Greetings,

Sometime ago I had a friendly arguement with a friend of mine concerning the usefullness of a Stanley No. 1 plane. He said he had spoken to Lie-Nielsen about it years ago & he said that they had no real practical use. When I contacted the staff at Lie-Nielsen they gave me the same response. Yet I have found the plane very helpful to get to those hard to reach areas or when you need a small plane with a higher pitch than a block plane to plane some squirrelly wood on a fragile piece. Am I alone in this thinking? It seems hard to believe the Stanley Bailey Company would have produced a plane for 75 years that had no practical value! They weren't collector's items back then, they were either used or they not made.

Fine Tool Journal also had an article (although I can't find the issue) some years back that described the uses of the No. 1. In one example, an entire lot of original Stanley No. 1's were found in a teacher's workshop for his students. He taught how to make bamboo fly rods.

So I am just wondering if I am full of beans or if there are other believers about?