I bought a smoothing Buck Brothers Plane because of its price. It was next
to useless until I took it apart and re-ground the chip breaker to sit on
the blade properly. After that it worked quite well. I think my next
purchase of a plane will be a L-N.


"LDR" wrote in message
k.net...
In article ,
says...
Any opinions on Buck Brothers hand planes? I know they're not in the
same league as Lee Valley or others but the price is nice. TIA

I had bought two Buck planes--jack and a block--knowing they were not
the "real planes" I would someday own. The idea was that I would learn
to fettle them and not be overly depressed when I destroyed them in the
process, and I was at least half right, because I was somewhat upset
when I ruined the frog on the jack plane. Well, I did eventually learn
to tune the planes and both really work well. The lessons I can pass on
to you, with the usual my 2 cents disclaimer:

Except for a Lee-Nielsen, planes require a lot of fettling--not a good
idea to practice on an expensive one unless you have confidence and
above average talent on first efforts.

A plane is, after all, just a holder for a chisel. Like all neat
phrases, this is an exaggeration, but it is true that if you spend the
time conditioning them they will produce picture-book shavings. There
are people in third=world countries who do remarkable work with very
crude tools.

I did wind up throwing away the block plane because it would no longer
tighten the blade, despite trying hard to rescue it. I don't think this
problem is unheard of.

In case, anyone is wondering why I didn't buy a used Stanley, it must be
I live in an upscale neighborhood. My Thrifts and backyard sales don't
do them. Hope this helps.