Shelton Planes....Your opinion?

[John Dingman]

What do you guys think of the Shelton Planes? The No. 4 in particular. I picked up one pretty cheap on ebay and I am going to tune it up ang give it a whirl. I've heard they are in about the same catagory as the Stanley Handyman.

Oh no Tyler, I almost forgot.....The pic:
http://i13.ebayimg.com/03/i/03/16/a5/5d_1_b.JPG

Thanks,
John

[Ben Knebel]

Since no one else has ventured an opinion I thought I might.
The Shelton patent---for the lever cap and adjuster design was among the last patents issued to mainstream tool makers---that is until LV came along and started patenting their stuff.

Although the plane has some interesting design features it was never a plane that caught on all that well.
Generally considered by users and tool collectors alike as a poor design that did not compare in performance to the Stanley and Stanley like designs of the time it doesn't find favour with too many folks.

However--as with all things---I'm sure that with proper tuning the plane could be made to work reasonably well for general carpentry.
I doubt though it would be very good if you were looking for a plane to do final smoothing.

Best regards
Ben
www.shepherdtool.com

[John Dingman]

Since no one else has ventured an opinion I thought I might.
The Shelton patent---for the lever cap and adjuster design was among the last patents issued to mainstream tool makers---that is until LV came along and started patenting their stuff.

Although the plane has some interesting design features it was never a plane that caught on all that well.
Generally considered by users and tool collectors alike as a poor design that did not compare in performance to the Stanley and Stanley like designs of the time it doesn't find favour with too many folks.

However--as with all things---I'm sure that with proper tuning the plane could be made to work reasonably well for general carpentry.
I doubt though it would be very good if you were looking for a plane to do final smoothing.

Best regards
Ben
www.shepherdtool.com (http://www.shepherdtool.com[/QUOTE])

Ben,

Thanks for the reply. That's about what I thought. I'll tune it and see what she'll do.

Thanks again,
John