Lie Nielson to Veritas conversion?

[george wilson]

I used only old irons for many years when I was in public in the Musical Instrument Maker's Shop in Williamsburg. I continue to use them. The ones that a fine,new file could BARELY cut a little worked the best for me. Nothing wrong with the old irons. Wooden planes slide more easily over the wood,too.

[Derek Cohen]

What wood do you generally work with, David? I guarantee that if you lived in Perth you would have a different opinion about tool steels. There are many other woods that have similar abrasiveness. You should not make sweeping generalisations about steel.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Patrick Bernardo]

I'm also a homebrewer, and read a couple of forums related to that as well. I see the same tendency that I see here: for whatever reason, certain people really can't get over the idea that other people don't mind spending a little money to have something that they like. There's this internet forum bias toward doing things in the cheapest manner possible, so that anytime a thread comes up related to something that is commercially produced at commercially viable prices, there's a giant pile-on about how it can be done cheaper.

Note: nobody on this thread claimed that the new manufacturers made better bench planes than the vintage ones. Nobody claimed that high angle frogs were necessary. Nobody even brought up the new Veritas line. Nobody claimed that contemporary steel was better than vintage. But you have a thread that even mentions a modern maker, and it fills with the same ol', same ol'. This thread is of course dead now. I guess it never stood a chance.

Maybe some people just want to discuss the brands. What's wrong with that?

And also, Malcolm, I do appreciate your list. It was complete and thoughtful.

[David Weaver]

Derek, i take a heavier shaving. I work with cherry, beech, maple, and occasionally cocobolo.

I used to think that I needed high speed steel when dimensioning cocobolo blanks from rough, but I put that to rest in the last two years. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have any problem with the double iron using old tool steels. I may have a different opinion about single irons because they lose their desire to stay in the cut at an earlier point in edge wear.

I'm pretty sure that if I'm using stanley irons to dimension cocobolo, I would come to the same conclusion with most of the australian woods. And, that's considering that I was absolutely convinced before the double iron that it was impossible to work cocobolo with vintage irons. It's not, I'm more than happy to make the generalization.

Now, where would a situation arise where there was a significant difference? Probably in a single iron plane or a plane where I wasn't using a cap iron and where I was trying to take as many one thousandth plane shavings as I could. That's makework and I don't do it now.

(I'll add a second aside, I excavated the entire mortise in the cocobolo smoother show above with a pexto chisel. It is the equivalent of a stanley 750. I also only sharpened any tools I used on that particular billet with a washita stone and no abrasives after that. I had to resharpen the pexto chisel in that large plane mortise one time, and then I did the same again when I was done. What I found was that where in your instance of studies and such, you may find a vintage steel to fail at the same angle that a harder steel may not - for example at 30 degrees or some such thing in heavy work. What I found was that adding a couple of degrees eliminated the damage. In the past, I concluded the same thing, that the old and the new (where the new are japanese chisels) are miles apart, but in fact they are only a couple of degrees apart. And in the woods where they are a couple of degrees apart, it is no issue to add a few degrees because those woods are not that sensitive to a few extra degrees).

Part of the trouble with the studies on your page is that you come to a single conclusion via experiment, and many people in the US come to that conclusion via reading, but they are working with far different woods. The conclusion for their woods is not necessarily the same. But then the second conclusions is that "it won't work on australian woods", but that's not the case, either. It won't work under the exact same conditions may be an appropriate conclusion, but to say that it won't work is not correct. And the conditions where it doesn't work are not much different than those where it does (it being vintage steel).

It is an issue of familiarity with the tools, and not the tools.

I find it perfectly fine to prefer something else, but I find the generalization that vintage steels don't work well on very hard woods to be more incorrect than saying that they do.

Lest cocobolo is pointed out to be a wood that is not that hard, some additional reading is required. The early wood in cocobolo is soft, but the latewood is over 3000 on the janka test, so the orientation of the planing or testing or chiseling or whatever is dependent on the orientation of the wood at the time. And you can't get away from chiseling or planing the latewood if you are hand dimensioning all four sides of a billet, and especially if you are mortising into the side the tests in the 3000 range.

[Stewie Simpson]

What you say is indeed correct George. Wooden planes do provide a burnished effect that no steel soled plane can ever replicate.

During the 1950s my father served his apprenticeship as a Carpenter and Joiner in Scotland under the tutelage of a certified Master Craftsman. Not once was he allowed to use anything other than a wooden soled plane for this very reason.

A long time has passed since then. As such, we are to now take heed and listen to the modern generation of enthusiasts who will openly advice us that they have a much greater understanding of how things should have been done, in mindful contradiction to that taught and understood by much earlier generations of craftsmen.

[Sean Hughto]

Here, I'll try to add something on-topic and perhaps useful to some. I have used the alternatives offered by both in only a couple instances: block planes and router planes.

The LV block plane performs great and feels good in the hand. But my personal favorite block plane is LN's rabbet block. For the kind of work I do, the full width feature is just useful to me in so many instances. For example, I recently made a box that I cut apart and then installed a liner. shaving the liner for a really sweet fit of the top was trivially easy with the rabbet block's ability to ride on it's side and take a clean shaving all the way into the corner. I post this picture to make clearer what I mean - imagine shaving the ebony with a block riding on its side on the pear edge so that the top slides perfectly over the ebony insert.


I also happen to have both LV and LN's full size router planes. The LN feels a bit more robust in use, but I like the LV for the fence. I could get by with either, but likely would chose the LV if I could only have one due the the fence.

[Derek Cohen]

For goodness sake, David, do you not read the comparative testing with different steels? The old Stanley irons may be fine for you, but there is no way that they are as durable as more modern steels.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Edit: apology Sean, we posted at the same time.

[Chris Hachet]

Its breathtaking how the grain structure of hard and soft woods have dramatically change over recent years.

We now being told by greater minds than ours that we now require a vast assortment of bench planes to even cope.

This must include a good assortment of bevel up & bevel down planes. A range of different frogs to alter the bed angle. And of course a good mix of irons at different bevel angles.

Its my good fortune that I mainly work with much older timbers. So the choice of which bench plane to use is comparatively far less complicated.

Must go. I need to go and invest some money in Veritas shares. Their projected sales over the next 1 to 2 years looks very impressive.

....Ever since I quit my expensive hobby of automotive racing I have had a little extra cash to burn. I enjoy good tools. however, I got by on old Stanley stuff from flea markets for decades before I started buying the fancy stuff. Your point is well made...

[David Weaver]

For goodness sake, David, do you not read the comparative testing with different steels? The old Stanley irons may be fine for you, but there is no way that they are as durable as more modern steels.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek, I addressed this. I used to believe the same thing. A few degrees puts them back in the same range. I haven't found it to take any longer to do anything using vintage steels than I did when I had intentionally bought high speed steels for cocobolo and ebony billets several years ago (and at that time, I thought they were absolutely necessary).

I would encourage you to revise your test on your webpage to include what angle you find the vintage steels to lose their desire to fail easily. If you're testing VII at 30 degrees and finding it to work well, you'll find the vintage steels failing at 30 will suddenly become very competent at 32 or 33.

There probably isn't a chisel steel that you have used that I haven't, maybe with the exception of VII (but I have HAP 40 and semi HSS, so i have a pretty good idea of how they would do) - and I have used VII in two separate blades.

(I am not saying this just to be a thorn, I'm saying it because it's what I have found to be true, and I do think, as I mentioned above that it's somewhat irrelevant for a person who is working a lot of cherry and walnut and soft maple, etc, to worry about how their tools would have to be set up or what they'd have to be made of to work woods that are janka 1800-2500 )

[Chris Hachet]

I used only old irons for many years when I was in public in the Musical Instrument Maker's Shop in Williamsburg. I continue to use them. The ones that a fine,new file could BARELY cut a little worked the best for me. Nothing wrong with the old irons. Wooden planes slide more easily over the wood,too.

Hence why I have a number of wood planes in my shop.

[Chris Hachet]

What you say is indeed correct George. Wooden planes do provide a burnished effect that no steel soled plane can ever replicate.

During the 1950s my father served his apprenticeship as a Carpenter and Joiner in Scotland under the tutelage of a certified Master Craftsman. Not once was he allowed to use anything other than a wooden soled plane for this very reason.

A long time has passed since then. As such, we are to now take heed and listen to the modern generation of enthusiasts who will openly advice us that they have a much greater understanding of how things should have been done, in mindful contradiction to that taught and understood by much earlier generations of craftsmen.

I wish I could have apprenticed under a master carpenter or cabinetmaker like that. I have spent 30 years learning what I would have learned in three.

[Stewie Simpson]

I wish I could have apprenticed under a master carpenter or cabinetmaker like that. I have spent 30 years learning what I would have learned in three.

Hi Chris. It was a 5 year apprenticeship.

[Chris Hachet]

I'm also a homebrewer, and read a couple of forums related to that as well. I see the same tendency that I see here: for whatever reason, certain people really can't get over the idea that other people don't mind spending a little money to have something that they like. There's this internet forum bias toward doing things in the cheapest manner possible, so that anytime a thread comes up related to something that is commercially produced at commercially viable prices, there's a giant pile-on about how it can be done cheaper.

Note: nobody on this thread claimed that the new manufacturers made better bench planes than the vintage ones. Nobody claimed that high angle frogs were necessary. Nobody even brought up the new Veritas line. Nobody claimed that contemporary steel was better than vintage. But you have a thread that even mentions a modern maker, and it fills with the same ol', same ol'. This thread is of course dead now. I guess it never stood a chance.

Maybe some people just want to discuss the brands. What's wrong with that?

And also, Malcolm, I do appreciate your list. It was complete and thoughtful.

As a lover of automobiles, I also know people with 40 cars. Excessive, yes....but when it comes to tools and horsepower, one can never quite have enough, I am afraid.

[Jim Koepke]

This might suggest that any choice between them is likely to be down to stuff like price and matching needs/preferences to the specs/design differences between specific tools.

This has been the case for my choices.

If a new router plane were on my shopping list it would be the Veritas.

On other items is is on a case by case basis.

jtk

[george wilson]

Just to be clearer,I have used vintage planes for many years. But,they are subject to variable quality control,more than modern steels. I have even found Addis carving tools that are either too hard or too soft. Evaluating metals back then was much more subject to reliance upon an experienced individual than ours is today. Little was known about chemistry. Furnaces did not have modern methods of temperature control,etc..

People worked very long hours 6 days a week,and were subject to being over tired. Drinking was common. So was corruption. Possibly what sank the Titanic was cheap steel substituted for what was specified. The truth may never be known. During the building of the Great Eastern,900 tons of steel vanished from a shipyard.

It is no wonder that I had to pick and choose every plane I ended up using. Every chisel too. I did find good ones,but I bought quite a few planes back in the 70's and 80's,when they could be had for $10.00 in the Pennsylvania flea markets. Today,flea markets up there are very dissapointing. Everything is on Ebay,I guess.

There were no steels that are comparable with what we have today. Especially the new powdered metals.Many of the old planes were quite usable,and many old masterpieces were made with them. That is not to say that we don't have better steels available today.