"AAvK" wrote in message
newsjDAd.60958$QR1.34067@fed1read04...

Veritas has superior carbon steel blades and wood knobs and totes, bodies
made of a ductile iron that will not crack, and they are ready to use out
of
the box.
Stanley's blades are a very "basic" quality of thin carbon steel that
will
need sharpening more often and wear down faster. They have plastic totes
and knobs, bodies made of basic iron that will* crack upon landing hard
enough. The Stanley body castings are not* machined prescision, so the
sole and sides must be tuned_to_square before it is accurate enough for
use, THIS is a LOT of hard work. Tuning being another lesson. A new
Stanley can be made to work beautifully after tuning, as well as any
plane,
new wood totes and knobs and better blades can be added but it isn't
supremely cost effective considering the work of tuning. Even any new
blade must be tuned, and you must be set-up for that. Veritas are highly
praised for their quality of manufacture and usability, right out of the
box.
I don't have one yet ;-( so, Mr Lee, I want a new L-A-B-P for this
promo...?


Alex is correct in his observations and to a lot of people those factors all
mean a lot. They may not to you though, and not all of them are reflective
of the usefulness of the plane. I'm still using the iron that came in my
Stanley plane and I don't consider that I have to touch it up an excessive
amount. Be assured, I have to touch it up more than if I had a better iron
in it, but it's not like I have to stroke it after every 5th pass. You'll
get reasonable use out of the stock iron. You'll get better use out of
better irons, but that does not make the standard product a bad product.

I have no problems with the machining on my Stanley body. Sure, as Alex
says, it's not precise machining, but it's imprecise in directions and areas
that do not matter to the use I put the plane to. I don't care that the
sides are not square to the base within .001 inches. That does not affect
the plane's ability to smoothly remove ribbons of wood from a hunk of rough
cut, or to true up the edge of a board. Even the most ardent plane folks
have commented that too much emphasis is placed on some pretty irrelevant
pursuits when it comes to hand planes.

Plastic totes - yeah, one of mine has them. They're ugly. I don't like the
looks of them. But then, I don't like synthetic gun stocks either. Do they
work? You bet. Would a nice wood tote be better? Nope. Prettier? Hell
yes. But the point is, there is nothing inherently wrong with a plastic
tote. Nor should one necessarily shy away from a plane because if it gets
dropped hard enough, it will damage the frame. That can be said of any
tool, and the objective is not to drop your planes on the floor. Any tool
that meets a minimum standard of resiliency is all that should be expected
of tool. The rest is in the hands of the operator. Having said that, Alex
is again correct in stating that you can buy better - it's a question of
whether you need to.

Alex has a certain interest in particular aspects of his planes and that's
half of what owning tools is all about. I too have tools that I hold that
type of interest in and have purchased when something else would have worked
just fine. But, to be fair to the Stanley plane, it does work. It's
utilitarian, and it can benefit from some upgrades (mainly the iron), but it
can be made to work extremely well pretty much right out of the box. Put
the iron down on some sandpaper and do the Scarey Sharp thing, and you'll be
surprised what a tool it really is.
--

-Mike-