On 25 Nov 2004 00:47:26 GMT, "David G. Sizemore"
wrote:

So does anyone have/know anything about these planes? Construction,
tunability, materials, ease of use?

No, but I've used their measuring tools. They're OK. Somewhere
between good European and typical Chinese. So long as you don't pay
too much, they're alright. They've got to be better than Kunz !

If the iron is bad, can you just slap a Hock in there and have it be a
decent tool?

Maybe. You can't just "slap a Hock in" for anything, because Hock ship
them unhoned. Get a decent iron instead and it comes ready to use.

I am not a production shop, just want to do a few projects a year. I am
aware that this $50.00 plane will not act like a $600.00 one, but why not?

Try and find a Fine Woodworking multi-plane review from a few years
ago. They reviewed a bunch of planes, right down to an Anant
barrel-bottom-scraping plane. If you tuned it and put an iron in, even
the Anant behaved. They also found that a cap iron that fitted well
(they recomended the Clifton two piece) was a worthwhile tweak.

Attempting to break in to a newbie neander mode, and don't want to put down
$1500 for 3 planes if I'm gonna put them on Ebay in a year.

So buy your planes from eBay in the first place.

$500 planes are ridiculous anyway. No-one needs to spend this for
typical bench planes. There are some specialist purposes where sheer
rarity and low manufacturing volume puts the price up, and if you
really need a grockle-shaver, I guess you need a grockle-shaver. For
general bench planes though, anything costing much more than Lee
Valley's is an indulgence.

--
Smert' spamionam