Thread: Block Plane Weights

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

A "wall full of planes".

I was, of course, being silly for the sake of making a point. I have no objections to collecting any tools for amusement or self-education or whatever reason you choose for justifying it, but making a collection of different weight "users" just so you have a perfect weight/size/cutting angle for every possible situation might be the weakest justification..

During the 80s & well into the 90s, you could often pick up a decent old #4 for $10 at flea markets etc., & by about 25 yrs ago I had 6 or 7 of them & a couple more basket cases for parts. I set them up differently, some with a bit of camber, some sharpened straight-across, some were in better nick & could be set to take very fine shavings easily, & so on. It didn't take long to discover that I couldn't always remember which was supposed to be which, since I was only using them on weekends, so I mostly just worked my way along the row until each was dull & they all needed sharpening Along with a few other planes, chisels, & other tools which needed attention, an entire Saturday morning or more could disappear before I did any serious work!

It wasn't long before I'd had enough of such foolishness & culled the "collection" to just 2 - one for general work & one kept for very fine work. And it has stayed that way since, the only change being that the "best" Bailey has been replaced by one of my infills and the Bailey has become the hack.

A similar revolution occurred with block planes. At one stage I had 5 of them, with a 60 1/2 as the 'favourite'. But when the "thumb plane" entered my life, the 60 1/2 just sat in the cupboard, so it went to one of my daughters when I helped her get a few woodworking tools together. My Veritas apron plane is about to suffer a similar fate - I have a small infill that I prefer to use now, so it hasn't seen the light of day for at least a year. Between my thumb plane: Adj 1.jpg

-and this little beast: h first shavings.jpg

-I reckon I've got most small plane situations covered. I'm feeling particularly smug about the little infill, it is my first attempt at a double-iron in such a small plane, and so far is fulfilling all expectations. I've now got my "block plane" crew down to 3.

The third member of the crew is a "chariot" plane: Chariot Mk2.jpg

This is another of those once-a-year tools that I could live without, but it's just too handy on those occasions when a bull-nosed plane is needed, so it holds its place for now (& besides, it just looks so interesting! )

My grand plan of getting my tool collection down to nothing but regular users that will all fit in one tool cupboard is gaining ground (very slowly!)....

Cheers,