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Thread: Nice video about Larry Williams

  1. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Voigt View Post
    Great video, thanks for posting Kees! Larry and Don are awesome. I wonder if anyone would be making traditional wooden planes today if it weren't for those guys.
    I made my first wooden planes in 1975. The double iron jack plane I made in 1978 was copied from an 18th century Dominy plane, and is the only jack plane I have used since then. I knew other guys who were making traditional planes at that time as well.

  2. #17
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    I was making decent planes as far back as the late 50's. Not manufacturing them,though.

  3. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by george wilson View Post
    I was making decent planes as far back as the late 50's. Not manufacturing them,though.
    I'm sure if larry didn't sell moulding planes to CW, you would've been tasked with it. Maybe not something you'd have wanted to do in large numbers, either.

    I went and rewatched the video and thought that it was a bit on the overconfident side to state that no other plane so sophisticated has been made since the 1700s. Larry would not like to hear it, but none of his planes are the equal of the try plane that i showed on here that was made by an english maker, and it's had probably 125 years or more to show its age and has chosen not to.

    Maybe he just meant the moulding planes, though, who knows?

  4. #19
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    No,like I mentioned,we had way too many tasks to do already. I was happy to not have to make hollows and rounds and molding planes. Too many other nice things to make.

    If I had to make them,though,I'd have planed their soles with an original set of hollows and rounds I have.

    It is good that someone is making them,though. We need someone doing it. And,someone making saws and other good,period tools,too.
    Last edited by george wilson; 06-02-2014 at 8:40 AM.

  5. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by David Weaver View Post
    Beech....good luck. Find a beech tree, I guess and wait 4 years.
    I've come across two American Beech trees, free to anyone that could manage them.
    The first had a long straight run of 38 feet, 42" in diameter below the first limb.

    It was too large for me to section with my 20" bar.

    The arborist that eventually claimed it found the center had a conical void that extended from the base
    to 35' - just below where I was cutting. It was essentially useless - even for firewood.

    In nearby Newport, RI five ancient Beeches were culled for shedding limbs,
    some of the solid material was hauled to the town yard, for eventual disposition in the landfill.

    Not a straight section in any of them - they were twisted, riddled with nails and completely waterlogged.

    My guess is that the first plane makers had old growth trees that came up under a canopy.

    These two trees spent their lives out in the open and offer little in the way of choice billets.

    You may need to weight more than 4 years...

  6. #21
    I have a cabinetmaker friend whom I do work for, carving and turning. I occasionally make make beech handles for him, chisels and carving tools. One Friday afternoon he brought me some tools and I asked if he had any beech himself; I was low on the kind of scraps I use for handles. Monday morning he called me up to say he had bought a beech log Saturday morning and had it quarter sawn for me and I could come pick it up. Not a knot in the pile.

    Beech has a fungal disease which decreased the supply, but there is still much more beech around than there is demand.

  7. #22
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    According to one member,there are large,solid beech trees in West Va.. But,out here in the East,every large beech tree seems to have gone quite hollow in the center. We cut 5000 bd. ft. of beech when I was first toolmaker. The maximum size logs we used were about 18" in diameter,or a bit less.

  8. #23
    It's reasons like that that I'd want beech from a timber stand somewhere in southern Ohio (which is where the beech I picked up came from) for those reasons (cut before it was near dead and riddled with bugs, and cut from a wooded low population area. Haven't seen any trees around here like that, other than oaks I guess, even though it's not far away.

    Also haven't seen anyone selling it who is letting it air dry. IIRC, the attempts my lumber guy had at kiln drying big billets weren't that successful, at least not the ones that were sold to the general public. Shipping something like that makes it more sensible to just buy complete planes, anyway.

  9. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by george wilson View Post
    According to one member,there are large,solid beech trees in West Va.. But,out here in the East,every large beech tree seems to have gone quite hollow in the center. We cut 5000 bd. ft. of beech when I was first toolmaker. The maximum size logs we used were about 18" in diameter,or a bit less.
    Beech trees solid to the base in southern ohio at double that diameter or more aren't uncommon. It's just, as warren says, nobody seems to want them. I can't think of a real use for them other than as furniture frames and hand tools. And we know that not much upholstered furniture is made here anymore. When I mentioned Beech to hearne when I was there Christmas Eve one year (when he's the only person in the store), he wrinkled his nose and said "utility wood", and said the euros dumped beech on the US market and ruined it at some point in the past. There must've been a coordinated "wood poop" by the euro countries, because I've seen other people mention that they got an enormous pile of beech wood from europe for almost nothing - stu tierney comes to mind.

  10. Larry and Don have been getting their beech from my friends at Horizon Wood Products. I am sure they will be happy to send some out if anyone wants to give plane making a try. Here is a link to their website.
    http://www.horizonevolutions.com/

  11. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by george wilson View Post
    But,out here in the East,every large beech tree seems to have gone quite hollow in the center. We cut 5000 bd. ft. of beech when I was first toolmaker. The maximum size logs we used were about 18" in diameter,or a bit less.
    Some of the stuff on youtube being sawn looks to have fungal problems, almost like a standing spalt, which is too bad. But I guess it's also a matter of most of it wouldn't be used for anything but firewood, anyway. Those of us who'd like to have large billets to use are a tiny market, and the economics (what we're willing to pay for it) isn't going to get most people off the couch.

  12. #27
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    I looked on the Horizon site,and saw no listing of beech. Something you have to call them about? Do you know them,David?

  13. #28
    I never called horizon, just because Mike Digity always sold me 8/4 and 5/4 pretty cheap and, well, his van showed up at my garage door - no charge - when I made an order.

    Horizon has generally been out of my price range for this area otherwise, though their pictures of stock do look really nice. There are a few local guys (one man millers) here who will sell the same kind of stuff if you take the time to work with them, closer by and for less.

    I don't know how much beech matt, larry and don got from Mike, but I know they bought from him, too. Horizon may be more picky about cosmetics of the lumber, though. I'd be curious to know what they thought of mike's stock. I've gotten a board or two from mike that I didn't want to use for planes, but of all of the orders I made from mike, I paid less than $5 a bd. foot for QS stock (keeping in mind some of that I got from him as he was liquidating). All total, only about 75 board feet in all of those orders maybe. Enough for me to not ever have to buy any more for saw handles, moulding planes, other tools, etc, but not enough at this point for me to unload any.

    Horizon is up in Tony Zaffuto's direction - fairly far from here. He might know more about their stock in person, the sequential stuff does look pretty nice.
    Last edited by David Weaver; 06-02-2014 at 10:20 AM.

  14. #29
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    What other woods in the USA and Europe were considered "ideal" for plane making. For what reason is Beech a preferred choice? Are there better choices? To date, I have simply considered Beech to be a compromise of availability, cost, and integrity, and not necessarily the only choice for premium planes. In Australia, most vintage planes originated in the UK, where they were made of Beech. Modern woodies, however, are made of many local woods - HNT Gordon offers a wide variety of exotic local species, all hard and stable.

    Regards from Perth

    Derek

  15. #30
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    I know Matt Bickford uses Cherry primarily for his planes. Phil Edwards uses beech but also Goncalo.

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