This video appeared on my YouTube feed tonight: Making a Lie-Nielsen Plane From Start to Finish - YouTube This is an impressive video of the complete manufacturing process. Check it out.
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This video appeared on my YouTube feed tonight: Making a Lie-Nielsen Plane From Start to Finish - YouTube This is an impressive video of the complete manufacturing process. Check it out.
Contributor
I've been in manufacturing my whole career. Knowing what goes into these makes me wonder how they can sell them so cheap. They are a bargain.Originally Posted by Mike Brady
Sharp solves all manner of problems.
Contributor
Indeed. No one is getting rich at LN!
~mike
happy in my mud hut
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May they stay in business for a very long time!
Member
Seems to me to be more of an advertisement for the wonders of Stanley, Record, et al. from bygone days.
Contributor
Many people today don't realize what all it takes to make something. I'll use my nickel plating as an example. First, the tool has to be good to begin with, then it needs cleaned, polished and put back together. It then may require tuning. There are several steps to the plating itself. Degreasing is the first and most important. Then maybe an activator if old plating present. Then the plating happens. This alone can take up to two hours. Then it needs a final polish and re-assembly.
But people really don't appreciate it being a more durable finish than paint. They definitely don't want to pay much for it. So basically, I might break even on the cost of purchasing the rusty tool and all the supplies used. I make nothing on the labor.
So why do I do it? Because I like to. I'm happy knowing a tool might last a lot longer because it looks like a valuable tool. Might not get thrown into the recycle bin.
Now look at a premium company making these tools today. (Lie-Nielsen, Veritas, etc.) They must produce tools without any visible flaws in addition to working well. Top of the line materials. Their quality control must be relentless and constantly strive for even better quality or lower cost without sacrificing anything. For them, word of mouth is the best advertising. It must be good, or they will need to make things right. No company or person is perfect though and so problems sometimes arise. These companies are known for taking care of any issues, large, small, or even the customer's mistake.
New manufacturing also has other hurdles. Walke-Moore could not get good bronze castings for their routers and ended up going with steel. Union Manufacture is trying to make castings, and everything was going well until they found out their software for the castings was making the main bodies too long. So, they have to redo and try again before committing to a major run. That will directly cost them in time and material.
I think the prices they are charging for new tools is very reasonable.
The cost of used tools may also be going up. The tools I sell on E-Bay are typically charged a 13.5% rate as a listing fee. Then the Federal Government wants you to pay income tax on top of that. So basically, I need to add about 25% to a tool I just bought to just break even. Luckily most the tools I am selling were bought years ago at lower prices. So I am doing alright. But not getting rich.
Contributor
Any of those sell for more today with rust for more than the sold new.
When Stanley was making Bailey style planes, what was the minimum wage?
From Wikipedia:
What are Stanley, Record, et al offering today?The federal minimum wage was introduced in 1938 at the rate of 25¢ per hour (equivalent to $5.19 in 2022). By 1950 the minimum wage had risen to 75¢ per hour. The purchasing power of the federal minimum wage has fluctuated; it was highest in February 1968, when it was $1.60 per hour.
Home Depot has the modern #4 listed at $43.44 and out of stock. It has plastic handles. If it works as well as some of my older Stanley/Bailey planes it would be a bargain.
A well tuned early Stanley/Bailey #4 will cost more than that. Heck, even a not so well tuned old Stanley/Bailey #4 might run higher than that on ebay.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Member
In its heyday, Stanley probably made more better-than-decent quality planes in a few months than L-N has made in the entire history of the company to date.
And that is a marvel.
They were affordable, and they worked well, but not so cheap that somebody who actually earned a living with tools would have a tool chest full of duplicates.
Contributor
Those planes are expensive. If it's worth it to you to get a plane ready to go, then that's what you're paying, in addition to the extra details, like wooden handles, the guaranteed tolerances, customer support, etc.
Stanley is still making Bailey planes. If the point is to have smoother that can smooth a surface, the $45 Stanley no. 4 sold at home depot works as well as any vintage smoother. It's a heavy plane, so it shares that w the premium ones. Other details are less refined, but smoothing is smoothing.
Contributor
From memory of reading about "back in the day" a Stanley bench plane sold for about a day's wages. I've read many comments about back then you weren't buying a plane so much as you were buying a kit. The plane might work acceptably to someone wanting to take a shaving or two off of a sticking door, but someone making a living with the tool would need to do some fettling.
I recall the Stanley #45 as being sold for about $8 dollars in the late 1800s and that was supposedly about a weeks wages.
Back then people didn't have an electric jointer in their garage nor a random orbital sander.
My guess if anyone was cranking out planes at the rate Stanley and others were over a century ago, they would likely have a lot of unsold inventory on their shelves, even if they were less than $50 each.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Contributor
A couple of months back in Home Depot curiosity got the best of me so I picked up a #4 and pulled it out of it's box.
The blade was installed bevel up, with wood shavings jammed between the bevel and the chipbreaker.
The next person to buy it will return the tool because it was used, and then it will likely be chucked in a dumpster.
Contributor
One of the problems with retail today is there are a lot of people who need an item for a single use and then want to return for full refund. Candy's ex is one of those people.
Someone might buy it to give as a gift. The recipient my not be able to return it.
Home Depot occasionally has a clearance table (at least they used to) of items that have been returned or even hardware from which people have opened and removed (shoplifted) items. I one time found a box marked down that had been opened, but it was filled with 1/4-20 wing nuts that had been put together from all the open boxes. It was marked down from a box of 5 or 10 wing nuts but was stuffed full with close to 100. Naturally I just had to buy it.
Other than being put together wrong, how was the rest of the plane? Did it seem like it would make a good user?
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Moderator
Thank you Mike, I watched the LN video last night. Very interesting and well done. I toured a casting & forging house in Houston once that was doing some work for me. Hard, hard work. I wouldn’t have lasted one day.
"It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone."
Andy Rooney
Member
I own some Veritas. A Clifton 5 1/2 and some Lie-Nielsen.
When I buy Veritas, sometimes I don't even worry about opening the product right away. They have a rock solid quality control.
When I bought my Clifton, it wasn't all smooth like Lie-Nielsen but as a Jack Plane it works like a charm. Love its extra weight and tank-like construction.
Recently I tried to buy a Clifton no.6 but I returned two of them. The casting was useless on both. On the first one the thread of the frog advancing mechanism
was at a wrong angle. On the second they didn't thread it all the way through. Clifton is going down the hill.
So I went with Lie-Nielsen for the Fore-Plane. I like the fact that LN makes limited batches and doesn't lose sight of quality.
Clifton continues to produce and produce but quality control is completely ineffective. Sorry about that
We get lost in the over-building and perfect material arguments that sometimes we simply loose sight of the making (Tom Fidgen)
Member
Does LN do their own casting or are they subcontracted out?
If the thunder don't get you, the lightning will.
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