The Sacrilege!

[Sean Hughto]

I really don't understand the fuss. Schwarz made an observation that though he has often said that older tools perform as well as new tools, some of his beginning students who have old tools tend to use his new ones. Those students have a chance to try out something that's very pretty, works well, was sharpened by someone else, and that they don't already have. Why not?

No, I don't think you've accurately summarized his thesis: The proof of superiority is in the choices these folks make, and the vintage plane users often not only choose to use my LN and Veritas planes, they often go to the length of buying them at the breaks.

[Alan Schwabacher]

...what drives me nuts is when some one says "absolutely" over and over to agree with what another has said or to sell them something. Especially when what they are agreeing to or selling is far short of 100 percent...

This sounds to me like Dorothea's reason she could never consider marrying Sir James Chettam in George Eliot's Middlemarch:

"...but an amiable handsome baronet, who said "Exactly" to her remarks even when she expressed uncertainty..."

(This gives me two contributions to the thread, one on and one off topic. That's perhaps not too bad.)

[Mark Engel]

No, I don't think you've accurately summarized his thesis: The proof of superiority is in the choices these folks make, and the vintage plane users often not only choose to use my LN and Veritas planes, they often go to the length of buying them at the breaks.

Didn't really see any of that in Chris' blog.

What I have observed is this: The students with the super-tuned vintage handplanes almost always tend to use – over and over – my Lie-Nielsen and Veritas planes during the class. They will wait for me to sharpen them and then pick them out of my tool chest. They put their vintage planes below their bench or back into their tool bag. I have even seen some of them order a Veritas or Lie-Nielsen plane on a cellphone during a class while holding one of my planes in their other hand.

More semantics, I guess.

[Andrew Fleck]

Sure:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...ed-this-before

Lonnie, that iron holder is certainly worth the miniscule amount of time and effort it takes to make it. It makes the task of flattening irons much more tolerable and faster.

[Brian Holcombe]

I don't really fallow the superstars of woodworking publishing, but I do not detest them either. I ordered a #7 recently from LN, I like their tools. Honestly I'm just glad there are companies that are making tools of this caliber that are accessible to the average woodworker.

If the options were; vintage, new junk (Borg) and Infills then I would own nothing but vintage planes. Path of least resistance and all that...

[Sean Hughto]

Didn't really see any of that in Chris' blog.

More semantics, I guess.

Not ANY of it, huh? Alright, Mark' let's go to the video tape:


Now, the mantra that almost every teacher repeats (including me) goes something like this: It doesn’t matter if you have vintage planes or new planes. Both can be tuned to a high level. Vintage planes require time. New planes require money.
It sounds like a reasonable statement, but I don’t know if I believe those words anymore.


And that’s because I’m a good observer.

[Well, gee, Chris, what have you observed that caused you to change your mind?]

What I have observed is this: The students with the super-tuned vintage handplanes almost always tend to use – over and over – my Lie-Nielsen and Veritas planes during the class. .... They put their vintage planes below their bench or back into their tool bag. I have even seen some of them order a Veritas or Lie-Nielsen plane on a cellphone during a class while holding one of my planes in their other hand.

.... I want to believe that the old planes are just as good. I used to believe the old planes were just as good.

And now let's compare it to my proffered summary: "The proof of superiority is in the choices these folks make, and the vintage plane users often not only choose to use my LN and Veritas planes, they often go to the length of buying them at the breaks.

Please tell me how my paraphrase mischaracterizes what he has said.

[Mark Engel]

Not ANY of it, huh? Alright, Mark' let's go to the video tape:


Now, the mantra that almost every teacher repeats (including me) goes something like this: It doesn’t matter if you have vintage planes or new planes. Both can be tuned to a high level. Vintage planes require time. New planes require money.
It sounds like a reasonable statement, but I don’t know if I believe those words anymore.


And that’s because I’m a good observer.

[Well, gee, Chris, what have you observed that caused you to change your mind?]

What I have observed is this: The students with the super-tuned vintage handplanes almost always tend to use – over and over – my Lie-Nielsen and Veritas planes during the class. .... They put their vintage planes below their bench or back into their tool bag. I have even seen some of them order a Veritas or Lie-Nielsen plane on a cellphone during a class while holding one of my planes in their other hand.

.... I want to believe that the old planes are just as good. I used to believe the old planes were just as good.

And now let's compare it to my proffered summary: "The proof of superiority is in the choices these folks make, and the vintage plane users often not only choose to use my LN and Veritas planes, they often go to the length of buying them at the breaks.

Please tell me how my paraphrase mischaracterizes what he has said.

Hold on. All these bright colors and font changes are making it hard for me to figure out what you said and what he said.

Okay. I don't know what you mean by this:
"The proof of superiority is in the choices these folks make"

Chris says:
"The students with the super-tuned vintage handplanes"

And you say:
" the vintage plane users"

Chris says:
"I have even seen some of them order a Veritas or Lie-Nielsen plane on a cellphone during a class "

You say:
"they often go to the length of buying them at the breaks"

But hey, it's just semantics. Chris says sometimes, you say often... Close enough.

BTW: I just read the blog. Is there a video?

[Sean Hughto]

Mark, I don't know if you are serious or not. There is an address for the blog entry in question in the first post in this thread.

To make it as simple as possible:

- He used to believe vintage and new/premium could perform equally.

- His class experiences, which he interprets as vintage plane users preferring the new/premium planes, have caused him to believe that the new/premium planes must be better.

"Go to the video tape" is something sportscasters tend to say when they are going to show you the plays from the game under discussion; I was essentially saying let's check the source, if you think I'm mistaken about what he said.

[Pat Barry]

Lets not begrudge the man his right to sell something and put food on his table. For gods sake he is a well respected woodworking authority. Give it a break

[Frederick Skelly]

Lonnie, that iron holder is certainly worth the miniscule amount of time and effort it takes to make it. It makes the task of flattening irons much more tolerable and faster.

+1. David showed that to me a year ago and it made a HUGE difference. I was finally able to get the back truly flat, which really upped my sharpening game. Thanks again for that David.

[Brian Ashton]

I honestly didn't understand what he was driving at, was it that the same people who would wait for him to sharpen his plane blades couldn't do well with their own tuned vintage planes or that they didn't do well with his and preferred new planes instead?

I use newly made planes, I like them and they work for me, I don't really consider them to be porsche's.

He was simply saying over the years he's been teaching people the majority gravitate to using a freshly sharpened newly minted plane over their refurb stanley... This is the first I've ever read of his stuff and I'm at a loss as to why so many have their panties in a knot over it.

And then someone goes onto say that he has no relevance to anyone other than beginners... Well of course! He's writing to novices isn't he! Popular woodworking has a target audience just like every other written periodical or blog, DIY show...

I dunno maybe it's the 4 beers I've had cause I just can't find any to reason to get all hot and bothered over it.

[Jim Matthews]

David,
When I started in about 1972, I remember spending about a day and a half, on the back a new Stanley 2 3/8" in blade. It should probably have been sent back! The stone was a coarse/"fine" India.
best wishes, David

You didn't have the benefit of generous instruction from people who were willing to guide the rest.
I have three paper back books, heavily dog-eared compiled from your articles.

Those of us following your methods had it easy.
You got there, the hard way.

Thanks for writing it down.

How many people have a technique named after them?

Fosbury had his famous flop.
Chuck Berry, the duck walk.
Boole had his approach to ten-pins, algebraically.

You're on that list, and membership is exclusive.

Bravo

[Brian Holcombe]

My sarcasm is lost it seems, but I agree there is not much to be offended by. People new-ish to the hobby who are ponying up however much money it takes to be in a class with CS are also quick to purchase new planes over the ones that they put a bit of effort into, not a shocker.

I found something funny about the fact that students with 'super-tuned' vintage planes would wait for someone to sharpen a blade on a LN plane and put that to use. It may be true, but it suggests that they either didn't do the super tuning or that their planes aren't truly 'super-tuned'.

His conclusion is off base, the preference of amateurs is simply that.

[Doug Hobkirk]

What a marvelous topic. I'm strictly a dabbler. I am, as always, very impressed by the depth of your knowledge. I try hard to suck up as much of that knowledge.

But I must note that I found the Christopher Schwartz article quite wonderful.

1. How many people in the US could vie with him for expertise on hand planes? (That's a real question - he ranks #1 in my personal WW awareness, but I know little.)
2. How many people in the US give classes on hand planes? (Again, real question. I have no idea.)
3. If he ranks in the top ten, I think his observations have intrinsic value. As would the observations of anyone else in the top ten.
   
   • I will grant that the results could be biased by CS - by consciously keeping the new stuff sharper, for example. (It would surprise me, but I only know him through his writings and an occasional video.)

Fairly soon I should be able to see if this comparison holds true for me; I recently acquired my first premium plane, a LN #4. I have a couple of other premium specialty planes, but my bench planes have all been vintage Stanley so far- #4, #5-1/2, and a #7. I've spent a lot of time getting these in shape (mostly trial-and-error and messing around, since these were my first real planes) and I've got them working pretty sweetly. I can confirm what others have said about the chipbreaker enabling these planes to work difficult grain; honestly, I don't even think about grain direction much when planing anymore- except for the 5-1/2, where blade camber prevents the chipbreaker from getting very close to the edge. These planes work very well for what I might call functional planing- getting a board to dimension, squaring an edge up, removing pencil/tool marks, etc. But I still have some slight troubles with my Stanley 4 in taking very fine, full-width shavings for finishing a surface. And, at random times it leaves inexplicable plane tracks, despite my having rounded and cambered the iron, and even rounding the corners of the chipbreaker. On occasion I will resort to smoothing with the #7 as it just seems to work better despite having no camber and sharp corners- I can't really explain it.

So I bought the LN #4 specifically to use for these very fine smoothing cuts. (Which, presumably, cured the problem? Interesting...) I figure the Stanley will still see a lot of use, just left to a slightly coarser setting. This should reduce the amount of fiddling with setups, and reduce the amount of sharpening for each blade. I still need to do the final prep work on the LN's blade, and then I guess I'll see if there's anything magical about the premium plane, or if setting for very fine shavings is just fiddly business in general...

I learned something new.

1. Rounding the chipbreaker for cambered blades.
   
   • Yesterday I posted a Q about creating a surface that feels hand planed. My conclusion was a mild camber on a smoothing plane. So you have added an arrow to my quiver if I run into problems when I try doing that.
   
   
2. I think I also learned in this thread that new top planes have advantages are:
   
   • Irons stay sharp longer (?)
     
     • Would this apply equally to new tech irons (from LN or LV or Hock or whoever) fitted to vintage planes?
     
     
   • Their chipbreakers are closer to the edge of the blade (?)

I encourage you let me know if I am wrong.

[David Weaver]

Don't round the cap iron (chipbreaker) on any of your planes. Leave it straight and set it closer to the edge if you're getting tearout. It doesn't matter if it literally goes past the corners of the iron on a cambered iron because those corners will be retracted into the plane in a cut, anyway.