Best bang for buck

[george wilson]

FWW mag. did a test on Woodriver planes this last issue. They liked them. Flat sole,good iron.

[Bill Schmitz]

Thanks for all the great ideas. I decided to dive in and get started, using a middle of the road option. I just couldn't justify spending the $$ on a new LN or LV plane when I didn't know if I would even like using them (I know, a sacrilege); but I also didn't feel comfortable buying an older plane that I needed to tune to make it work properly.

Therefore, I found an older Record No. 5 Jack, on ebay that the seller claims to have well-tuned and restored, including replacing the blade with an LN blade. I was able to get this within my budget and hope that it gives me a glimpse into this world.

Thanks for all your helpful advice. I will report back once it arrives and I've had a chance to inspect and try it out.

Bill

[Brian Kent]

Good move, Bill.

If it is ready to go… great.

If it needs some tuning… greater, because of what you will learn on the way.

Brian

[James G. Jones]

Bill,
One piece of advice that deserves repeating is to learn to sharpen. You can buy the best, most expensive plane out there and when it gets dull, it still won't work correctly. I'm not going to get into the whole mess of sharpening options, but for any plane to work well, it must be sharp. Do some searching here about what the various options are, figure what will work with your style of working and budget, and practice, practice, practice. That's the one thing in common to all sharpening techniques, it does require repetition.

Good luck, and welcome to the slippery slope.

James

[Bill Schmitz]

Well, my "new" plane finally arrived this week (shipping from Canada to the US is slow). But, of course, I was busy and didn't get a chance to test it out until Saturday, when my wife and I were installing our new tail vise on our work bench.

I had built the jaws out of some really hard mahogany scraps we had left over from another project. Anyway, once we got the jaws installed, my wife said" "Damn," she had planned to use the router to ease the outside edges of the front jaw because they were really sharp. Since we didn't want to disassemble the vise, I picked up my new plane and lo and behold it did a beautiful job, peeling off whisper thin curly shavings . . . hit each edge with half a dozen swipes then a quick sand to smooth . . . beautiful.

I'm so excited to get another chance to put my new plane to work.

Thanks again for all the good advice.

Bill

[Brian Kent]

Bill, there is a second rule that goes along with learning to sharpen.

Planes LOVE to be photographed! Then we LOVE to look at your photographs!

If you don't you'll hear a familiar refrain real fast - "No pics? Didn't happen".

Brian

[Bill Schmitz]

Good point, Brian. I'm pretty new to this, but I should have guessed. Anyway, here goes . . . pics of my new pane and vise . . . and a couple of my other passion, my Weber WSM smoker with the new stacker. Got 3 racks of ribs going for my Father's Day dinner.

Bill

[David Gendron]

Look like a nice plane to me and nice shavings to... Ho BTW, shipping to Canada frome the US is also lenghty!!

[Brian Kent]

Oh man, those ribs look good. Nice plane too.

Thanks for the pictures - now we know it happened!

Brian

[Bill Schmitz]

Thanks, Brian. I should have taken another picture when all three racks came off, but alas, they all gone. Yum!

Bill