similar to ebony in the way it works & finishes and is also very keen to chip. It has caused me much grief & gnashing of teeth at times!

Cheers,

Humpf.

Three hey. Tricky.

Scrub, Jack and Smoother.

I've been living without a workshop/studio now for a bit. I've had to make all the hard, critical, minimising decisions and have the collection down to, ummm, 19.

Going with with the original thread - what do I keep.


A very tiny plane like a 101 or that pretty spiers thumb plane or an Ian double iron miniature special. Can do quite a bit of work with a small plane and using the other hand as the clamp. this is tricky with bigger planes

A light 3/or 4 double iron plane..

Some sort of longish jack plane - maybe 5 1/2 maybe my woodie fore-plane - slightly torn between between these two planes - the woodies good for traversing but 5 1/2 great as as precursor jointer/ try stay smoother

Finish jointing with long plane - may as well be the 8 longest and can skew a tad- it only used for a few stokes so the mass isn't a big issue.


Special planes for joinery
Plough plane - for this take the record 50c - not "perfect" plane but it gets the job done, relatively lightened the handle lets put some power in...
Miller falls number 1 spoke shave - for adding decorative cubes and finishing edging. The millers is adroit at the task

A shoulder plane as I make enough mistakes in say planning a rebate that I something to crisp up the corners - at the moment I have two planes vying for this role - a 3/4 infill shoulder one and a 1 inch skew woodie- in not a decided case yet - the woodies taller and easier judge square but the infill also fab a bit easier to push as lower angle...

some sort of router plane... a 71 should do just fine.



- this of course is not the end of the kit some saws/ chisels/a bench/a sawhorse/clamps/sanders
PS - a coupe of power tools to supplement - not fond of resawing / thicknessing/ grinding out a chip in a blade- by hand..

Okay so what the plane tally - 10 planes.


Clearly, as suspected, a signficantly smaller number of planes than what's in the workshop.

Special planes I would be reluctant to let go of the compass plane (great for curving edge details) and Stanley 278 rebate (depth stop fits each side) and the fine tuned number 2 for chasing tearout.

So planes 13 in bulked up kit....


Is there anything realistically task that this plane kit couldn't achieve and requires another plane?

Specific brands do not matter as long as irons good and generally double irons is preferred.

Originally Posted by IanW

Yairs, HNT himself has written that it was using Chinese style planes when he was in Malaysia that got him started. He has come up with a few tweaks & innovations of his own, though, like the swivelling brass abutments for wedges, a neat idea that would save the time & angst of chopping out traditional European style abutments & ensures even pressure on both sides of the wedge.

Early on in his plane making he used a lot of Cooktown ironwood (Erythrophleum chlorostachys), another bone-hard wood like the gidgee he favours now. Not only is it hard, it's brittle, as I discovered chopping out a throat in a small smoother I made years ago. I don't own any suitable floats so my throat was a bit rough, and the mouth came pretty ragged, too, so I patched it with a brass insert:

Ironwood cf 4.jpg Brass insert red.jpg

Not one of my finest creations, I'm afraid; it worked ok after some fettling, but definitely not a candidate for a beauty contest! It gave me a very healthy respect for Terry's ability to make planes commercially from very hard woods, but I think that was the point at which I decided that using metal for the whole thing was no harder....

Cheers,

Yeah, not Terry's doing to have follow-ons talking about Chinese copying Chinese planes - it's just the ever present human trait of going off half-cocked with a narrative that works 2/3rds of the time elsewhere so "why check here" kind of thing.

I only had a few later planes of terry's. A dovetail plane and the jack plane. Possible i had others - but both of those were made to be made with machines and there were ripple marks left on the dovetail plane, which I guess would be from a mill? They were not little chatter like you'd see with a router.

For gidgee and other wood like that (gombeira or katalox here), it's probably more practical to make small things with a mill than with woodworking tools. Something stable to avoid little surprise tearouts and chipouts.

I never felt like terry's planes were "expensive" for what they are, so not trying to imply that, and I guess I no longer have any of the muji planes, either. I got all of those kinds of tools before learning to use the cap iron. Muji made a 63 degree smoother with a 2" wide single HSS iron. What a bear that plane was to use! The angle made it very sensitive to even fine hammer adjustment, and the same angle made it a wristbreaker on anything other than the thinnest shavings. the guy on youtube whose name is Xian or something (legitimate half retired professional woodworker) showed typical double iron planes every time I saw him make or use planes - as in a shallower bed and cap iron.

Cannot for the life of me remember why I dispensed with the gordon dovetail plane, but someone sold it cheap used and so did I. Later had to cobble up a plane to make sliding dovetails on a large cabinet, though that one is protected -it's too ugly to sell.

These sorts of threads on minimising your tool kit are interesting, but can never reach much in the way of consensus...

For starters, the vast majority of us are amateurs and many, if not most, have a wide range of projects we attempt or hope one day to attempt, which gets us thinking about what tools we'll "need" in the future as much as right now. So we are probably all going to include a goodly number of tools that are nice to have & could make certain tasks easier, but are far from "essential" - there's almost always a work-around of some sort.

One source of inspiration would be the European journeymen of old. These blokes literally humped their kit on their backs from town to town & after a few miles I reckon that would focus the mind on what really matters! They were expected to tackle a range of tasks, but they were also pretty skilled, so they no doubt knew how to get the maximum out of every tool they carried. I think there's a tendency for amateurs to think the "right" tool will make up for lack of skill which ain't necessarily so, but skill can certainly make up for lack of tools in some situations, at least...

A good lesson for me was the workshops I saw in S.E. Asia, where many of their tools, especially planes, were user-made. Many were quickly cobbled up for a particular job & used chisels for blades. The chisel was returned to regular duties after the job was done, as far as I could see while the plane body may or may not be kept for future use. No-one wasted much time on the looks of the tool; function & a tolerable level of user comfort were obviously the prime concerns.

So when moving to this desert island (which, fortuitously, has an abundance of good woods), remember we can always make a rough rebate or plough plane & many other tools using a pretty basic kit, so maybe save as much as you can on excess baggage & spend it instead on stocking up at the duty-free, if you expect to spend a long time there....

Cheers,