New wooden double iron plane maker

[Corneel]

Steve Voigt started a new endeavour, wooden double iron planes along the lines of the early 19th century, the summit of wooden bench plane making. They feature especially made LV tapered and slotted irons.

http://www.voigtplanes.com/

[auscab]

Nice work , and Nice planes.
There must be area's in the world where the second hand market is non existent ?
Or is there something else going on ?
I just checked the date , it's not April 1st
Would someone actually buy a new Beech smoother for $385 US ?


RB

[planemaker]

[Corneel]

Yes, there are plenty of people with enough money who buy expensive things just because they like to. I think the question "why not use an old one instead" is pretty unique to the handtool woodworking world. Someone whi is thrilling to buy the newest Ducati usually doesn't hear the suggestion that an old scooter could bring him up and down to the pub just as well.

I love old tools, I also enjoy making my own tools. But I also understand the desire to buy new stuff, though it's not my cup of tea.

The planes from Steve Voigt look great. And you won't find one in similar perfect shape on the nearest yard sale.

[D.W.]

I'd imagine that Steve is building the planes mostly by hand, and there are no shortcuts in them. He's making the cap irons, too.

The difference in cost between his planes and a single iron plane made by the other makers (caleb james, phil, Larry Williams) is probably somewhere in the range of the cost of materials.

I don't know, guys, you couldn't make them much cheaper if they take 10 or 15 hours per to make them to the level of finish he's making.

Plus, who else is making a good double iron plane? Most people don't even know how to use them properly, let alone know how to make them.

As far as good double iron planes, it's not too hard to get a good double iron plane in the old school market here if you're willing to unload a couple of times more than the average wooden plane costs. It's pretty hard to get one that's perfect. I've got a griffiths and a couple of matheisens that are as close to perfect old planes as I've seen, but they were still snug along the sides and needed a bit of fettling. I've had a whole lot more marginal planes that weren't quite as good.

[Heavansabove]

Nice work , and Nice planes.
There must be area's in the world where the second hand market is non existent ?
Or is there something else going on ?
I just checked the date , it's not April 1st
Would someone actually buy a new Beech smoother for $385 US ?
RB

Well not me, but I am a mean b*gg*r, as well as being retired (sort of). As far as hourly rates go, that is probably $10-20 per hour. There are plenty of people billing $200+ per hour who would not blink twice at this figure.

Actually when I look at the accumulation of tools in the garage I think maybe I am better off flogging almost all, and buying a few new tools with the proceeds. When I think of the amount of time put into fixing up old tools... rather than making stuff...

[IanW]

This is a recurring theme; I seem to recall we had a similar discussion in another thread recently. What is a 'reasonable' hourly rate a maker should expect to get, and what sort of margin for skill or uniqueness should he/she apply?

I make stuff and often sell it for prices that probably return less than $4-5 an hour. When I worked for da man, my charge-out rate was in excess of $300 per hour. I only want to recoup my costs & depreciation on machinery, & I can afford to do that because I'm retired & not trying to put kids through school or pay a mortgage. If I was trying to make a living, I'd be wanting about the same amount for those planes, or I'd very soon be bankrupt! I reckon we often get a slewed perspective on the value of handwork, when we can buy a quite well-made woodie from Asia for a pittance, thanks to the cock-eyed world monetary system. Forty bucks an hour is hardly an excessive sum to pay a highly-skilled craftsman in our part of the world.........

Cheers,

[RayG]

Always good to see another hand tool maker having a go. The design looks very traditional and the workmanship seems good.

As far as price goes, It seems about right to me. Skilled craftsman don't come cheap.

[Simplicity]

I'm going to keep this short but may get hammered for what I'm about to say, oh well.

$385 is I think a very, very reasonable price for something that is one hand made and to a high quality as well.(note point I'm assuming there well made I've never seen or touched one)
What should we charge for ,let's say twenty years or even more of acquired knowledge.
A lot of other professionals charge a hell of a lot more ,straight out of university at age .23 plus.
Ok my shields up now ,hammer away [emoji3]

[D.W.]

Well not me, but I am a mean b*gg*r, as well as being retired (sort of). As far as hourly rates go, that is probably $10-20 per hour. There are plenty of people billing $200+ per hour who would not blink twice at this figure.

Actually when I look at the accumulation of tools in the garage I think maybe I am better off flogging almost all, and buying a few new tools with the proceeds. When I think of the amount of time put into fixing up old tools... rather than making stuff...

I recall that andrew lunn was selling dovetail saws somewhere in the neighborhood of $550.

There is some market out there for "as nice as you can make it". I can only guess by how long it takes me to make a coffin smoother or jack plane by hand that it's a little longer for steve because his level of finish has to be better.

I figure my mother makes about $20 an hour in retirement tole painting (I hope you don't have that over there). Total kitsch, albeit one that produces items quickly so that the items seem inexpensive.

One thing is true with Steve's planes. If they're out of range, someone else can come and make them for less. I think the market will be there:

(comparing around, here's what I see - of people making planes for pay and who are not retired just making a few)

Philly coffin smoother - single iron (about $350 US equivalent)
Larry Williams - (no price up, were they about $335?) - single iron. Heavy work done by machine.
Caleb James - single iron - no clue, but judging by the cost a of a beading plane, I'd guess at least as high as the above two

So far, of what Steve is making, his details are nicer than the 18th century style - bolder eyes that have a better design (vs. the small thin easier-to-cut-perfectly eyes of the 18th century planes) and he's going to to the trouble of making cap irons and getting a slotted iron. It's a more capable plane, too, though it's debatable whether or not the average user will experiment for a couple of hours to learn to use the double iron.

There is one thing that's certainly the case here in the US - getting beech for these planes is a real problem. Only Horizon has it dried right now in true quartersawn, and it's about $16 a foot and not always available. The only option to cut the cost is get it still wet and follow it around for two years while it dries to make sure it doesn't mold or crack.

I'd still expect 95%+ of people will think that $385 is too much for a smoother, but I guess it's like anything else - those folks aren't the market for tools like these.

Same thing goes for $2000+ infill planes. I have no use for them, but if I had to make them and make it worth my unsubsidized time, I'd probably want the same amount.

[D.W.]

One other side comment, maybe I gave my unsolicited opinion on this already somewhere.

I think the fact that Rob Lee has taken on making quality slotted tapered irons of the 19th century style (aside from not being laminated) is super cool. If you think about it, it's hardly got to be worth Rob's time to coordinate doing something like that where a single maker is using the irons.

It is the same for Horizon, who has just a few buyers of beech, and I doubt they'd be providing the super exceptional quality beech they do if it was just a money proposition. They do it because nobody else is (I know that because they told me that, and then they proceeded to pull beech that is oriented more finely than I ever could do if I had my own logs to split).

There are some good guys out there in the retail world who are genuinely enthusiastic about the woodworking community. Definitely Rob, and Pete at horizon spent more time talking to me about what I wanted than it could've possibly been worth in terms of his time, and it was at his insistence.

(I say that as a comment not to market anyone - you guys in oz couldn't possibly buy beech from horizon, anyway. There's no way it wouldn't crack before it got there, and if not before, in most places of oz, it would crack up if it wasn't diligently watched after shipping).

[IanW]

.... you guys in oz couldn't possibly buy beech from horizon, anyway. There's no way it wouldn't crack before it got there, and if not before, in most places of oz, it would crack up if it wasn't diligently watched after shipping)......

D.W., there's plenty of northern hemisphere Beech down here, & it's surviving perfectly well, in the form of old wooden planes & other items. Not sure what you think the climate is down here, but where I live it's a good deal more benign than in any of the places I've lived in in Nth America! The annual moisture cycle is wide, but not as severe as southern Ontario's! Mind you, a wooden plane would probably not do too well in one of those bushfires they like to turn on in our southern states every few years.....

It wouldn't be fear of the stuff cracking up that would stop me buying American Beech for planes, but the fact that we have numerous species that are at least as good, & a few I would consider much better.....

Maybe you're just trying to limit competition?

Cheers,

[D.W.]

Well, sometimes we in the United States tend to think there are a few tropical areas, and then the rest of it's crocodile dundee where you get 5 inches of rain a year!

What would you guys make planes out of down there, aside from the gidgee, etc?

There are a lot of woods in the US that are about the same density as beech (birch, hard maple, white ash, white oak, etc) but beech has some qualities that make really nice planes in jack size and larger. In my opinion, it's a bit light for smoothers because it makes a 2 pound smoother that can be a bit jarring on hardwoods, but a lot of guys love coffin smoothers, so that's just me. For jack and larger, beech weight is just right, no need for razee or anything to cut weight.

When I made my coffin smoothers, I used cocobolo instead, which is 1 1/2 times as heavy, but it does create a plane that's noisy and musical.

Apple would've made a fantastic wood for planes here, but tree stock now is tiny. Large apple trees that were hauled in for disston are long gone now, and all of the orchards grow the tiny tree stock, so there's nothing to pick through. Most of the trees are diseased before they get large, too, so you have to have a glom of large trees to get a couple of good billets.

Live oak and persimmon are probably our two really hard woods. I almost bought a slab of live oak earlier this year to cut into quartered billets and make some coffin smoothers, but it's got SG of 1 and janka hardness of about 3000 - it would be a bit harsh to work, and the slab I was looking at was mondo expensive and not worth the risk.

[IanW]

Well, sometimes we in the United States tend to think there are a few tropical areas, and then the rest of it's crocodile dundee where you get 5 inches of rain a year!

Actaually, where Dundee supposedly operated, they get more rain in a year than than you would see in a decade, and it all happens in a few months!

.... What would you guys make planes out of down there, aside from the gidgee, etc? ....

Hard question David! I can only speak from very limited experience. Stewie ('planemaker') should be able to shed better light on Australian woods suited to planemaking ....

There are about 5,000 tree species in Oz, depending on whether the taxonomists are in a lumping or splitting phase, and maybe half of them might make a decent plane. The hard Acacias like Gidgee and Mulga are dense, just a little more than Coccobolo, so if weight is your thing, there are lots of woods that could make smaller planes. I made a small smoother from Bull oak (Allocasaurina leuhmanii) which is a very hard, stable & dense wood SG >1. It has 'authority'.

I would agree with you that for the larger planes, dense woods start to get a bit hefty, but given the structural strength of most, you could cut down on the dimensions you might use for a Beech plane. Several Eucalypts are suitable - Derek Cohen has made a pretty impressive jointer from Jarrah, and I believe Red Ironbark was favoured in the south for jack planes. Both of these woods are around SG 1, give or take a little.

Having made about a half-dozen reasonably successful woodies (and about an equal number that were quite unsuccessful!) I'm a rank amateur in this field. It's a pity HNT Gordon isn't a regular visitor to these pages, because his opinion would be very worthwhile hearing. We've got a few 'greasy' woods that are, or should be excellent. HNT used to favour Cooktown Ironwood (Erythrophleum sp.) which is fine-grained & a bit greasy, but very dense, and a bit more suited to smaller planes. It's also a bit brittle, so great care is needed when cutting out the abuttments (damhik!), and may be one of the reasons Terry developed his swivelling brass abuttments (which also make the planes about 10 times quicker to make, I'd guess). I've not used Tallow wood (E. microcorys) but am thinking it should be ok - it's great for making the sliding members of a wooden tail vise.

There are numerous less-dense woods, of the order of northern hemisphere Beech, which are tough & stable, and should work ok, but I've not seen any of them used. Qld Maple, & it's cousin Crow's Ash (both Flindersia spp) spring to mind, particularly the latter as it is a 'greasy' wood, moderately fine-grained and pretty tough, too, but perhaps a bit dense at 0.9. The SG of Northern Beech is given as between .7 & .9, but from my experience, I think most of it would fall in the lower half of that range? Our southern 'Beech', (Nothofagus sp.) has properties similar to its northern cousin, and may be suitable, but I haven't tried it.

Just some 'stream of consciousness' thoughts...
Cheers,

[RayG]

Ian,

What about Western Australian She-Oak for plane bodies? The radial and tangential shrinkage rates being almost identical make it a very stable timber, I've done some saw handles using it, and I think I've seen you use Rose She-Oak, which I think has similar properties?

Stewie is our resident plane expert, maybe he can suggest some options.

Ray