I was drooling over the Lee Valley web site and I saw these wood planes.

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...=1,41182,46334

The price for these Taiwanese planes seems great, but I was hoping to
talk to someone who has actually used them. What do you think? Do they
work well or are they just pretty to look at?

TIA
Glen

Glen writes:

I was drooling over the Lee Valley web site and I saw these wood planes.

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...=1,41182,46334

The price for these Taiwanese planes seems great, but I was hoping to
talk to someone who has actually used them. What do you think? Do
they work well or are they just pretty to look at?

I have a hollow and a round in this style, together with the small
spokeshave. They are equipped with carbon steel blades without
chipbreaker and work well. I wish some more radii for the hollow and
round sets were available.
I also have a HSS blade for my old jack plane from this manufacturer
and it can be sharpened very well and hold its edge good.

--
Dr. Juergen Hannappel http://lisa2.physik.uni-bonn.de/~hannappe
Phone: +49 228 73 2447 FAX ... 7869
Physikalisches Institut der Uni Bonn Nussallee 12, D-53115 Bonn, Germany
CERN: Phone: +412276 76461 Fax: ..77930 Bat. 892-R-A13 CH-1211 Geneve 23

Juergen Hannappel wrote:

Glen writes:


I was drooling over the Lee Valley web site and I saw these wood planes.

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...=1,41182,46334

The price for these Taiwanese planes seems great, but I was hoping to
talk to someone who has actually used them. What do you think? Do
they work well or are they just pretty to look at?


I have a hollow and a round in this style, together with the small
spokeshave. They are equipped with carbon steel blades without
chipbreaker and work well. I wish some more radii for the hollow and
round sets were available.
I also have a HSS blade for my old jack plane from this manufacturer
and it can be sharpened very well and hold its edge good.

Thanks for the feedback.

Glen

On Sun, 02 Apr 2006 11:42:22 GMT, Glen wrote:

The price for these Taiwanese planes seems great, but I was hoping to
talk to someone who has actually used them.

I haven't used Lee Valley's, but there will be some in my next order.

I have a couple in this style from HNT Gordon and I really like them.
They're not great as bench planes because you can't bear down on them
when pushing from behind. Nor do they remove timber as fast as my German
horned scrub plane. What they're best at is very subtle shaping of
final details - not so much flat smoothing, but shaping gentle curves
where you want something that leaves a better finish than a spokeshave.
I can use these on curved chair arms with enough delicacy that I don't
make a flat spot.

Compared to Japanese planes the body shapes are easier to grip,
particularly where you're working on an almost finished piece that you
can't lean on, rather than a board resting on a planing beam.

I was at a ww'ing show recently and asked a purveyor of Lie-Nielsen
planes (not Tom) what he thought about the Veritas line. He said
"they're a decent working plane, but they're not even in the same
league as Lie-Nielsen." When I asked him what he meant he mumbled
something about "fit and finish" and then moved on to a potential
customer.

I've got only the low-angle block from Veritas, but I love it.
Assuming I'm in it for the best FUNCTION and not as an investment or as
a status symbol, why would I pay double or more for a Lie-Nielsen?

JP

I was at a ww'ing show recently and asked a purveyor of Lie-Nielsen
planes (not Tom) what he thought about the Veritas line. He said
"they're a decent working plane, but they're not even in the same
league as Lie-Nielsen." When I asked him what he meant he mumbled
something about "fit and finish" and then moved on to a potential
customer.

At a "Training the Hand" Cosman class I took last July, a student whose
real job is as an engineer, brought into class 2 LV planes brand new
out of the boxes. A smoother and a block plane.

The block plane had over .003 hump at the mouth. It was returned that
day and a LN was purchased. The smoother made it another day before it
was returned, he found he preferred the LN in actual use in the only
handtool course.

By the end of the week there was over $1500 worth of LN in his class
purchases pile.

Only issue found in the class of all the LN products was a bent No 8
replacement blade.

If you have the time, and the ability, knowledge, patience and
experience to fettle a plane, then half the money could be a good
savings.

Alan

I have a hollow and a round in this style, together with the small
spokeshave. They are equipped with carbon steel blades without
chipbreaker and work well. I wish some more radii for the hollow and
round sets were available.
I also have a HSS blade for my old jack plane from this manufacturer
and it can be sharpened very well and hold its edge good.

--
Dr. Juergen Hannappel


Doc, have you ever seen the hollows and rounds on this page? Take a look:

http://japanwoodworker.com/dept.asp?dept_id=12915

Maybe you can modify them to your radius needs, or they might already
have it.

--
Alex - "newbie_neander" woodworker
cravdraa_at-yahoo_dot-com
not my site: http://www.e-sword.net/

"AAvK" writes:


[...]

Doc, have you ever seen the hollows and rounds on this page? Take a look:

http://japanwoodworker.com/dept.asp?dept_id=12915

Not until now. Great! Unfortunately the distributors in Germany only
carry one size, so maybe an overseas order has to be placed ome time
soon...


Maybe you can modify them to your radius needs, or they might already
have it.

If it comes to modifying the radius I'd rather build one from scratch.

--
Dr. Juergen Hannappel http://lisa2.physik.uni-bonn.de/~hannappe
Phone: +49 228 73 2447 FAX ... 7869
Physikalisches Institut der Uni Bonn Nussallee 12, D-53115 Bonn, Germany
CERN: Phone: +412276 76461 Fax: ..77930 Bat. 892-R-A13 CH-1211 Geneve 23