What makes a plane good or great?

[Jon Crowley]

My other thread asking about the Grizzly plane had me thinking and the engineer part of me is struggling to quantify what makes one plane better than another.

Here's my theories on metal planes:
Design? All metal planes I've seen are blatant ripoffs of the Bailey design/patent. Looks like they copied the casting near exactly.
Fit/finish, tolerances, well mating parts - A frog mating surface that is not flat could cause major problems.
Thick irons and chipbreakers are a plus - less chatter/flex. Also good quality steel that holds an edge is important. Vintage Stanley planes are considered to be great, and came stock with thin (relative to Hock, etc) irons.
A small, preferably adjustable mouth is good.

Anything else? Because based on those theories, it seems most every metal plane is the same basic design and there wouldn't be much difference other than minor fit/finish issues which for the most part could be adjusted and/or tuned out by the user.

Further complicating my comprehension is the concept of expensive, all wood designer planes. Obviously people get great results out of them or no one would bother. With wood, you don't have an adjustable mouth. Also, all wood moves, so the fit, sole flatness, "frog" mating surface, etc would be less stable than even the cheapest cast iron plane IMHO... not to mention lack of a lateral lever, more difficult fine tuning of the blade depth, etc.

Seriously, is it all magic? Am I crazy for thinking there are finite, tangible values that define goodness?

[Robert Rozaieski]

What make's it great is how it works for you and how you perceive it's greatness. Nothing more, nothing less. It can have all the bells and whistles, be machined to 0.0000000001 micron tolerances, have fancy exotic wood parts, and a big block Chevy but it will not make any difference in the end if you can't get what you want out of it and enjoy using it.

I don't buy new planes (can't afford it, no other reason) but when I do buy planes I look for a few things. First, does the iron bed flat to the frog. This is way more important than sole flatness and the reason high end planes cost what they do. If the iron beds well, the stock thin iron will work just as well as a thicker after market iron. If it does not bed well, then a thicker aftermarket iron will help some but still will not perform as well as a stock well bedded iron. Next I look at sole flatness. In a smoother, I'll consider doing minor flattening, nothing more. If it's not flat enough that minor flattening will get it flat enough (i'm not really very picky about this), I pass on it. In a metal plane longer than a #5, if it's not flat enough for me, I don't buy it. I refuse to waste time flattening metal soles that long. It's an exercise in frustration. I like woodies for long planes as they can be flattened in about 45 seconds.

In the end, if a tool does what I want it to then it's great. If it can be made to be great with a little work then it's good.

[Sam Yerardi]

I agree with Robert 110%. I too, would like to have a new LN (or any for that matter ) but they're out of my budget so I do the best I can with the best vintage or older tools I can find and restore. As far as new designs and copying the Baileys, etc., there's an old saying 'Don't fix something that ain't broke'. Sometimes you simply can't beat a good design. As to the prices of the new wooden planes, I'm probably going to start a war but in my opinion they're good tools but not worth the money to me in the sense that I get something that is much more incredibly better than anything else. What I would be paying for is the labor-intensive effort it takes to make a hand plane. I make wooden molding planes, etc. as I need them and I can't imagine making them and selling for a profit. Too much labor let alone the cost of exotic materials, etc. I seem to do pretty good with the old wood planes. Granted - given the fact I'll never spend $800 for a brand new plow plane I'll never know what a new plane is like so I have to keep that in mind.

I read an article in FWW the other night about comparing LN's with Baileys, Stnaleys, etc. The author said he went into it trying not to have any preconcieved notions about LN's being better. He said it was quickly pointless as the LN's made him ready to spend the $165 or whatever for a low angle block plane, etc. One of these days I've got to try one. Maybe the reason I haven't is I'm afraid I'll have to have it...

[ralph cox]

1. Good plane: Easily does what you want it to do,to the wood. 2.Great plane: Easily makes you want to do it again, before you've had a great porter,stout or ale! Cheers to all, ralph

[Wilbur Pan]

Further complicating my comprehension is the concept of expensive, all wood designer planes. Obviously people get great results out of them or no one would bother. With wood, you don't have an adjustable mouth. Also, all wood moves, so the fit, sole flatness, "frog" mating surface, etc would be less stable than even the cheapest cast iron plane IMHO... not to mention lack of a lateral lever, more difficult fine tuning of the blade depth, etc.

Theoretically, the issue of wood movement in a wooden plane should be an issue. In practice, though, it tends not to be. Most wooden planes are cut in such a way that wood movement, if any, will be lateral. That eliminates or minimizes the issues with sole flatness and the "frog" mating surface. The opening that the plane blade sits in may be wider so that the blade might have a propensity to slip down further in the mouth, but this can be easily compensated for with the wedge.

In addition, the wood used for plane building is often dried for a long time before being made into a plane, and many times it's air dried, so it's usually much more stable than the kiln dried stock that we use for furniture projects.

The lateral lever in a wooden plane is the hammer that you tap the blade with. Tap the blade to the right or the left. Fine tuning the blade depth just means not tapping the blade very hard. This is much much much easier to do than it sounds.

The big advantage to this system is that there is no backlash in the depth adjustment mechanism at all, as opposed to every metal plane I've tried, including Lee Valley and Lie-Nielsen.

One other advantage to wooden planes is that in the course of planing, you have wood on wood instead of metal on wood. This makes wooden planes easier to push along since there's less friction, and the wooden plane body burnishes your workpiece to some extent, which some say enhances the appearance of the planed surface.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Jon, follow the money. Planes last a long time, several life times. Stanley promoted something new with the thin blade, to help sell their planes. The woodys they where trying to replace had thick irons, similar to the Hock's of today. It worked, now Stanleys are the norm, and to sell something in a market that is glutted by good usable planes, the current guys need a gimick. Thick blades!!!! Same idea with ductile steel, bronze whatever, blue paint, lateral adjusters, fancy gizmo's to lap soles, set micro bevels, fences, and the list goes on and on...

People need to be dissatisfied with their current plane, to go buy a new one. What if nothing is wrong with the old plane? Make something up!!! Just plain plane economics.

As for a good vs. great plane, good planes just work, great planes make you want to find ways to use them. Best cutting plane I have is a Record copy of a Preston. Nice little rabbet plane, with the skinniest blade of any plane I've got.

Bottom line in my opinion, Leonard Bailey nailed it. His invention is quite possibly the most perfect device ever invented, especially from a marketing perspective. Oh, and they work too!!! I say, forget all the nonsense about lapping soles, 2,000,000 grit polish for the 1/2" thick irons, $1500 Rube Goldberg devices to hold the perfect angle for sharpening, and preconcieved notions about how to properly tune a plane, and just go grab an old rusty Bailey, a piece of sandpaper or two to sharpen the blade, and make shavings. That is a great plane.

[Mike Henderson]

To me, there are only a few things that make a good plane.

The first is the mounting of the frog on the body. It should be well machined and fit the frog exactly when you tighten the frog screws down. The reason is to provide a stable platform for the frog, and in turn, the blade.

The second thing is the support of the blade as close to the wood as possible. So the frog should extend down and provide a strong, stable platform for the blade. The better the support, the less chance of blade chatter. On modern Stanley block planes, there's only a small amount of blade support - Maybe 3/16". Older Stanley block planes had a support area of maybe 3/4".

Finally, the blade itself. A good thick blade is less likely to chatter in use.

The other things are less important. The knob and tote should fit your hand. The blade adjustment should work smoothly and not have too much backlash. The chip breaker should fit well to the blade. The sole should be mostly flat.

Beyond that, it's all in the sharpening.

Mike

[harry strasil]

Even a good or great plane will not work satisfactory if it doesn't have a good operator.

Kinda like old machine tools with a little wear from use. A skilled operator can do precision work with an old well used tool if he takes the time to understand its temperment or personality.

example: At a Blacksmith Convention, I toured Sundstrands Aviation hydraulics Mfging plant. The only tools that would achieve and maintain the necessary +/- .00002, yes Millionths of an inch accuracy were WW2 special lapping machines.