Favorite planes - shifting loyalties

[Shawn Pixley]

Rather than hijack another thread, I'll start a new one. I find myself switching my favorite planes depending upon what I am doing. I got a LN #7 from a 'creeker a few years back. Every time I use it, it becomes my favorite plane. There is something about the shavings coming off of the big plane that is really appealing. When I use my curved spokeshave, I feel like I should find something else to use it on. My little adjustable mouth block plane is so easy to adjust and cuts so well, that it is seldom off the bench. The router plane is wonderful and has a permanant place in my heart. I have an old Stanley #5 that was my grandfather's. It is reached for preferentially over others. It goes like this...

So, my question is this, do others experience these shifting loyalties as well or am I just fickle?

[Matthew N. Masail]

I think you love all the good tools, which one is your favorite at the moment depends on what your doing and on the wood itself....

[george wilson]

You are in a pickle because you are fickle,and your loyalty is not worth a nickel.

[Kim Malmberg]

Shawn
You are not alone. I have pledged my sincerest loyalties to many tools. Right now I'm in a knife kind of loyalty programme where I'm having difficulties to choose which two or three knifes will follow me on a walk along the coastline or which folding knife will have a place in my pocket.
When it comes to planes it used to be the MF no 15 for most tasks but currently that plane is a backbencher having been sidestepped by my MF no 9, my router plane and my skew rabbet plane. As much as I love my Berg chisels my favourite chisel right now is a skew chisel I made from a dirt cheap, short and badly treated Hackman chisel.
When it comes to saws I normally need a minute or two before I can decide which to use but because I have been working outdoors for several days, the 16 inch Atkins backsaw I have brought to the site is my current favourite.

[Tony Zaffuto]

Whichever tools feel like an extension of my hand(s) are the tools I'm loyal to. That is also a proposition that evolves over time as different tools/methods are tried and/or learned.

[Tom M King]

My favorite is the one that makes me smile on the first push. The list is long.

[Chris Fournier]

Nope. All of my planes are top quality and make sense as a cadre of planes. I grab them as tools and each one does what it should. I have a loyalty to handplanes, my handplanes and I have no favourite children. Each one shines at a time and I wouldn't part or cherish one more than an other.

Of course ripping a fine shaving on my #7 gives me a big bore pleasure that is different than tweaking a tight joint with my 1/2" bronze infill shoulder plane. Lovely, both in their own right.

[Tom Stenzel]

Shawn was a worker of wood,
Didn't know which tool was good.
To pick a favorite it seems
Would interfere with his schemes
To buy every tool that he could!

I'd do a haiku but I'm not any good at those. Not any good at limericks either but you guys already knew that.

-Tom

[Jim R Edwards]

The plane I enjoy using the most is my LN 48 tongue and groove plane. I find that plane also plants a seed in a die hard power tool woodworker about the ease and enjoyment a hand tool brings to the world of woodworking.

[Tom Stenzel]

My favorite plane to look at is my Stanley Bailey 7C. Lucky thing as it sit on a bookshelf in the basement, I see it all the time. That iron monster won't fit in any toolbox I have!

My favorite plane to use is my 78. When I bought it I thought I would use it occasionally. I'm surprised how often I need it.

The plane that gets the most use? A much abused Groz #5. I just used it to strip putty, paint and clean up some old boards. I do lots of rough work like that, wouldn't want to use something good or expensive. I may not love it but I sure (ab)use it. A cheap Craigslist find.

-Tom

[Patrick McCarthy]

Shawn, c'mon dude, you're a music guy: if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with. Applies to tools too!

[Jim Matthews]

Stephen Stills is frequently misquoted in this regard.

His admonition was to love yourself, first and foremost
rather than seeking validation in the embrace of multiple partners.

It's an easy mistake, and I've made it myself.

***************

Multiple variants of the same tool only present a problem if you must constantly adjust your technique to suit the tool.

Daniel Bonade, dean of American clarinet players famously said of equipment choices which plagued his students to the point of prevarication;
"Take your cigar box full of mouthpieces and a good reed out into a lake on a boat. Play through all of them. Divide into three portions;
needs adjustment, close but not quite, and just right. Throw the first two overboard. Repeat until one remains."

[Malcolm Schweizer]

First off, Patrick McCarthy, that was funny!

I wouldn't say that I have shifted loyalties, but what I have done over the past two or three years is to upgrade basically all of my hand tools. For many years I used some pretty crappy planes, and mediocre chisels. As the surfboard thing took off I bought a LN low angle block plane and that was my "Aha moment." I believe next was a set of LV rabbeting block planes, mainly for ship laps on lapstrake boats. Then the big spend- a full set of LN chisels- bevel, mortice, and fishtail. Next I hit up LV for a low angle jack, jointer, and smoother, and then a router plane (I do a lot of inlays), and a set of spokeshaves, then a LN cabinetmaker's scraper plane... oh yes, rolling downhill fast now, and the snowball is growing. I could go on, but the point is that I have shifted from well-tuned old tools to more modern stuff. I AM NOT KNOCKING OLD TOOLS!!! I still love my Stanleys, but what I have found is that LV and LN have taken a good thing and made it better- heavier construction, better blades, finer tuning, etc.

So back to the question- As I am growing my collection of fine tools, I do find that I shift to a tool more suited for the job, but not because of a change in loyalties. For example, I now use my Veritas shooting plane (LOVE that plane) instead of my Veritas low angle jack for shooting miters, because finally I have a dedicated miter plane. Also since I got the Veritas rabbeting block planes I use them a lot in strip built boat construction, swapping back and forth between them and the LN. The Verias planes, because they are rabbeting, can get in tighter when I need to fine tune a strip that is already half clamped into place. So I'm not changing loyalties, just getting tools more specific to certain jobs where I was making do with what I had.

Wow, writing this I realize I have a ton of really nice tools that I did not have just a few years ago. I am afraid I won't be done until I die, and even then probably something will come in the mail shortly after.

[David Weaver]

His admonition was to love yourself, first and foremost
rather than seeking validation in the embrace of multiple partners.

It's an easy mistake, and I've made it myself.

One could take that quote a different way than you meant it! My initial though when reading that was "ghee, I'd love to have had the luxury of making the latter mistake ".

[Chuck Nickerson]

For me shifting loyalties apply to saws. There really can be no other excuse for a dozen back saws and a dozen hand saws.