starting a collection of hand planes

[Peter Choi]

I've decided to start a collection of hand planes to start squaring up lumber for furniture. Probably mainly s4s and if I can get my hands on s2s, I would get some s2s. Since I can't use power tools in my apartment, I was planning on getting #4, #5, and #7 to start out with.
I was looking at stanley's and I was getting mixed reviews. I was looking at the lie nelsen's, but they're a little too expensive to buy all 3. I could probably afford one but not all three. I was wondering if theres any in-between the stanleys and lie nelsens. Or I've heard the vintage stanley baileys are great, should I just look for vintage ones on eBay?

[Judson Green]

The 4 5 and 7 is a great place to start, not sure that you'd really like a 2 - try it before you buy. If you went vintage you could easily buy em all on a limited budget, might need a clean up. EBay, restore shops, antique stores, garage sales and flea markets.

I read in your other post that you don't have a workbench, that should be your first project. Doesn't need to anything spectacular, just able to securely hold the work.

[Kees Heiden]

The in between choice is the Woodriver range of planes. They are made in China but they are good quality.

[Chris Hachet]

Start with a vintage #4 Stanley and learn to tune it, $25 would easily buy a plane in need of a little work.

Were I to do it, I would get a vintage Stanley pre war #5. I have used one for 30 years (same plane). Works fine, no need for a more expensive plane. I added a hock blade to mine recently, plane works even better.

You might try a low angle Veritas jointer plane if your going to spend big money on anything. $300 but a nice low center of gravity that makes edge jointing even easier, and the PMV-11 will stay sharp forever.

The Veritas low angle smoother is sweet and a hundred bucks cheaper than a L-N #4, PMV-11 will stay sharp much longer than regular A-2 in my experience.

Also on the table might get a Veritas low angle Jack. One can joint quite well with a jack with a little practice, you could shoot end grain, and it will work fine as a smoother.

Any of the above will work just fine. And as someone else mentioned, nothing wrong with the wood river planes.

[Frank Martin]

I would suggest Veritas planes from Lee Valley. Especially given you are new to hand planes, you may be better served with the bevel up versions.

When I first started I got several Stanley planes from eBay which amounted nothing more than frustration. Veritas planes were very easy to setup and use.

[Chris Hachet]

I would suggest Veritas planes from Lee Valley. Especially given you are new to hand planes, you may be better served with the bevel up versions.

When I first started I got several Stanley planes from eBay which amounted nothing more than frustration. Veritas planes were very easy to setup and use.

One plus to the Veritas planes for me is that they corrode much less rapidly in my garage workshop than either Stanley or Lie Nielson tools. Not sure what is in the steel, but for a garage workshop in Ohio, they are the bomb.

[Jim Koepke]

Peter,

Welcome to the Creek. Your profile doesn't indicate your being in NYC as stated in your post in the Power Tool conference. Old guys like me have trouble remembering such details.

If you are handy with mechanical things, finding and restoring old hand planes can not only save money, it can be quite satisfying.

That said, if you get the opportunity you should take advantage of a Lie-Nielsen tool event next time one is near to you. You will be able to see how a fine tuned plane acts so you will have a target to reach with your own planes.

If you haven't found the archived posts in Neanderthal wisdom/FAQs you should pay that a visit:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?103805-Neanderthal-wisdom-FAQs

There are a few posts in there about fettling planes and other tools.

Another item of interest is learning how to date (often referred to as type) a plane. My own preferences are fairly easy to spot.

Here is Johnny Kleso's informative site on Stanley plane types (date of manufacture):

https://home.comcast.net/~rarebear/planes101/typing/typing.htm

It should be possible to put together a set consisting of a #4, #5 & #7 for about $100. A #2 seems to be a "collector's favorite" and will set you back in the neighborhood of $200 for one. Unless you plan to make a lot of small items or have real small hands, the #2 is of little use to a beginning woodworker.

jtk

[Bill White]

I have Stanley #3, #4, #5 1/2, and #7 as well as a Stanley low angle block plane. Aside from the collector "woodies", those plane have done all I've needed, and all were bought as old users. Don't recall for sure, but I might have $150.00 invested.
Bill

[Kees Heiden]

The Woodriver #4 is 145 dollar. The #7 is the most expensive at 300. And for a #5 I would look for an old Stanley. A jackplane isn't very critical as it is used for coarse work.

so for less then 500 bucks you are all set for the rest of your life.

[Chris Hachet]

The Woodriver #4 is 145 dollar. The #7 is the most expensive at 300. And for a #5 I would look for an old Stanley. A jackplane isn't very critical as it is used for coarse work.

so for less then 500 bucks you are all set for the rest of your life.


Agreed....I actually like the feel of the vintage Stanley Jack planes. They work really well IMHO. And for $300 you can also buy the veritas Low Angle Jointer....or your $50 out from the Lie Nielson low angle Jointer. I bought a used wooden Ulima Jointer for $85 shipped and ahve never looked back.

There are lots of deals on decent used hand planes.

[Mark Stutz]

The 3 planes you mentioned will get you off to a great start. There were two things that helped me get started more than any other. The first was getting some hands on help from an experienced galoot. Besides, you can always blame him for your fall down the rabbit hole!:D The second was to get to use well tuned plane, so that when I started on my Type 20 #5, I knew what I was shooting for. That is still a favorite plane. If I was going to buy only one new one, it would be the jointer. Harder to come by in the wild, and more difficult to to and learn to use, unless you have prior experience.

[Dave Parkis]

If you get up near Albany, you are welcome to stop by and try out any size plane you want. You might also want to consider coming up to Saratoga later this month for the NWA Showcase. Lie Nielsen is usually there and so is Lee Valley. There are also a couple guys there selling vintage tools.

[Jeffrey Martel]

I would buy new for the #4/Smoothing size. I think a smoother would benefit more from the higher tolerances of newer manufacturing. I have a LV Low angle smoother. Having played with Woodriver tools in the store, I didn't like them as much as my LV plane. All of my other planes are vintage. I currently use a #6 for jointing, but I am refurbishing a #8c at the moment as well.

[Peter Choi]

First of all, this place is amazing with all the information everyone provided! And I updated my profile to put brooklyn! 😜

hmmm I think I'm gonna go the route of buying vintage Stanley's. Mainly just the thought of working with vintage tools and only using hand tools seem to go hand in hand. they won't be too expensive and I do have to buy some sort of sharpener and that seems expensive. Since I'm still in school and work on a limited budget. When I run into more money I can venture into lie nelsen and veritas. The wood river still seems like too much if I buy all 3. I'll just practice with the vintages and go from there.
I was reading through the faq page and someone restored their vintage tools with a buffer. I'm I don't have a buffer what else do you guys recommend?

sounds really interesting! Maybe if I have the chance to go upstate I'll visit the showcase but seems a little far fetched.

What years do you recommend for the vintages on the 4,5,7. After I get used to these 3, I'll try to figure out what else I need!

for the Bench I may just use power tools for that or I was thinking of buying the black and decker stand and use that as my temporary bench. For a nyc apartment my place is a pretty good size. The living room will fit a dining table and the work bench. No sofa tho. But never even had one in nyc!

[Kees Heiden]

That's a very good choice. Everything pre war is fine. Mine are mostly UK made after the war and need more work, but doable too. When you refrain from buying expensive after market blades (the original ones are perfectly allright), then I can recommend oilstones. Those are fine for the old kinds of steel and for O1 which is used nowadays too. Oilstones are not so expensive. Have a look at this website for really good information: http://www.antiquetools.com/sharp/

[Chris Hachet]

First of all, this place is amazing with all the information everyone provided! And I updated my profile to put brooklyn! 

hmmm I think I'm gonna go the route of buying vintage Stanley's. Mainly just the thought of working with vintage tools and only using hand tools seem to go hand in hand. they won't be too expensive and I do have to buy some sort of sharpener and that seems expensive. Since I'm still in school and work on a limited budget. When I run into more money I can venture into lie nelsen and veritas. The wood river still seems like too much if I buy all 3. I'll just practice with the vintages and go from there.
I was reading through the faq page and someone restored their vintage tools with a buffer. I'm I don't have a buffer what else do you guys recommend?

sounds really interesting! Maybe if I have the chance to go upstate I'll visit the showcase but seems a little far fetched.

What years do you recommend for the vintages on the 4,5,7. After I get used to these 3, I'll try to figure out what else I need!

for the Bench I may just use power tools for that or I was thinking of buying the black and decker stand and use that as my temporary bench. For a nyc apartment my place is a pretty good size. The living room will fit a dining table and the work bench. No sofa tho. But never even had one in nyc!

You might want to check out the Moravian workbench built at the wood-wrights school. Google it. It disassembles in less than a minute, has a nifty leg vise, and could serve you for life.

You are smart if you budget for sharpening items. Would rather have a good sharpening system with pre war Stanley planes than expensive planes with no good way to sharpen them.

Chris

[James Ziegler]

For vintage tools, you might try to see if you can go to a MWTCA (mid-west tool collector's association) meet. I attended my first one last summer, and there were lots of good tools available, and pricing was reasonable.

http://www.mwtca.org/tool-meets.html

Unfortunately, none look like they would be terribly easy to get to from Brooklyn.

For a sharpening setup, being in Brooklyn, you have a good source nearby, and the staff there should be knowledgable. You should try to make a trip to Tools For Working Wood, which has a warehouse/showroom in Brooklyn. They make some great tools.

Also, for a starting bench, you might look into the DVD (or download) from Lost Art Press "The Naked Woodworker". He puts together an very usable bench from inexpensive home center materials. And the other DVD in the set talks about buying and fixing up vintange tools. Chris Schwartz modified it into a knock-down design in his blog.

[Bob Jones]

Another vote for the naked woodworker DVD.
LN planes are great. So are tuned up Stanleys. The bevel up planes are popular with consumers, but the bevel down are better :)

between these two options are stanleys that have been tuned by knowledgeable users. They come up for sale here and other forums regularly. I would highly recommend that option if you can't afford the LN. And if you only buy one from LN, I suggest a 4 or 3 for smoothing. That's the most difficult to tune perfectly. Good luck!

[Mike Cogswell]

I have an embarrassingly large number of planes, the majority vintage, as well as Lie Nielsen, Lee Valley and Woodriver modern planes. LN and LV make top quality products that are a joy to use and both have outstanding quality and customer service. But for someone just starting out, you may want to reconsider and get at least one good quality new plane while you learn and hone your reconditioning skills. The Woodriver 4 is an outstanding bargain at its list price and goes on sale fairly often. I got mine for 30% off. I have both a Woodriver and a LN, and don't hesitate to recommend the Woodriver, especially if you can go to a woodworking show and get one on sale.

If you get a 4 and 7, you will probably wish you had a good block plane instead of a 5. Unless all you are doing is flattening and jointing you'll find many uses for a block plane.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Two cents from an electron burner - - I have hand planes, but they don't rule my life. So - I might have a different perspective.

I'd look at something like this: #3, #4-1/2, and the LA jack mentioned earlier.

To me - there is not a big enough size difference between the 3 and the 4 to make a lot of difference, and the 3 size is very easy to use for a lot of things - kind of a "tweener" size. I seem to grab it all the time. I had the #3 first, and since I liked it so much, that led me to skip the 4 in favor of the 4-1/2.

You really need some kind of block plane - any style is better than none. Ideal for me is a low-angle rabbet block - you can do anything with that sucker.

And - since I don't really get wrapped up too much in the neander things, I did not want to invest my time learning how to restore/fettle. I'm in the LN camp. But I do have a couple LN tools, like the scraper plane.

[John Sanford]

Can a galoot in the NYC area step up and offer the OP an in-person introduction to sharpening and hand planes? Sure, a L-N event would be great, but when is the next one in the area? Finding old planes and bringing them back to life can be great, but without any sense of reference, it can be very frustrating.

[Judson Green]

I used one of these along time ago. Might tide you over till you can build yourself a real woodworking bench. Your local BORG store - black n decker workmate.

308422


For a beginner to sharping you might find the Paul Sellers approach to be a good starting point. No power grinders, no jigs, just 3 moderately priced diamond stones. I've the stones from EZE-lap, 3 × 8", model 81.

[Peter Choi]

About to pick up the 4,5,7 on ebay. I'm thinking of using oil stones. I'll check out that shop in brooklyn. And see which oil stones they recommend. And after that a block plane.

Im just going to build my bench. My friends going to get me into a woodshop at pratt and I'll rip and joint them there.

[Robert Hazelwood]

My $0.02:

I agree with the general consensus that for basic stock dimensioning you'd want a smoother (3 or 4), a jack/fore (5, 5-1/2, or 6), and a jointer/try (7 or 8).

I would get the smoother first. It can be used for more than smoothing, and you can basically do everything with it if you needed. It's normally the most-used size of plane. Overall, I don't think it matters much whether you go new or vintage; as long as you buy decent quality they all work about as well. But I do think there is a case for buying at least one new, premium plane (Veritas or Lie-Nielsen, basically) when you're starting out. This is because you can get it up and running quickly, and then you can see how a properly setup plane works. If you have problems using the premium plane, then you know it's something you've done- usually your sharpening, or the way you're approaching the wood. You'll know the issue isn't with an out of flat sole, a flexing blade, or what have you. I haven't found that those are actually serious problems for vintage planes, but when I was starting out and getting a bad cut, I wasn't sure. It's always tempting to blame the tool.

Once you have some experience eliminating the initial problems, you can translate that to a vintage plane. I did this backwards. I started out with vintage planes, and fussed around for a while. They normally worked well, but occasionally I'd have issues with chatter, tearout, etc. I eventually learned to deal with these by getting a bit better at sharpening, learning to take a thinner shaving (I would always get impatient and increase the depth of cut, but there is only so much you can plane off without it being a struggle), waxing the sole (a huge improvement), setting the chipbreaker correctly, and generally improving my technique (modulating pressure at the start and end of cut, skewing the plane, etc.). Note that these are issues you would still have with the finest plane ever made, but at the time I was tempted to fiddle with the tools. Basically my learning curve was a little longer than it might have been. Although I did learn a lot of useful things.

I only got my LN #4 after using the vintage ones for a year or so. I wanted to have at least one, and wanted to see how much better (if at all) it would be compared to my vintage planes. Honestly, after refining my approach and technique, there is not really much difference in use. I use the Bailey 4 and the LN 4 interchangeable, grabbing whichever one is sharper at the moment. Subjectively, the LN feels more solid, but I also like the Bailey's lightness.

So, I might recommend getting a premium #4 or #3, and get the other two vintage. A smoother is where the higher manufacturing precision would pay off the most, in theory, and it will be used more than the others. It would even get used if you decided dimensioning by hand was for the birds and you did everything by machine- smoothing out planer marks with a plane is way better than sanding. And you could always sell it for a good price if it came to that.

That said, there's nothing wrong with going all vintage if you have a bit of aptitude and willingness to fix things (none of mine required much work at all really). I just think it's a good idea to have a known "good" tool to use as a reference.

Anyways, best of luck. -Robert

[Jeffrey Martel]

About to pick up the 4,5,7 on ebay. I'm thinking of using oil stones. I'll check out that shop in brooklyn. And see which oil stones they recommend. And after that a block plane.

Im just going to build my bench. My friends going to get me into a woodshop at pratt and I'll rip and joint them there.

For what it's worth, for now I've been sharpening with just sandpaper and a granite tile. It works quite well so far, but you do have to go out and buy new sandpaper every so often. I use grits up to 2000, and then have green honing compound on a leather strop to finish up with.

[Winton Applegate]

Buy one good plane rather than a few wannabes or could have beens.
If I could have one plane, that would do an entire project, this is what I would r (http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/Page.aspx?p=51870&cat=1,41182,48944,51870)each for. Or you could get a quality #4 but I can do much more with the former, faster, with less fooling around and I don't have to dig around for the screws on the frog of the #4 to convert it from rough planing to finish planing.
Forget the #7s . . . I have two of those and can easily get by with out either. See the photo of the stack of planes. I could do without all of those if I had to
but
I wouldn't WANT to do without the Varitas bevel up smoother. I could do with a narrower one in place of this wide one, easily, but one or the other is a must for me.

Also a must is a good, long(ish) straight edge which I need anyway even with the long planes.
Do not underestimate that Varitas plane. I bought everything else first, piles of planes, then I bought the Varitas. Brilliant performer and highly versatile.

As far as a collection the next plane I would get would be the scrub plane that is on top of the heap of planes in the photo. You may not even need that from the sound of the prepared lumber you mentioned. The scrub it a must for taking rougher planks down to flatten them or dimension them.
The next plane I would recommend would be a router plane or other specialty plane maybe a shoulder plane (http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=68490&cat=1,41182) or rabbet plane.

[Jamie Cowan]

4,5 and 7 are a good start. Buy an old Stanley (WWII or earlier) on ebay, probably a #4. It will need work. That is good. You will learn more by making an old but good plane into a workable user than you by buying any new plane. A Lie-Nielsen is ready to use out of the box, but you don't really learn anything, The first time you need to sharpen that blade, or adjust the cut depth, you'll wish you knew more about planes in general. A good, old plane is a great learning experience. Sure, the blade is kind of thin on old planes compared to the new stuff, but you learn a lot in making them into users.