Thread: Why are infill planes so expensive

I think there are a few points to make here ... the first one being that if you want an infill plane, without being picky about the condition, you can get them relatively cheaply.

Separately searching ebay with: Infill plane, Norris plane, Speyrs, Mathieson, Preston, Slater on a regular basis can root out hard-worked but still dignified examples that might go for $70-$120 ... which you could easily pay for some Stanleys.

When I was looking intently in the past, UK ebay had the *VERY used* Norris A5s selling anywhere from $200 (awful) to $400 for post-WW2 examples.

The very nice new infill planes are $$$ because they are *beautiful* and significantly hand-made I think.
And if they are very nice and *old* ... $$ !!

Maybe some of the Norris thing might be like the Mercedes thing ... there is (originally) a quality level and a mystique and they hold their resale value.

It took me a long time to become perfectly comfortable with my first Norris, which wasn't a perfect example at the start, but I'd been reading about them for several years before I ever came across anything other than high-regard and hushed tones in magazines and web articles.

Quite a bit of info here if you search the forum - and even better the Ron Brese, Peter McBride, IanW, Derek Cohens, etc etc that have made/make their own.
And LOTS more across the web - have you seen The Best Things?

So, in summary, I think there is a wide $ range that you can jump into - just like metal planes - depending on how perfect or fixer-upper or DIY you might be looking for.

Annnd - the irons are great and cheaply found. But I can't properly comment how long in edge-holding they might be compared to new A2/D2/M2 stuff.

Cheers,
Paul McGee

The Best Things - Legend vs. Fact: The British Infill Plane

Antique British Metal Planes & Infill Planes at The Best Things

Case in point ... these planes are beautiful and the panel plane a total bargain ...


Antique Spiers Infill Smoothing Plane-AccuratelyRestored | eBay

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...z0ucGg60_3.jpg


Scottish User-Made Infill Panel Plane after Spiers-Accurately Restored | eBay

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/...nu4zBQ60_3.jpg

Woulda been a bargain ...

shoulder plane victorian steel and rosewood | eBay