bottom of the slippery slope?

[Douglas Brummett]

I caught the hand tool bug back in July. Since then I have been adopting promising candidates for the garage shop. Most have required restoration to some extent. Some were just scrubbing, lubing, and honing of blades. Along the way I picked up bits of information on how to deal with rust, corrosion, tote refinishing and repair. With each plane I gained some confidence in just how much I could do to restore these tools. I just finished restoration of my most ill cared for planes. Two no6 planes made it into my shop, one Sweetheart era and the other a type6. Both were badly rusted and would require full restore.
Here is some detail on the sweetheart from a previous blog:
http://rollinglifestyle.blogspot.com/2008/11/working-on-planes.html (http://lumberjocks.com/jocks/dsb1829/blog/6473)
I started both planes at the same time, but stalled on the type6. It was a family heirloom, if you can call a rusty and dilapidated plane such a thing. It had belonged to one of my great grandfathers. It was missing a knob and the tote was obviously in disrepair under the tape holding it together. So I found a no5 of the same vintage with a damaged sole, but good wood and hardware, as a donor.
Here we are about a month later. I finally have finished stripping and painting the sole. Tuning the frog to the sole was fairly short work. All that is left is a lapping of the sole and this plane will be ready for active duty. I am looking forward using it. With it nearing completion I decided it was time for a family portrait.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_D1mVNoAxHoI/SUUhwQ9kczI/AAAAAAAADMA/vkd27O02RPI/s400/IMG_3953.JPG (http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/4ZjX2tu1zJSeVHCp4-dvPA)


I don’t want this post to be a blatant tool gloat. I was trying to think of a good way to pull all of this together. At this point I have put up a fair amount of information as I have stumbled down the slippery slope. So I have pulled these posts into a series on another site. I am not sure on the policy here for that, so I won't include it here. You can find most of the posts on my blog though, just not as organized...
http://rollinglifestyle.blogspot.com/search?q=plane


The other topic I wanted to touch on was that of those shiny gold bits in the family portrait. There were a couple of planes that I needed to fill the roles of block and shoulder. I wanted these tools to be of little concern to me, to just work, and not to require hours of tuning. With good condition vintage samples of these tools climbing I turned toward the modern makers of quality hand tools. In this department and my limited budget that left Lee Valley and Lie-Nielsen as the contenders. The adoption of the new Lie-Nielsen tools is right inline with my reasoning for hunting out old Stanley planes. Patriotism. Maybe it is a bit foolish to think that buying American made tools will help our economy, but that is just it. In our global economy it is becoming increasingly rare to find products produced solely in the United States. LN tools satisfy my desire to keep money state-side and to get a high quality tool. Hats off to Robin Lee, he backs some fantastic tools. But until our American economy starts looking a bit brighter LN gets the nod of approval.

As for the question mark. I am still up in the air on where I am at. I think I have a great set of tools here. Not pictured here are my works in progress, a transitional no29, a wood jack, a WWII no4, and a no608. I could stop here and be perfectly functional for most tasks around my shop. But I have heard the siren calls of other planes. It is hard to turn away from the call. A no41/2 would be so nice or a no401/2. Man these hand planes are addicting.

[Johnny Kleso]

I think you got a ways to go before you can even see the bottom :)

[Thomas Knighton]

Somehow, I doubt there actually is a bottom! ;)

Tom

[Bill Houghton]

I think this is like talking about the edge of the universe. Even if such a thing exists, the physicists have been telling us for years that the universe is ever-expanding.

I was counting planes in my head the other day, and stopped when I lost track of the number, somewhere past the point where I would have had to take off both shoes to keep up. I was able to figure out that my saw count was a bit over 50 saws - but it's SO hard to turn down a good-looking saw.

[Heather Thompson]

Is there a bottom, I have never seen a referrence to a 12 step bottom for handtools, but wait.

Twelve Steps of Hand Tools Anonymous

1. We admitted we were powerless over handtools-that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could resore us to sanity. (Hand Tool God)
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. ( Lie-Nielsen Toolworks).
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our cheap tools.
5. Admitted to the tool God (Lie-Nielsen Toolworks), our cheap selves, and to another Neander woodworker the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have Lie-Nielsen remove all these defects of character. (Money)
7. Humbly asked Lie-Nielson to remove our shortcomings (Garage Sale).
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed with our shitty work, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such poeple wherever posible, except when to do so would injure them or our personal income.
10. Continue to take personal inventory of our work, and when it sucks try to hide it.
11. Sought through tools and jigs to improve our output and increase our income, praying only for His knowledge of how to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening that this is basically impossible, we tried to carry this message to other aspiring woodworkers, give up!

This was not originally written by Dr. Heather, but I do belong to the original group.

[Ray Sheley]

Bottom? There's a bottom? Isn't it going to hurt when we hit? Why wasn't I told about the bottom.........?????????

[Jim Becker]

All of our slippery slopes are bottomless. No question in my mind about that!

[Douglas Brummett]

Thanks for providing some levity to my perilous position. So what you are telling me is that I am just on a ledge, masked by fog, and the bottom is still out of foresight...

Oh :eek:

I guess I am just feeling a bit happy to have the standard set No3-8, block, shoulder, and a couple of others and to still have the shirt on my back and a wife who loves me :D

[Phillip Pattee]

Yes, you do have a nice set of planes. Thanks for sharing them.

You probably don’t need a no. 8, but what the heck if you are going after a no. 4 ½, might as well get the big jointer too. How about a 5 ½ and a 5 ¼? That Stanley no. 80 will need a no. 112 companion. I don’t see a standard angle block in there, you’ll need that. A router plane such as a no. 71 is still missing. Does that coffin smoother have a high angle, or York pitch, for difficult grain? No, well you will need to fill that gap too. How about a low angle jack and a low angle smoother? Those sure would be handy. A shooting board could use a dedicated Stanley no. 9 miter plane. A beading tool like the no. 66 is another weakness in your arsenal. There are probably others you could use as well, but that is all I can think of now. Even if you do find a bottom to this slope, there are plenty of others you can go down.:D

How are you fitted out for chisels, and saws? Marking gages? Mallets? Carving tools? Rasps and files – can’t do without those. And don’t forget clamps, you can never have enough clamps. :rolleyes:

[gary Zimmel]

Every time I think I get a glimpse of the bottom,

our friends at LN and LV come out with something to make it even deeper......

I too believe now that it is a bottomless pit. But in a good way...

Could someone let us know up here where those meetings are?

[Gary Herrmann]

Neander slope, spinny slope, I doubt there's a bottom to either. Amazing figured wood slope, incredibly well made machine slope...

At least the ride will be fun.

Dang, 10 days, and two more presents to go...

[Bill Houghton]

How are you fitted out for chisels, and saws? Marking gages? Mallets? Carving tools? Rasps and files – can’t do without those. And don’t forget clamps, you can never have enough clamps. :rolleyes:

You left out spokeshaves.

[Alan DuBoff]

Yeah, probably no finite bottom, there will always be another tool that would be nice to have, some of them haven't been made yet! ;)

Speaking for myself, there is a point that the slope is not so steep, and reaching that point is something that is at a different spot for all of us.

In the simplest world you only need but a few tools.

In the most complex world you need a lot of tools.

The best craftsmen are the ones that can get wonderful results with but a few tools. Those craftsmen make up for the ones that need a lot of tools to achieve mediocre results at best.

Craftsmanship doesn't come from your tools, it comes from your heart.

[Doug Shepard]

Just when you think you've reached the bottom of the slippery slope, you discover that router planes and plow planes can make the bottom even deeper.:D

[Dave Anderson NH]

I feel I must step in as moderator here. False advertising is not allowed nor are blatant misrepresentations of the facts. The reality of the situation is that the slope has no bottom and anyone who is trying to convince you otherwise is either a charletan, a con artist, or both. Be aware and afraid, very afraid.:D:D:D

[Rob Luter]

When contemplating the bottom of the slope, remind yourself of the following natural law:

Your current position on the slope can be defined as "SP1"

There is a finite distance between your current position on the slope and the bottom of the slope. Let's call this "X"

Each new tool aquisition will move you towards the bottom of the slope in a distance equal to 1/2 "X" or X/2.

Following the aquisition and movement down the slope. the new slope position is "SP2"

So SP2 = SP1-(X/2)

If you run the numbers, each new aquisition takes you closer and closer to the bottom of the slope, but you never seem to get there.

I for one will keep trying.............

[Joe Cunningham]

There's a bottom? Oh thank goodness, my tool cabinet is filling up. Which means I'll just have to build another one... :D

More shop projects! It's gonna be a fun winter.

[Michael Hammers]

Hah! this post caught my eye...it is almost reassuring to read about others going through the exact same thing as myself. I keep saying...just need to round out those chisels and I am done..no wait I really do need a #4 with that HA frog...then I am absolutely done...well of course I do need a few specialty planes.....
See? It is like the flippin Mariana Trench!

[David Keller NC]

Yeah, guys, there is no bottom, though some of us are lower down on the slope than others. I have about 500 handplanes, counting bench planes and molding planes. And I'm still looking...

[Douglas Brummett]

Some more detail on the planes can be found in my gallery:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/album.php?u=37105

I like the 1/2 way there math :)

Just ran inventory...
Back Row (L-R):
1 - Sandusky coffin smooth plane, pre-1900's
2 - Stanley No78 rabbit plane, likely from the 1940-1960's
3 - Stanley No40 scrub plane, 1920-1940
4 - Stanley No7 jointer plane, type11, 1910-1918
5 - Stanley No6 fore plane, type6, 1888-1892
6 - Stanley No5 jack plane, type18, 1946-1947
7 - Stanley No4 smooth plane, type11, 1910-1918
8 - Stanley No3 smooth plane, type17, 1942-1945
9 - LieNielsen medium shoulder plane, 2007-2008

Front Row (L-R):
1 - Stanley No80M cabinet scraper, Sweet Heart era 1919-1932
2 - Lie-Nielsen low angle block plane, 2008

Not pictured:
1 - Stanley No29 transitional fore plane, 1867-1909
2 - Ohio Tool wooden jack plane, unknown age
3 - Stanley No4 smooth plane, type17, 1942-1945
4 - Stanley No5 jack plane, type12-13, 1919-1928
5 - Stanley No608 jointer plane, type14, 1929-1930

Wow, they weren't kidding when they said that getting into hand tools and restoration is a slippery slope. I don't think I ever stopped and took inventory before just now. Simply shocking that over a dozen of these things have followed me home. The only saving grace is that most didn't start out looking pretty. The ugly duckling factor keeps the bidding low over at e-bay so most of these planes were under $20. After the elbow grease each is capable of pulling $50-100 at auction. Not a bad return on investment. Of course I have no plans of setting any of these loose any time soon. Gotta get my money's worth out of them or the Mrs. is gonna have my head :)