What advantage does the high end plane provide? Thicker blade and better chip-breaker for me means that it performs better especially on tougher to plane wood.
If one thinks this is the only advantage, then one has not been paying attention.
To make one thing clear, most of my planes are old Stanley/Bailey's that have been tuned into doing their jobs quite well, thank you. I have owned a few Bedrocks and can say there is an improvement in function due to the way the base and frog mate.
I can not say much about the Veritas planes since I do not own any. I do know that many of them have set screws for blade and mouth positioning. That is innovation beyond the attention to the other details that make so many find their planes a joy to use.
I do own 3 Lie-Nielsen planes. Beyond the "thicker blade and chip breaker" is the improved metallurgy, precision machining and improvements in design.
BTW, the absolute lack of backlash on the LN bench plane drives me nuts sometime when adjusting the blade. My mind has become so used to working with backlash, it is difficult to work without it.
The mating of the frog and base is improved by precision machining. FWW covers this a little in their recent article evaluating planes and explains why this beats the WoodRiver V3 for frog adjustment.
The large mating area between frog and base help to dampen chatter when planing. This may work best in a production situation. There are various ways to "coax" a Bailey into working just as well as a Bedrock in most cases.
My old planes can require a lot of patience. Hopefully, one day I may receive some patience if I obtain their age. If it is frustrating to turn your adjuster knob a full turn or even two or three full turns, then an old well used Stanley is not the tool for you. (This is what people are referring to when they say adjuster backlash.) Especially when the "sweet spot" of planing is likely to be less than a quarter turn of the adjuster. With the threading on the Stanley adjusters being 24 tpi, a quarter turn will move the blade ≈ .010". If my geometry is working, at 45° that is about 0-.007" difference in the cutting depth of the blade in a quarter turn.
If the LN or LV have a finer thread on their adjusters, that would be helpful.
Having the maker stand behind the flatness of the sole is something worth considering. Besides that, the weight of the plane will be more than the old Stanley planes. The weight does help to keep planes in the cut. If it did not, the aluminum planes that Stanley made would have been much more popular. That seems like a good example of tool designers not being the ones using the tools they made.
Yes, a better and heavier blade may improve an old Bailey, but it will not turn a $20 garage sale find into a modern marvel. Further, when you do the math, you do not have a $20 modern marvel, you have $20 + the cost of the blade and chip breaker old plane that may still need a bit more work.
jtk
Last edited by Jim Koepke; 05-06-2011 at 1:21 PM.
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