Lie-Nielsen Inlay Tools

[gary Zimmel]

I know these are quite new, but have any of you had a chance to take these for a test drive.

Maybe someone was lucky enough to have them under the tree...

[Mike Henderson]

I saw those in the FWW article but didn't know they were shipping yet. As Harry Strasil can probably demonstrate, you can make those tools (in wood) yourself, especially if you're advanced enough to be doing string inlay. After all, our ancestors were doing string inlay long before Lie-Nielsen founded his company.

Mike

[Pam Niedermayer]

I saw those in the FWW article but didn't know they were shipping yet. As Harry Strasil can probably demonstrate, you can make those tools (in wood) yourself, especially if you're advanced enough to be doing string inlay. After all, our ancestors were doing string inlay long before Lie-Nielsen founded his company.

Mike

As did Steve Latta on the Woodwright's show that available online, part of season 6. They're his tools, he made the original ones, demonstrates how they're made/used in the show.

That said, I applaud LN's making these and other uncommon tools available, like blades for making hollows and rounds, to say nothing of the floats.

Pam

[Scott Brihn]

Gary,

Steve Latta was using these at the recent LN event in Boston. He showed us some of his "homemade" tools and as evidenced by his results they work well and appear reasonable to construct.

As a hobbyist with competing priorities, time spent working on the project is more valuable to me than the cost of the tools. I will be placing my order for the LN kit in early 2008.

[Bill Houghton]

As a hobbyist with competing priorities, time spent working on the project is more valuable to me than the cost of the tools. I will be placing my order for the LN kit in early 2008.

There seems to be this myth around that the old professionals made all their own tools. The number of planes around that have maker's marks leads me to think that's wrong wrong wrong. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that most of those who did string inlay in the 18th century would have bought from LN if it had been around then.

[Zahid Naqvi]

I think a professional who is producing a product is primarily concerned about his/her productivity as well as the quality of the product. The only reason any craftsman would willingly make tools (instead of spending the same time into making furniture) would be if they had any unique needs and they couldn't find any vendor making such tools, or they were not satisfied with the quality of the available tools.

I am not an expert on old tools but I bet a big portion of vintage shop made tools are custom special purpose tools. The run of the mill tools i.e. planes, saws, chisels etc. were probably picked from mass produced lines.

[Doug Shepard]

Anybody read any specs on these? There's nothing I can find on the LN site.
The range of strip sizes you can cut with the slicing/thicknessing guages? Just eyeballing from the pics it looks like maybe a max size of 1/4" ?? And is there a min size (aside from strip breakage issues)?
Min/Max offsets from the edge for the straight and radius cutters?

[Corvin Alstot]

Anybody read any specs on these? There's nothing I can find on the LN site.?
Doug/ Take a look under inlay tools-as well as on what's new!

[Doug Shepard]

Corvin
I've been there but there's not much info other than the cutter thicknesses.

[Michael Schwartz]

I am going by the factory showroom in a week or two to check these out.

[Corvin Alstot]

I saw those in the FWW article but didn't know they were shipping yet. As Harry Strasil can probably
demonstrate, you can make those tools (in wood) yourself, especially if you're advanced enough to be
doing string inlay. After all, our ancestors were doing string inlay long before Lie-Nielsen founded his company. Mike
Mike/ Your right about making these tools, except if you are trying to match that elegant radius cutter.

Do you sharpen the cutter blades like a hand saw?